Page 130 of Happiness for Beginners

“But it wasn’t a real kiss.”

“It looked pretty real.”

“It wasn’t akisskiss.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

I looked away.

“It was Truth or Dare,” he said. “She got dared to kiss me three different times during that dumb game, but she took rain checks.”

“You can’t take rain checks.”

“Windy can. And then, on the hike, she told me that she wanted to combine them. Rather than three quick kisses, she just wanted one giant smooch.”

“Well,” I said. “You sure gave it to her.”

“Yeah, well. I said I would.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“So you’ll know what really happened.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And I’m never playing Truth or Dare again, by the way.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “You kissed every girl on the trip that night.”

I wanted him to say no, but he shrugged. “Probably. I lost count.”

I flared my nostrils at him. “The corpse of our kisses wasn’t even cold.”

“To be clear, those kisses never happened. If you recall, we were complete strangers by then. At your insistence.”

“So? Did I run around kissing everybody in town?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“No. I did not. I sat alone feeling miserable, like a normal person.”

“At first, it was just typical Truth or Dare. But then all the girls started daring each other to kiss me. Only me. That’s when it snowballed.”

“So you kissed them all against your will?”

“Kind of. In a way. You can’t kiss one and then not kiss them all.”

“Sure, you can! You absolutely can.”

He shrugged. “Once I got going, it was actually a pretty good distraction.”

“Distraction from what?”

He met my eyes. “You.”

I didn’t know how to react to that, so I turned and pressed the elevator call button, just to have something to do.

After a minute, Jake asked, “You thought I was dating Windy?”

I turned back. “Everybody thought you were dating Windy. They were planning your hipster-bohemian wilderness wedding, for God’s sake.”

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