Page 50 of All the way home

Easily, he said, “Nah.”

She sat up straighter, shooting him a suspicious squint.

“They can celebrate without me.” He shook his hair out. The end result was endearing, like an especially rumpled dog.

Glancing down at his uniform, muddy cleats and all, Rena frowned. “You don’t want to be with them? It was a big win.”

“It was,” he agreed, “but I still don’t, really.”

“Why not?”

Sighing, Lucas straightened. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Well, they are some your best friends, and you achieved something monumental together today, so logically, it would make sense that you—”

Lucas leaned over and kissed her.

Rena froze.

For a moment, the sensation was so bizarre that it was unpleasant. But then, after she’d had a moment to adjust, she decided it wasn’t. Lucas had warm skin, and soft lips, and even though Rena wasn’t entirely sure what to do, she thought she probably hadn’t messed it up too badly, because when Lucas pulled away he was smiling and even pinker around the ears.

Before she spoke, Rena allowed a full four seconds for her brain to catch up with the situation. It had not occurred to her to consider Lucas as a romantic prospect, because according to everyone, he was interested in Harper. Besides that, he didn’t make her nervous, and he had never made her get all giggly like Harper had back when she’d had a crush on him.

But it was probably good that he didn’t make her nervous. She wouldn’t want to be around him if he made her nervous. Did he like her? Probably, if he had kissed her, unless—

Rena tilted her head. “Did someone tell you to do that?”

A bit awkwardly, Lucas laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “No?”

“Okay.”

He let his eyes drop, dusty lashes against his cheek. “Why would you think that?”

“I didn’t know you would want to kiss me.”

Lucas paused. When he spoke, it came out a scratchy whisper. “Are you upset?”

“No.” She rested her chin on her interlocked fingers. “Just give me a second to think.”

“Okay.”

In her head, Rena ran through the options. Lucas was funny, and kind, and tall, and he had a nice smile. She liked spending time with him, and she had liked it when he kissed her too. Thinking about it happening a second time made her feel warm on the inside, which was probably a good sign.

She considered him. “You didn’t do that just to make me feel better about losing the game?”

“No.” Lucas’s voice was tight and strained. “I did it because I wanted to.”

The rest of him seemed tight and strained too, which she didn’t understand. Again, she told him, “I’m not mad at you.”

“You seem a little mad.” He swallowed. “If you don’t like me like that, you can just tell me.”

Once, desperate to know how to tell if feelings were romantic or not, she’d turned to Kieran. His advice had been mostly vastly unhelpful—Do you dream of kissing under the moonlight was not a very useful litmus test—but one of the things he’d said had stuck.

Think about them having a crush on someone else. Does it make you mad?

And because Rena had not been considering Lucas as a romantic prospect, she hadn’t thought about it like that. And once she started thinking, yes. Every time she thought about Lucas and Harper, the beginnings of a frown tugged inside her.

“You kissed me because you like me,” she said, not quite a question, but she hoped he would answer it anyway.