Page 124 of Never Forever

Verity looked doubtful.

“Seriously. It would be hilarious.”

Slowly, the genius of the idea dawned on her pretty face. “I should. I really should. Like a singing zombie.”

“Run it by Weidman, a dead character singing? She’ll love it.”

Verity jumped off the stage and ran over to Weidman. Soon the two were squealing and hugging.

“You save the day?” Matt asked, looking down at me from the lip of the stage. His smile was all admiring.

I had a flashback to high school. Him standing there, smiling at me like he was right now, me on the ground, so happy to be adored. He would lean down and I’d push myself up on the edge of the stage so he could kiss me.

Maybe it was the quesadilla. Maybe it was the sunshine turning his hair red. Maybe it was the idea of a corpse singing along to a musical number. Maybe it was the memory of him saying:I want all of it. All of you.

There had been a rippling cascade of desire that those words had sent right through my body.

I pushed myself up and his eyes went wide, like he’d opened an unexpected present. Then he was leaning down toward me, about to kiss me in front of everyone, and I wasn’t turning away.

It was just a kiss. How much harm could there be in just a kiss?

So much harm!

The heat in his eyes was hypnotic. Magnetic.

I want all of it. All of you.

That hard clench of need I’d felt in the doctor’s office came back. Harder. Sharper.

His lips touched mine and it was careful. And so, so sweet. The moment, dipped in gold, went on forever until I heard Weidman shouting something at Jason. We broke apart to see her confiscating the kid’s phone.

“That’s a private moment, Jason,” Weidman scolded the kid.

Shit. He was filming us kissing.

That was not what I needed.

“I got it,” Matt said, and took off to join Weidman and the kid at the edge of the stage.

But the damage had already been done.

Because Jason wasn’t the only one who’d been taking pictures.

28

Matt

There were people standing on the dock as I made my way to work the next morning. Like five. With cameras. As soon as I got out of the truck they pointed their lenses in my direction.

“Hey!” They shouted. “Over here. Who are you?”

“Who the fuck are you?” I shouted back.

“Why were you kissing Carrie Piedmont?”

Paparazzi, I thought. Here in Calico Cove, of all places. They looked like two-bit gangsters in mafia movies, or big game hunters on a smoke break.

“What are you talking about?”

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