Page 35 of Never Say Never

“That I swam at night?”

I smile. “Yeah.”

“With you.”

Her answer surprises me. “Do you miss it?”

It’s a loaded question. Maybe Daisy can tell by the look on my face that what I really want to know is…Do you miss me?I want to know. No, I need to know.

“I missed it for a long time.”

What does that even mean? Has she stopped thinking about all those nights we spent together? Has she moved on? Her answer has my heart emptying out onto the tile floor beneath my shoes.

Then she lifts her gaze to meet mine, and I can see that there are tears in her eyes. “Why did you push me away?” Her voice is barely a whisper. If my heart was on the floor a second ago, it’s now been stomped over and broken into a million tiny pieces. I’ve never let myself think about how much I hurt Daisy years ago. It was easier to think that she was just mad at me. But the look in her eyes right now makes it clear that it went way beyond anger.

I never told her at the time what had happened after I left her that night because I thought that if I did, she would hate my dad. They have always been so close, and I didn’t see the point in ruining their relationship too. So, I did what my dad demanded, even though it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I hated him for it.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I tell her now, deciding on a half-truth. “If I did, I never would have stopped kissing you. I wanted you to be mine so badly.”

Daisy looks at me like she’s waiting for more. One tear falls down her cheek, and then another, and without thinking, I reach over and smooth them away with my thumb as her breath hitches in her throat.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Daisy. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.”

“You were my best friend. And somehow, I ended up losing you over a kiss.”

“A really fucking amazing kiss.”

She closes her eyes, vehemently shaking her head. On instinct, I run the back of my knuckles from her wrist up to hershoulder. Is she remembering what it felt like to be 16 again, kissing me for the first time, all of the nerves and excitement?

“I thought about that kiss constantly, Daisy.” My throat burns as the confession falls from my lips. “How perfect it felt. How good you tasted. I went to bed every night for months and fucking replayed that kiss in my brain.” I swallow. “I’ve never forgotten it.”

Recklessly, I take a step toward her, my hand sliding from her shoulder to her cheek. My body hums with excitement being this close to her.

“Neither have I, Tuck.”

With her confession, I feel free. Daisy looks over her shoulder at the darkened, empty hallway, as if making sure that no one is watching us. Then her bottom lip drops, and her breath turns shallow and when her eyes meet mine a moment later, I swear I see desire.

My heart races behind my ribcage as I think about kissing her. My childhood best friend. But we’re in a busy bar; anybody could walk by and see us. We live in a small town, and by morning half of Reed Point would be talking. Do I even care anymore?

Fuck.

My feet stay firmly where they are, my body only inches from hers. I think of our pact; making out in public places is almost certainly against the rules that we’ve put in place. And I realize now that sticking to those rules is going to be a lot harder than I realized. There’s one rule in particular that seems almost impossible.Don’t fall in love.

“I want to kiss you, Dais. I want to kiss you so fucking bad.”

“Not here.”

I don’t miss how her skin erupts in goosebumps. She reaches for my hand and the moment she touches me heat crackles up my spine, a million memories of every time I’ve held her handsince we were kids flashing through my mind. The times she reached for me when we climbed rocks at the creek. The times we lay side-by-side at the pool, my fingertips tracing the lines on her palm until our hands eventually intertwined.

And then we’re turning for the exit, her hand in mine and my heart in my throat. I swallow the knot in my throat as we hurry through the hotel lobby and out onto the street. I pull her down a quiet side street to where I parked my truck, and as soon as we get there, I spin her to face me. I reach for her, gripping her face in my hands. There isn’t a moment to think about where we are or what we’re doing, I just kiss her with everything in me.

She stiffens for a split second and then melts into me, her hands gripping the fabric of my shirt, both of us breathing in the kiss like it is everything we’ve ever wanted. Everything we ever needed.

I tell myself it’s just a kiss.

I tell myself it’s just a pact. No strings. No emotions.

But deep down, it feels like so much more.

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