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Maybe.

God, I need a sedative. Or a shovel to dig myself a hole and live in it forever. But I square my shoulders anyway, because I’m a professional. A professional who just happens to be making out with her fake boyfriend slash real-life bad decision in three... two...

Theo reaches out to steady me as we twist to face one another, one strong hand at my waist, the other catching my free hand like we do this all the time.

And then he looks down at me.

Why does he have to look at me like that?

There’s a heat behind his eyes that I want to pretend I don’t notice. But I do. The tension in his face gives him away; he’s trying to keep it together just as much as I am. The way his grip curls around my ribs. The way he’s not breaking eye contact, like he’s daring me to move first.

So I do.

I rise onto my tiptoes, and when he meets me halfway, I press my lips to his.

It’s meant to be quick. Innocent. A kiss that says we’re just humoring the goat yoga cult leader and will definitely laugh about this later.

But it doesn’t feel like a joke.

It feels like I’ve made a terrible, flammable mistake.

Because his lips are warm—soft in a way that shouldn’t feel this perfect—and my brain stops functioning somewhere between the first peck and the second.

Because there are two.

The first was all good-natured intent, the second like impulse, as if the brief taste of it wasn’t enough and his body came back for more before his mind could stop it.

Reality collapses down to the heat where our mouths meet.

My mind feels like it’s been unplugged. I can taste the faint remnants of his tea, smell the clean scent of soap and something inherently him.

My chest feels too small to contain it, the moment or the ache.

It’s just a kiss, technically. Barely even that. But the buzz from it settles somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

When I pull back, the space between us feels radioactive—charged with all the things neither of us should ever say.

I’ve never wanted to close the distance between us again more.

Nora claps again, snapping me out of it. Barely. “See? Wasn’t that precious?”

I clear my throat, focusing on a distant bale of hay like it might save me from spontaneous combustion. Theo doesn’t say anything, but his smirk is out in full force.

Smug. Bastard.

“So what brings you two out this afternoon? I didn’t even think to ask sooner.” Nora asks, stretching forward into a pose that puts my entire flexibility—or lack thereof—to shame. Moving on like she didn’t just flip my entire world upside down. “You don’t strike me as the social-cards-with-the-elders type.”

“Emily invited us,” I say. “We thought it’d be nice to join her.”

Nora’s eyes sparkle like she knows that’s a half-truth and doesn’t care. “Kat must’ve been thrilled.”

“She forgot we were coming,” I admit.

“Oh dear,” Nora sighs. “She’s been like that more and more lately. Floating around the house like she’s lost a part of herself. Thomas is worse.”

I glance up, my interest piqued. I don’t correct her that Katherine was far from ghostlike today. “Worse how?”

She shrugs. “Tense. Away a lot.”