Page 22 of The Dead Romantics

For a moment.

“Yes,” I decided, and reached up—because he was so damn tall and I was very much not—and took his face in my hands and pulled him down to crush my lips against his. They were warm and soft and dry, and my fingers brushed against the stubble on his cheeks. My stomach burned, but it filled the ache.

He made a surprised noise, jolting me to my senses. I quickly jerked away. “Oh my god—I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t... I wasn’t... I usually don’t do this.”

“Make out in back alleys?”

“Kiss tall strangers.”

He gave a snort that sounded like laughter. “Did it help?”

My lips still felt wet and tingly, and he tasted like a rum-and-Coca-Cola sort of dead poet (Lord Byron?), and I didn’t mind. I gave a nod. “But it doesn’t mean anything,” I added quickly. “It doesn’t—this doesn’t mean—I’m not going to fall in love with you.”

“Because romance is dead?” he asked, tongue in cheek.

“Six feet under.”

“So you say...”

And his mouth found mine again. He pressed me up against the side of the wall, and kissed me like I hadn’t been kissed in—well, atleasta year. The night was cold, but he felt like a furnace. I curled my fingers around the collar of his dark coat and pulled him closer. As close as I could. His hands were warm as his fingers came up to cradle the sides of my face, and we danced in the dark alley while standing still.

We didn’t talk. We didn’t think—or I, at least, didn’t think. Not about Lee Marlow, or the book due, or anything else, even though Ben didn’t even know it wasmedoing the writing. I wasn’t his author. Not the one who was going to turn the book in late; Ann was. He thought I was her assistant. The middleman. No one.

I wanted to be no one for a moment.

He broke away, breathless. “Miss Day?”

“It’s Florence,” I gasped. My lips throbbed.

“No, um—that’s not—your phone,” he said rigidly. “It’s ringing.”

Oh. Was it? I just noticed. It was my Mom’s ringtone. Thatstruck me as odd through the haze of kissing Benji Andor. Why was she calling this late? Itwaslate, wasn’t it? I untangled my fingers from his coat and dug for my phone in my crossbody purse. He still hovered over me, bent near, shielding me against the world, and it was...

Nice.

It was nice in a way few things had been tonight.

When I found my phone, I realized I had over twenty missed calls from my mom—

And Carver.

And Alice.

Please call Mom, Carver’s text read.

Wait—what? Why?

I was more confused than anything else. It was 11:37p.m. Was something wrong with Mom? The funeral parlor?

“Is something wrong?” Ben asked.

“I—excuse me,” I muttered, dipping out from underneath him and moving away a few feet. It was nothing, I told myself. Just—it was nothing. I quickly pressed her speed-dial number. The phone barely rang once before Mom answered.

“Sweetheart,” she began.

Something was off.

It was off before she said anything.

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