Page 71 of Wicked Dreams

You know:friend-like ormarriage-like.

He straightened his tie and came closer. “I didn’t get you a ring.”

I shook my head and reached into my pocket.

“Got it covered,” I said, showing him the two woven friendship bracelets in my hand.

I’d made one that was equal parts gold and blue, and the other was blue with a single cluster of gold thread. I struggled to make something so small it would fit around my finger, so I gave up and made bracelets.

“We’re married until these fall off.”

That was how those types of bracelets worked: keep them on until they fall off or it’s bad luck. Forever.

“Okay,” he agreed. He pushed the sleeves up on the suit jacket, exposing his hands. “But…”

Oh, no. He was about to back out. Or change the deal.

“What?” I held my breath.

“Do we have to kiss? To seal the deal?”

My eyebrows furrowed. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

He grinned and walked closer. The suit sleeves were falling back down, but he shoved them up to his elbows. “We could, you know.”

“Kiss?”

“Adults do it.”

My heart raced. “Do they?”

Mom and Dad didn’t really kiss in front of me. They barely touched.Do Caleb’s parents kiss in front of him?I’d seen it on movies, but I thought it was just that: fiction.

I knew the definition of fiction at age eight. I wasn’t dumb.

Some things just weren’t real: Santa, parents who really loved each other, and my future with Caleb. It was a fact I had already accepted before I came up with this idea. Before I decided to test what kind oflikehe had for me.

He picked up both bracelets. My dad had helped me singe the strings on each end so they wouldn’t unravel, but they were open and ready for tying. He seemed to debate for a moment, then held up the one with more gold.

“I want this one. It reminds me of you.”

He tied the mostly blue one around my wrist. He left it loose enough that I could’ve inched it over my hand, but I didn’t. I slid it farther up, until it got stuck on my forearm. I couldn’t lose it so quickly.

“Now me.” He pushed his claimed bracelet at me.

I tied it with clumsy fingers, as loose as he had made mine. Who knew when these things would fall off? I suddenly wished I had made them out of steel.

“Kiss me,” he demanded. “Make it official.”

I leaned in, my hand on his wrist and my gaze on his mouth.

Our lips touched, just the barest of brushes. So brief that I don’t think it counted. We both pulled back and stared at each other for a moment.

Then Caleb lifted my hand. “Wow. So this is what marriage feels like.”

I waited. And then it hit me.

Thebond. We’d be linked, him and me, by our wrists and our lips, forever. I wasn’t mad about it. I was selfishly glad that he was mine.

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