Page 88 of Friends Don't Kiss

Maybe I need to take some initiative. I’m already wearing skintight jeans and the super soft sweater I wore at Eloise’s birthday party. Maybe that helped the kiss.

But maybe I need to do a little more. Jumpstart this action.

“Thanks,” I tell him softly, then lean toward him to kiss his cheek. I trail my fingers behind his nape, run them lightly under the collar of his leather jacket, the others playing briefly with his hair.

He clenches his jaw, shifts gears, and I sit back into my seat.

“For what?” he asks gruffly. The way he moves in his seat, there’s a good chance he wasn’t immune to that chaste kiss. Just like I wasn’t to his, the past two dates.

“For taking me to the races. Showing me a part of you I didn’t know.”

He shrugs and glances at me, a smile tilting his mouth. “You asked for it.”

That’s the best. He is, genuinely, doing this for me because I asked for it, not because he wanted to go to a race and decided to drag me along. This isn’t a two-for-one kind of situation for him. “Thanks for indulging me,” I say.

On impulse, I decide this is good time to listen to music, but this car has the bare minimum equipment. No entertainment center in sight. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that whatever Colton wants to show his friends is underneath the hood.

“Tell me about this race we’re going to see,” I say.

“Ice racing,” Colton offers. “I started going before this track was legal. Made some solid friends there. It was a way to blow steam.”

“Is this a race car?” I ask, suddenly worried. “Please tell me I’m not going to be in a race.”

He gives me a lopsided grin and says, “You’re not gonna be in a race, sweets.”

I ask Colton a few questions about the technicality of ice racing, and to my surprise time passes quickly when I’m listening to him talk about something he’s passionate about. And I get to learn a few things about driving on ice, which might come in handy one of these days. Like driving on the edge and listening to your tires—knowing that when they whisper, they’re about to lose traction and it’s time to ease on the gas or adjust steering. Or how left-foot breaking can prevent swinging out during a turn.

“Would you show me?” I ask.

“Absolutely. We can do it after the race, on the frozen lake. Much better than on the road—best way to not get hurt.”

My heart is pumping with stupid excitement as Colton pulls up to a random gathering of people tailgating on the side of a lake. There are barbecues smoking up the air, country music blaring from pickup trucks, and a festive atmosphere that’s plain awesome.

Colton parks next to a line of trucks, then he helps me out the low seat, and I’m reminded this is adate-date. An opening-doors-for-me kind of date.

When he lets go of my hand, he slides his arm around my waist, pulling me close to him as he walks to a group of people huddled around a seriously souped-up pickup truck.

A man with a beard and a backward cap detaches himself from the group. As he calls out, “Colt!” smiling faces turn to us, curiosity tinting their features as they take me in. There are maybe eight to ten people, women mainly on one side and men on the other, save for two couples holding hands. Jeans tucked in lined boots, faded ski jackets, and beanies are the uniform attire—one where I fit right in.

Colt introduces me as his girlfriend, and when conversations resume after they all greet us, he turns his attention back on me. He lowers his mouth to me but kisses me in the tender space right at the angle of my mouth. Before I can turn my head to meet him entirely, he’s moved onto inhaling deeply into my hair. With a squeeze of his hand on my nape, he asks, “You good?”

“I’m good.”

He gives my waist another squeeze—a thank-you—then without warning, plops me on the truck’s tailgate, giving me a seat and a better view.

As the first race starts, he brings me a hot cider from someone’s gigantic insulated dispenser, then talks me through the different stages of the race we’re watching and each racer’s merits. His energy and enthusiasm, his knowledge of all the cars and their drivers, is contagious, and I’m quickly almost as excited as Colton.

But as we both watch the race, him standing at my feet, me sitting on the truck bed, he leans against the truck, curls his arm around my butt, and places his hand on my thigh, talking all along like he’s not submitting me to the most excruciating tease right in front of everyone.

Like we do this all the time and I don’t even notice it anymore.

I could never stop noticing Colton’s hand on my hip. Not if he did this every day for the next fifty years. Even if he’s talking about something not sexy at all, like ice car racing.

He sits close to me, his warmth seeping into my own body. The roar of the cars is muffled by the snow and rings tinny in the cold air. At some point he leaves and brings me a hotdog and a beer.

“You’re not having anything?”

“Later,” he says, smiling quickly at me, then focusing back on the track. A few minutes pass, then he leans over me and kisses the crown of my head. “Be right back,” he whispers. “Stay right here.”

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