Page 44 of Texts From My Exes
Leaked footage of THAT kiss
Oh God.
There we were, splashed all over social media: me shoving him, him pulling me in, our mouths colliding against the wall. Not staged. Not fake. Notfor science.
I nearly dropped my phone. “They—they filmed it.”
Ezra leaned over, scrolling through his own notifications, his jaw tightening. “Of course they did. You saw the flash, but they were probably filming and snapping pictures at the same time.”
“This is bad.” My pulse was racing. “This is… really, really bad. What if they think it’s not real?”
He set his phone down and moved close, his hand bracing the counter near my hip. His voice was low, controlled. “Then we fix it.”
“How?” I asked.
His hazel eyes locked on mine, steady, certain. “By giving them something better to talk about.”
Before I could respond, he plucked my coffee from my hand, set it aside, and—oh my god—slung me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. I squealed. “Ezra!”
He carried me into the living room, politely relocated the dead plant from the windowsill, and frowned at it. “Dead already?”
“I thought it was just dry.”
“It has no leaves.”
“It could be… a cactus?” I offered weakly.
He shook his head, then set me on the sill, grinning down at my T-rex shirt. “You’re lucky you’ve got great boobs, because the t-rex really doesn’t do it for me.”
I glared. “I’ll have you know the t-rex is a?—”
His mouth cut me off in a blinding kiss, his hands braced on either side of my head, trapping me against the glass. The world went white-hot. His lips moved to my neck, sucking hard enough to make me see stars, and when he finally pulled back I was breathless and absolutely ruined.
“User12345EzraLove was right,” I gasped. “I’d give an essential organ to see you play a vampire.”
Ezra’s teeth grazed my collarbone. He whispered, cocky and dark, “Sweetheart, you already are.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
HARPER
So what if my card was declined, it doesn’t mean I intentionally made you pay for dinner! It’s crazy that it keeps happening though…
—Nicholous, who never paid for a date.
That night I was still single-mindedly focusing on Ezra’s words. He didn’t mean the liver. I don’t know why that’s what I fixated on the rest of the night. During my sleep I started dreaming about the stupid Liver King show and then thinking about eating raw meat. The essential organ was not in fact his liver, he meant his heart, dare I hope? Dare I even think that was the case? I was too stressed out for this, my brain told me he was kissing me and touching me because he had no choice. But part of me wondered if there was something more? He made it seem like it was so easy. Like he could be the type of guy you could have fun with, but that wasn’t Ezra. He wasn’t the type to just kiss someone. Or maybe he was an I had just been wrong this entire time? I’d been so freaked out over crossing that line with him that maybe I was the only one who pretended it existed, maybe he’d always flirted with it and I just had no clue. Maybe this was him rebelling against our friendship having his cake and eating it too.
The more I thought about it the more confused I got and the last thing I needed was confusion. It was time for the next date, with the guy who wasn’t Vex. Maybe that was a good thing?
I hopped out of bed and went into the kitchen to find my coffee already poured—because Ezra when he wasn’t playing Vex, kissing me, showing me just how impressive he was and or being annoying—was the sweetest when it came to my coffee. I checked the note. “At work, because normal people work and my spreadsheets miss me, gotta keep my harem happy, hope you understand. I’ll be home after your date, try not to kill him, and if you do use our code word so I’m not implicated when I help you bury the body, cool?”
I burst out laughing. Our code word wasBananabut said the only way it should be said which is with a complete and total minion accent. It worked. For us. God why was it so hard to find someone normal like Ezra, not that he was normal. It was the first day that I felt sad and I wasn’t sure if it was the pressure of it all or because my grumpy best friend wasn’t there to greet me with his neon glasses and words of woe.
I shook it off, drank my coffee, and got ready, putting on sweats while I researched the best classroom theme I could find, multitasking at it’s finest. Hours later I had a few cute stools purchased via Amazon, a fun pillow, my colors picked out, teal and black, but nothing as far as a real like, strong theme. Something inspiring.
I sent a quick text to Ezra.
