Page 21 of The Pucking Kiss

“My man,” Jake, one of Bryan’s friends, walked over to us, “You made it. And Romai, are you lost?”

“Hey,” Bryan defended me. “Talk to her nicely. She’s my girlfriend.”

“She’s your what?”

“You heard that right,” I jumped into the conversation.

“Since when?” his gaze darted between the two of us. “I didn’t even know Bryan had a girlfriend.”

“Well, it all happened very fast,” I explained, hoping no one would catch my lie. A small crowd had gathered around us now, and everyone was dying to know our story.

“I asked her to be my girlfriend,” Bryan continued. “We are together now.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jake replied, seeming impressed. “I never thought you would ever get over your commitment issues like that. Who knew it would be Romai to take you off the market?”

“Yep,” Bryan nodded, turning around to smile at me, “I guess we were both surprised.”

“Well, if you have Bryan’s approval, then you have mine,” Jake said, being nice to me for the first time ever. “Friends?”

“Friends.”

Everyone else around him started nodding, too. When I caught their eye, they actually smiled back at me. It felt like a brand-new experience to be actually treated nice by other people.

“Anyway,” Bryan said, pulling on my hand. “If you don’t mind, we have to get ourselves a drink.”

Bryan and I were both laughing when we made our way to the drinks table.

“I can’t believe it,” I said as he handed me a drink. “They’re actually buying it.”

“Of course they are,” he replied, seeming sure of himself. “I’m a great actor.”

“What the hell?” Our moment was interrupted by Kathy, who was shooting daggers at both of us as she finally spotted us. “Bryan, what are you doing here with… her?”

“We came together,” he told her with a shrug of his shoulders. Then, he kissed my cheek.

The color drained from Kathy’s face. She was seething with jealousy.

“You’re…. together?”

“Yeah,” I replied, feeling satisfied with her reaction. “Is there a problem?”

Kathy stumbled on her words. “I… I don’t get it...”

“You don’t have to,” I said, smirking now. “Come on, babe. We should go now.”

Bryan and I walked away. The party was now in full swing, and to my surprise, I was actually having a really good time.

“You wanna play truth and dare?” Bryan grinned at me and then pulled my hand before I could ever answer. “Come on, they’re playing now. It’s going to be really fun.”

We settled into the circle of people that were already playing.

“Look, it’s Bryan and his girlfriend,” one of the girls said, “I think it should be their turn.”

“Bryan, you go first,” another one said, “Truth or dare?”

Bryan chuckled. “I’ll go with truth.”

“He’s playing safe,” Jake jumped in, “Well, lover boy. Tell us what your favorite thing about Romai is.”

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