Page 53 of The Kiss of Deception

I click the safety to lock the doors, lest she decides to jump. The glare she shoots is deadly, unamused with my joke.

“Zoe!” My mom beams through the phone, absolutely delighted. “Hi, honey. It’s so nice to finally meet you! My son has been talking about you for ages.”

“Hi, Ms—”

“Julia.”

“Julia.” Zoe tries a smile. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you, as well. Miles does seem to have the habit of speaking a lot.”

Mom laughs, amused at my expense. “Always been that way, my boy. Couldn’t stand a minute of silence, always had to fill it.”

“By all means.” I stretch across the console until my face is within the screen frame. It puts me right above Zoe’s shoulder, so I let gravity do its job and lean my head on her. “Please continue to speak like I’m not here, don’t feel compelled to measure your words.”

Zoe rolls her eyes a little as my mother laughs softly, and both fill my chest with indescribable warmth.

“I just wanted to see that pretty face I made. But it was a pleasant surprise to meet you, Zoe, and confirm you’re real—rather than just a dream my son’s been having every night for years.”

Zoe’s eyes bounce to me again in the small square on the corner of the screen.

“Love you, Mom,” I sing-song in panic, before she exposes me. “Byeeee.”

“I love you, honey. Bye.” She winks as her hand moves to end the call.

We stay like that until the screen goes black, with the faint reflection of intimacy. I remove myself to my side, afraid she’ll pull back first. I’m not too proud to recognize my heart isn’t strong enough to take another rejection tonight.

I glance at the safety lock, then at her. “Thank you,” I say.

Zoe nods once.

The doors unlock with a clunk under my finger, and she’s gone.

Chapter Thirteen

Zoe

I kissed Miles Blackstein.

I can’t deny it. Pictures and videos would call me a liar—I would know, I’ve watched most of them.

What they don’t show is the part that truly troubles me.

The white-hot urgency that prompted me forward—to erase every residue of them from his clothes, his skin, his memory. Replace it with me.

As the bell chimes, I decide to chalk it up to single child syndrome—I never learned to share my toys—and the need to establish to the world Miles Blackstein is mine. Not really—not at all—but still. To the world, he is.

So, I wanted to make a point, and I made it.

That’s it.

Time to stop overthinking.

If there’s anything I should dwell on, it’s the realization that my resolution to exit this charade exactly as I entered crumbled inconspicuously some time in the past weeks. I’m beginning to accept, begrudgingly, that I won’t be able to go back to the status quo where Miles Blackstein was the bad guy I despised.

He’s a lot of things, but not all of them that bad.

I swing the door open, almost expecting the man to materialize from my thoughts to confront my sudden one-track mind.

“Zoe Westwood?” The voice tickles something in my brain.

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