Page 21 of The Publicity Stunt
“I do.”
Oh. “What’s the problem, then?”
Wincing a little, she slowly covers her face with her hands. “What if I’m bad at it?”
“At kissing?”
April nods, and man, this is straight-up adorable. I grab her hands and pull them down. “You won’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
She rolls her eyes and starts to scoot away, but I pull her back. “You’re not a bad kisser, April Moore.” Fuck it, I’m laughing now.
She punches my shoulder. “Stop making fun of me! This is serious. I’m being very serious right now.”
That only makes me laugh harder. “I’m not making fun.” Putting my arm around her, I cage in her small frame. “And you’re going to be a great kisser. Phenomenal.”
She stops struggling and glances up at me. “You don’t know that.”
I sigh. “Okay, I don’t. But I’m a guy and I know how guys think. Tyler Hockman is going to be over the moon that he got to kiss you at all, bad or not.”
April stares at me for a little while and then moves away, eyes narrowed. “You’re a guy,” she whispers.
“Uh, yeah.” Wow, I do not sound confident at all.
“And you know how guys think.”
I hesitate. “Where are you going with this, Chere?” This time I start to shift away, but April leaps at me, throwing her arms over my shoulders.
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
She walks on her knees and moves closer, her hands clinging onto my shoulders like talons. “I want you to kiss me.”
My jaw falls to the floor and my eyes bug out. I swat her hands away. “No!”
Her face grows glum, like I just tore a brand-new comic book right through the middle. “Why not? How else am I supposed to know if I’m bad or not?”
“By trial and error? Like the rest of the world?”
Kiss her? Is April seriously asking me to kiss her? My palms start to sweat. I want to jump off this roof. Not because I don’t want to kiss her—though I don’t—but because she’s my best friend. My only friend. I’m not kissing my only friend.
“What if I’m horrible, Parker?” She sticks to her nonsense logic. “What if I shove my entire tongue into Tyler’s mouth? What if I bite his tongue off by mistake? He’ll bleed to death. Is that what you want? You want a fellow classmate to die, all because you couldn’t make out with your friend?”
I stumble back. “Whoa, make out? We’re making out now?”
April just stares at me, almost disappointedly. Her shoulders are drooped, her chin is tilted down, and her lips are pressed tight.
Her lips are pressed tight.
Her lips.
No!
I shake the thought out of my head. I don’t want to kiss her.
