Page 5 of The Plus Ones
I never would have pegged this guy for a good kisser, but holy shit.
I know what this is, though.
This kiss is a silent conversation between two not-exactly-friends, about loneliness and confusion and trying to hang on to something that was so good and now it’s changing and we’re happy and sad at the same time because what if that thing that those people have will never come for us?
This kiss is restrained and urgent and reassuring and alarming, and it is shaking me to my core.
When his lips find that spot high on my neck, below my earlobe, I groan and my knees give out.
My knees actually lose their ability to hold up the rest of my body.
He holds me tighter and lifts me up without pausing his gentle assault on my neck.
This is not the drunken make-out session of two reckless partygoers who just need to get through the night.
This is leading somewhere, and it is not somewhere either of us are meant to go to together. Not with each other. Not ever.
I push back against his hard chest, pull away from him.
He emits a low guttural sound, his eyelids heavy, but he complies.
I wipe my lip gloss from my chin and his, watching him as we both slow our breaths and straighten ourselves up and remember where we are and who we are and who we aren’t to each other.
For all I know, he could have been thinking about his ex-girlfriend while he was kissing me.
“I’ll go back inside first, okay?” I say. “You wait out here a couple of minutes.”
He nods. His brown hair is always perfectly mussed-up in that way that only a two-hundred-dollar haircut and hair product can make it, but it is really mussed-up now. I shouldn’t touch him again, but I have to run my fingers through his hair to make him look more presentable.
He wraps his long fingers around my wrist. Presses his lips against the palm of my hand very quickly. His eyes are less bleary now, but they are asking me a question.
Should we?
I want to laugh, because obviously we shouldn’t. We couldn’t. He’s a grown-up trust fund kid. I will always be the daughter of a mechanic. Things are already so different between us and our best friends, and if we sleep together even once, it will just change things even more.
He knows this. It’s not really him asking this; it’s his boner. I’m no dummy. I know how boners work. I know how weddings work. I know how I work.
I pull my hand free from his soft grip, touch his cheek, and shake my head. “See you around, Bridges.”
I walk away from him, away from the summer night air and the strings of warm white lights that are hanging overhead just for us and the most surprising kiss of my life and the guy that I have no doubt I will go back to wanting to dropkick the next time I see him.
I freaking hope.
1
Keaton
* Matt and Bernie’s Christmas Party *
Five Years Later
Roxy fucking Carter.
Of course she got here before me. Probably hoped she could leave before I got here, like she did last year. Like she’s managed to do at least half the time at our friends’ parties over the past five years. She tried to convince me to do a time-share when Aimee was having her baby at the hospital—because they didn’t need both of us there at the same time. She tried to convince Chase and Aimee to have two separate birthday parties for Finn, every year, one for each godparent. Anytime our friends get together for brunch, she seats herself at the opposite end of the table from me and only talks to me when she’s hurling some sassy one-liner at me from a safe distance.
Like I’m some stalker who’s dying to get into her pants.
Get over yourself, blondie.
