Page 18 of Friends Don't Kiss

“Are youthatbad?” Grace calls out to me from across the bar, chuckling, then listens to Kiara recounting our evening. I pay close attention so we keep our stories straight.

I’m hoping she leaves the kiss out, but with Kiara, you never know.

“Man, this is so good,” Haley says, pointing to her plate. “So he pretended to be your boyfriend? Way to go, man!” she adds, flashing me a grin.

“You took one for the team,” Justin, the owner of the pub and Haley’s brother, says to me.

“Hey! Fuck off!” Kiara shoots back playfully.

“My point exactly,” he says, pouring us each a beer. He takes a bite of cake Haley shoves in his direction. “Mmm, darn it.That’sthe shit.”

Kiara ignores the compliment. “He did great,” she doubles down. “He even…” she pauses for dramatic effect, takes a sip of beer, then licks the foam off her upper lip. I can’t help but watch, tasting my beer on my own lips, wishing it was my tongue on hers—fuck it.Got to stop.

“He even what?” Grace asks, holding her fork up mid air.

Kiara glances at me, mischief flashing in her eyes.Don’t say it.“He even promised my uncle Bill to take him to his next car race.”

“Aww man, that’s sweet! Colton! I didn’t know you could be such agoodboyfriend,” Alex says.

“That’s because he’s fake,” Kiara chimes in.

Ouch.

“How long you planning on pretending like that?” Grace asks, a frown marring her forehead.

“I’m telling Uncle Bill tomorrow that it was fake. And I don’t give a shit about the rest of the family. I’m not planning on seeing them for at least a year. Plenty of time for a fake breakup.”

“Oh, good,” Alex says like that’s the best thing ever. Looking at me, she blushes slightly, then adds, “You don’t want to play those charades too long. It’s gotta be exhausting.”

“It was fun, actually,” I say. “I could always be an actor if the garage thing fails,” I add, stealing a line Mom always uses when she sees us do something moderately well. “Fooled everyone over there.”

Kiara twitches on her chair, the reference to acting surely stirring up a memory. She lifts the beer to her plump lips again, but sets it down immediately as Declan comes into the pub.

I’d already forgotten about that.

The conversations die. Declan might have grown up here but when he shows up in his uniform, we know there’s potential trouble. When he’s in plainclothes? He’s one of us.

But tonight, he’s in uniform.

He gestures for Kiara to step aside, takes his notebook out, and gets her testimony. This does two things. One, everybody’s up to speed with the same, accurate information. Two, I get to look at her with no interruption for the full two minutes that Declan’s interview lasts.

Reallylookat her. Not just get a glimpse of the little ball of fury that she can be in the evenings when her day went to shit and she stops by my place to blow off steam and we end up watching MMA or playing video games. Not the grumpy, half-awake persona that comes out of the building in the mornings. Not the swearing, don’t-give-a-fuck Kiara that terrifies town newbies with her quick judgments and eerily accurate nicknames.

No, I get to look at a collected, young yet seasoned woman who’s had a long, mostly shitty day (though I like to think I made it better). By the way her soft gray irises reflect the light in a changing pattern of little fireworks, I can tell she’s holding her smile for now, respectful of Dec’s police business that we called in.

She stands as straight and tall as her five foot one (she insists on the one) allows her, which pushes her perky tits up. She has them molded in a ridiculously soft sweater that’s kind of a tease in itself because even if it shows no skin at all, it begs to be touched. With that, she chose a tight skirt in a pattern that gives stuck-up vibes that are totally not Kiara. Wild guess, it was to blend in with her mother and her sister. It molds her ass nicely though, and it does stop way above her knees, which is a blessing given she’s wearing what she calls fishing stockings, which are the dress-up version of torn jeans, I guess, except sexier.

Her tiny little feet are—

“You done?” Chris voice jolts me.Shit.I didn’t even see him come up to me.

I jerk my head. “Done with what?”

Chris has a small smile, but his gaze on me is stern. “Eye-fucking her,” he growls under his breath.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I was…wondering why she’s wearing these weird clothes.”

Chris raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t she say something about her family being a pain in the ass?”

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