Page 49 of It Was Always You

I was not supposed to think that way about Noah anymore. I had gotten over my crush a long time ago. Noah was out of my league. A non-option, unless we were just pretending.

But I couldn't bring myself to say no. Because deep down, I still wanted Noah Taylor. "I don't know. Maybe?"

"Maybe?"

Couldn't he just make the decision for us, so I didn't have to give away that I might still have feelings for him?

But him letting me have a say was kind of sweet in its own way. Could it be possible that he might want something to happen, too?

I cleared my throat and tried to appear much more level-headed than I felt. "I guess we have two options. If we want to keep this going, we'll have to ramp everything up. But if not, we'll need to stage a break-up soon."

Please don't pick the second option.

There was a gentleness in his eyes that I wasn't used to seeing. He seemed to be forming his thoughts carefully. "I'm not ready to break up with you. I don't want to stop this yet."

He didn't? Hope blossomed in my chest and I sagged with relief. I shouldn't want to keep dating him like this, because it wasn't real. But spending so much time with him was becoming addicting.

"I don't want to stop it either," I admitted.

"Which leaves us only one other option," he said.

"And what's that?"

"We might have to break those rules we set in the beginning. If we want this to be believable, I'm probably going to have to start kissing you."

My heart jolted to a stop. "Kissing?" I couldn't keep my voice from raising an octave. I knew that was why I'd started this conversation in the first place, but having him actually say it caused butterflies to flap uncontrollably in my stomach

"I think that's what we'll need to convince Raven." He reached over and took my hand in his.

"There's just one problem with that." I had never kissed a guy. And if I was going to kiss Noah, something I had daydreamed about a thousand times, I didn't want to mess it up. Especially not with an audience.

He squeezed my hand and studied my expression. "What is it?" he asked, like he was worried I wouldn't want to kiss him.

"Remember how I've never been on a real date before?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah."

My stomach turned with nerves. This was so humiliating. Why did I have to keep having these kinds of vulnerable moments with Noah?

His fingers were drawing circles on the back of myhand. I wished I could just focus on how incredible that felt instead of what I had to say to him. "I-it's probably really obvious, but I've never kissed a guy before, and I don't want to look stupid doing it in front of other people. We've been letting them think that we're constantly making out. It can't look like I've never kissed you before." I said the words as fast as I could, hoping that the quicker I got them out, the less stupid they'd sound.

He didn't say anything immediately. Maybe I'd stunned him into silence with a new level of social-ineptness that had never been before reached by humankind.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest.

But then he finally spoke. "I guess we could practice first." He peeked at me through his lashes. "If you wanted."

"Practice?" I searched his face for a hint that he was kidding. But he looked totally serious.

He shrugged. "Sure. You said you don't want it to look like we've never kissed before, so we can just practice first, and the problem will be solved."

Well, when he said it like that...it still sounded crazy.

Then he stood and helped me up beside him.

"Oh, are you thinking we should practice right now?" I asked.

"Yeah."

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