Page 50 of Playing for Keeps

For a moment, the room held its breath. Bridget put her glass down. Simon straightened almost imperceptibly, ready to intervene if I was being an idiot. Grace’s hand was near her mouth as if she were going to cover it. Will, God bless him, was already hovering his thumb over the start button on his phone.

Emma’s gaze didn’t leave mine. A nod, small but sure. “All right.”

“Timer ready!” Will announced.

I stepped closer, the space between us getting smaller until I could smell her – a hint of something floral that always punched a hole straight through my composure. I raised my hands and asked again with my eyes, because if there’s one thing I promised myself I’d be good at as a man, it’s not being a coward about consent.

She tipped her chin up just a little bit. Yes.

I cupped her face. Hesitant at first, because she mattered and I didn’t want to bulldoze that with show. Her skin was warm under my hands. Her jaw flexed once, then relaxed.

I kissed her.

The first brush was careful, a test to see how the ice handled the blades. Her lips were soft and still. The world did that hockey-arena thing where the roar in your ears suddenly goes into a tunnel and all you can hear is the thing in front of you and the air in your lungs. I breathed her in, and something inside me uncoiled.

I pressed harder and she answered. At first, it was subtle – a tiny lift and a pressure that said I shouldn’t be afraid to mean it. I wasn’t. Not anymore. I let the kiss deepen, just a notch, while I ran my thumbs along her cheekbones as if I could memorize the shape of the moment with my hands.

Her mouth parted, and I met her there, a slow, deliberate slide of my tongue against hers that threw sparks down my spine. The room disappeared. Someone somewhere said something about seconds, but the number didn’t matter as much as how Emma’s fingers found my shirt and grabbed it. I leaned into her, and she leaned back, and for a heartbeat I forgot the rules, the card, and all the dares I had taken because I was too young to say I wanted something.

We found a rhythm without thinking; we just gave, answered, and gave again. The kind of kiss that starts out unsure because everyone is watching, but then you don’t care who’s keeping score. Her tongue stroked mine and I let mine chase it, coaxing and then just plain wanting. If my hands slid lower a fraction to cradle the hinge of her jaw, and if her breath hitched and sent a bolt straight through me, I wasn’t going to apologize for taking what I had wanted for so long.

“Uh – twenty!” Will’s voice broke through the music, laughing. It was the kind of laugh you make when you’re witnessing something you didn’t think you’d see outside of a movie. Others joined in: someone whooped, someone clapped, someone said, “Holy…” and didn’t finish.

We didn’t stop because of them. We stopped because your body needs breath at some point. I pulled back a centimetre. She followed by a centimetre. We hovered there, not touching but still touching, our breaths messy and shared. I kept my hands on her face because I didn’t quite trust the room not to spin if I let go.

We stared at each other. Up close, her eyes were greener than they had any right to be. I wondered if I would ever get used to that colour. I hoped I wouldn’t.

Finally, she said, “My taxi’s waiting.” It was a whisper that somehow sounded clearer than a shout. “I really do need to leave.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

She shook her head, which made her cheek touch my thumb and do terrible things to my balance. “Don’t worry,” she said, strengthening her voice. Her British briskness came back into place. “Enjoy the rest of the game.”

I didn’t drop my hands right away. She didn’t move right away either. The world was once again hanging in the air, but in the best way. Then she glanced past me at the room, with everyone probably looking at us, and she took a half-step back. I dropped my hands.

She grabbed her scarf from the couch and wrapped it around her neck. Before leaving, she turned to look at me. “Don’t kiss anyone else,” she said, and it sounded like a challenge and a promise at the same time.

I gave her a smile, the one I only saved for her. “I haven’t kissed anyone since the bookstore,” I said, which wasn’t a line or an oath, just the truth. “I’m not about to start now.”

Something flickered across her face: maybe surprise, maybe relief, or both. She nodded once. “Goodnight, Max.”

“Goodnight, Emma.”

And then she left. Silence held for half a beat, like the puck at centre ice just before it drops and everything goes chaotic. Then Will let out a long, low breath. “Well,” he said, fanning himself with his phone. “That was… family-friendly.”

“Barely,” someone said, and there was a wave of laughter.

I managed to move and sat down. Grace bumped my knee with hers. “Hey,” she softly said when I looked at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “Yeah.”

“Good,” she said. “Because if you had kissed anyone else, I would’ve thrown this pillow at your head.”

The game continued, but the atmosphere had shifted, with everyone pretending nothing had changed after the kiss. Will dealt another card to someone who wasn’t me. The laughter started again. The music got back to where it belonged. I felt like my mouth was branded, not because I was embarrassed, but because I had finally done one clean thing the way I meant to do it. I thought about twenty seconds and how long they can be if you’re counting and how short they are if you’re where you want to be. I thought about the bookstore aisle and how a voice can wrap around your life without meaning to.

“Finn,” Will said, poking my shoulder with a grin. “Back on Earth?”

“Mostly.”