Page 37 of Gracefully Yours

“We’re going over to Angelina and Benjamin’s new house at the end of the week. Should we tell them then?”

“That works.” She looked at her lap. “Do you think they’re going to be mad?”

I snorted. “They’ve probably all been taking bets on how long it would take for us to hook up.”

“Haha, very funny.” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

She might have thought I was kidding, but I wouldn’t have put it past them. Especially not after the conversation I’d shared with Benjamin last year. I’d practically confided in him I was stuck in the friend zone. This girl made me stupid, because I’d barely known him then, and I’d practically spilled out all of my feelings for my best friend.

“I don’t want them to be mad that we didn’t tell them,” she said, quietly. “But I’m glad we have this time to just… figure it out. Before we have to play a part.”

“Right. Because it’s all fake.” I didn’t think she could detect the bitterness in my tone. Why had I implied that in the first place? Stupid. I was stupid.

She exhaled a sigh of relief. “Exactly.”

I made a humming sound as we pulled into the driveway of my dad’s ranch. It was a giant piece of property, with a horse barn and the little garden they’d planted two years ago, complete with a smattering of blueberry bushes. You couldn’t beat the ones plucked right off the plant.

Turning off the car, I turned to look at her.

“Do you think we should have a code word?” She said, words spilling from her lips as if she’d been looking for something to say.

“Do you think weneeda code word?” I asked back.

“Well, if something makes one of us uncomfortable, then we could say it and use it to change the conversation.”

I shook my head. “I have a better idea.” Charlotte raised an eyebrow as I leaned in closer to her. “We should practice.”

She made a confused face. “Practice…?”

“Kissing.”

“What?” Charlotte just stared at me.

“We need to practice being arealcouple.” Something I’d wanted us to be all along. “We’re going to have to kiss in public. And at the wedding.”

“I don’t think we need topracticeanything, Daniel.”

She was right. We didn’t. I already knew how good we were together—I just wanted an excuse to kiss her again. I’d almost kissed her the other night, when I’d had her pinned against the couch, those soft pink lips practically begging me, but I’d held myself back.

“But we’re… best friends.” She gave a small noise of protest.

“Friends don’t kiss you the way I do, Charlotte.”

I might have been a selfish bastard, taking what I could get from her, but I needed this. And that was why, after leaning across the center console and brushing a hair that had come loose from her giant clip back behind her ear, I cupped her jaw.

“Tell me I can kiss you, Charlotte.” The words flew out before I could stop them, and I ran my thumb across her cheekbone as my hands held her face.

Her eyes fluttered shut as I traced her face, and I could hear her breathing grow deeper. “You can kiss me, Daniel.”

She kept her eyes shut as I kissed her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her lip—just featherlight touches, but I could feel her tension gradually fading with each one. Feeling the way she opened herself up to me. A part of me had wanted to kiss her again since August, since I’d been so stupid at the wedding, and I wouldn’t squander this opportunity now. Part of me didn't understand why I hadn’t spent the last nineyearskissing her.

Her tongue ran against the seam of my lips, and when I opened them, she flooded all of my senses.

Strawberries. She tasted like strawberries, and I practically groaned into her mouth. I wanted to lose myself in her, in her taste, because nothing had ever been so good. Nothing had ever felt so right. I hated that I’d ever kissed anyone else, because no one else would ever compare to her.

Letting our tongues dance, kissing her with all that I had.

When we pulled away, her cheeks were flushed, and she touched her lips.

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