Page 50 of The Kiss of Deception

My fingers tap against the wheel to the low tune of Noah Kahan, one of Zoe’s favorites, uncompelled to fill it for once. For once, it doesn’t sound like a challenge to me—daring and demanding I break it.

It’s a short drive from the stadium to our building, and the traffic is both fortunately—and unfortunately—light.

I run my tongue over my lip for the thousandth time. I don’t know if it searches for something, or tries to erase it.

Either way, all I find is the lingering taste of disappointment.

It was a lie.

Our first kiss was a lie. Just another one, just like everything about us.

Lies, lies, lies.

I feel wronged by the universe and Venus and all the fairy tales I’ve been told.

How can lies feel so real, so raw, so right?

They shouldn’t. They aren’t supposed to.

They’re supposed to taste foul, burn down my throat and coat my tongue with the ashes of my dying hopes—not sweet euphoria and electrifying serenity.

As it is, all my insides glitter with infinite tingles and giggle with giddiness. Under the hurt, a foolish part of me is infinitely happy.

Because she kissed me.

Zoe fed me her sweet venom. One time, one taste, and I became an addict with no self-preservation. I just want more, knowing all too well it could poison me—knowing all too well I’d gladly die if it meant I got to savor her only once more.

It thrills me as much as it hurts, but I can’t fault her for the expectations—the fantasies—created in my head. Zoe held her end of the bargain. If anyone is guilty of anything, it’s me—wanting and hoping for more.

With the whispers in the wind, uncertainty flickered for a fleeting moment, soon far gone behind her frozen walls. So, Zoe straightened her shoulders, removing her warmth from me entirely to let me bathe in cold realization as she methodically dropped to her seat, locking eyes made of ice with anyone that dared to even think of her—freezing them out.

I regretted ever asking her to come.

Too seduced by the prospect of having her in my arm and being in her orbit, I led her straight to inhospitality that greeted her by hands that should’ve hugged her. Hit after hit, she survived and counteracted, cutthroat and classy.

As soon as the chronometer hit 90, we smiled our way out, eager to be far away.

Clearing the remnants of my disappointment from my vocal cords, I speak in a soft whisper, so as not to startle her. “I’m sorry.”

Zoe unglues her gaze from the tinted glass it’s been stuck to since we exited the garage, tracing the fleeting life of the Boston night as it runs away from us.

She jerks an unaffected shoulder. “I’m used to that kind of environment.”

“You shouldn’t have been treated that way. I should’ve—”

“I’m used to it.”

A new surge of blind anger turns my knuckles white around the wheel.

Why is she used to being treated with anything less than the respect and adoration she deserves? Who’s treated her so rudely, so constantly, that she’s gotten used to that kind of treatment? That she’s convinced herself it’s remotely okay?

“You’re used to it?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“Did I not behave according to your expectations?”

“What?” My frown whips to her as abruptly as her change of subject.

“Was my performance subpar?” Zoe crosses her arms. “You seemed rather entertained by other pretty performers.”

---