Page 118 of Hello Stranger

This wasn’t like the fake kiss from before. This wasn’t a performance for some onlooker. This kiss was just for the two of us. Because those words he’d said just made everything real. Every feeling, every glimmer, every sparkle—the veritable weather system of emotions that had been building around me ever since Joe first pissed me off in the elevator… as soon as he said,It’s you—it all became palpable.

Before I knew it, I was crawling up on the stool, perching on his thighs, grasping tighter and more madly, kissing him in a way that felt like melting into another reality.

He pulled back for a second to look at me. I forced myself to look back. No matter what I could or couldn’t see, I wanted to give him the soul-deep answer we’re always searching for when we look into someone’s eyes.

Was this happening? Were we doing this? Should we keep going?

Yes. All yes.

But maybe we already had our answers.

He leaned in again and captured my mouth with his, and it was like a wave of bliss crashing over me and knocking me off-balance—all softness and silk and rhythm and touch.

He stood up next and carried me toward the bed, my legs wrapped around his waist, our mouths never parting, and he laid me back against the blanket, pressing himself down over me as we sank further andfurther into the moment, and the feeling of being tangled together, and lost with each other.

As if staying this way could make everybody else on earth disappear.

Until… almost like the universe just wanted to prove us wrong—in a moment of bad timing worthy of the Guinness book—there was a knock at my door.

Twenty-Two

SPOILER: IT WASLucinda.

A human cold shower if ever there was one.

We froze at the sound. I squeezed my eyes shut, but Joe craned around to peek at the door.

“It’s a middle-aged lady,” he whispered. “I can see through the glass.”

“Does she look like Martha Stewart?” I whispered back.

“Yes,” Joe whispered.

“With kind of a sourpuss face?”

“Yes,” Joe confirmed.

“And a vibe like she maybe sucks the fun out of everything?”

“Not sure, but maybe?”

“It’s my stepmother,” I confirmed. “Just ignore her.”

I pulled his mouth back down to mine. But at that, Lucinda started knocking again.

“That’s going to be challenging,” Joe said.

Lucinda talked through the glass pane in the door, her voice muffling its way into the room. “I need to talk to you,” she said. “Stop ignoring me. I can tell you’re in there.”

She could certainly kill a mood, I’d give her that.

I sighed. Was I really about to shut down the best kissing of my lifefor Lucinda?

The knocking continued. And continued.

I guess I was.

“Promise me,” I said then, looking deep into Joe’s eyes, “that we are not done here.”

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