Page 75 of Icing Hearts

“Rules are more exciting when broken.”

“Answer or you lose.”

“I’ll answer. Though, I feel I’ve already lost quite a lot.” He levels me with a look and the air shifts, buzzing with golden possibility and midnight doom and starlit promise. Tory’s eyes never waver from mine as he says, “You scrawled notes all over a piece of scrap paper in history one day. You must have been reading Romeo and Juliet in English class. I saw you toss it, so I took it out of the bin.”

“My turn. Did Vince invite you over for Thanksgiving?” Something like hope blooms in his eyes.

I look at him for a long time, knowing that I don’t want to tell him, but that I have to. That it will change things again and give that hope something to hold on to. I nod.

He lowers his head, an entirely new emotion taking over—darker, sultry, and victorious. Tory’s top lip lifts, almost in a snarl as he says, “Use your words.”

“Yes,” I breathe. “He—he invited me over late.” I pause, knowing I can stop there. The game doesn’t require an explanation. But something inside me needs to tell him. So I say, “I picked you.”

His mouth parts, corners pulling into the most heavenly smile I’ve ever been blessed to witness. I think he’s going to respond to my admission. But instead he says, “Your turn.”

“When did you get the tattoo? I’ve seen you without a shirt an inordinate number of times and this is new.”

“Right after Thanksgiving.”

He rises to his full height, stalking closer through the swirling bubbles. Tory laces his fingers through mine and pulls me to my feet. The movement is painfully, tantalizingly slow, but brutish and rough.

“Do you want to see it more closely?”

“Sure.”

Tory turns away, and I study him without him doing the same to me. When my fingers absently rise to trace the letters, his back arches ever so slightly in response to my touch.

It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful.

My heart pounds in my ears as I ask my next question.

“Tory.” I pause. “Why did you get a romantic tattoo of a romantic quote I scrawled on a piece of paper two months ago?”

Tory turns to face me, goosebumps erupting along his collarbone in response to a gentle breeze against wet skin. “Do you really need to ask?” he says. His toned abdomen presses into mine, and I let my hands slither up his chest and around his neck, hooking his nape at my elbows.

“That was the second time you answered a question with a question. You lost the game.”

He breathes a laugh through a crooked smirk. “I wanted a piece of you on me. Forever.”

Those lips creep so close to mine. My eyes long to shutter because I know what happens next, and when you kiss someone, you’re supposed to close your eyes. But I can’t. Because he smells of cinnamon and culmination. He feels like breaking family expectations and starting to think for myself. All I want to do is stare. Maybe if I just keep my eyes open, I’ll be able to replay it over and over again until the day I die. Even if I live to be old and gray, it won’t be enough.

It’s possible that I’m shaking. Maybe trembling. Because the anticipation of what’s about to happen is so completely beautiful and overwhelming and tantalizing.

I want to stop.

Hit pause.

Step outside of this moment and watch it inside a fishbowl. This moment deserves to be frozen and commemorated.

Then he smiles.

He smiles, and I feel the curve of his smile against my lips. And we haven’t even kissed but our lips are touching, and I can’t move. My chest flutters wildly. The trembling is likely obvious. So I dig my fingertips into the fleshy muscle of his triceps, clinging desperately as if someone is trying to drag me away from this moment—from him. Him. Always him.

And when I do that he makes this sound.

Thissound.

Although calling it a sound really does it a disservice because it’s…music. Unabashed laughter, rain in the summertime, the crash of a mighty ocean, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40. They all pale in comparison. Because this—this little part moan part gasp that drags from his mouth on an inhale—it is absolutely the dreamiest melody I’ve ever been blessed to witness.

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