anything else I’d ever experienced in my life. What we were doing was wrong, forbidden, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t let go of the small body which clung to mine. Now I knew how amazing she felt, how incredible her lips tasted, how was I supposed to go back to waiting out the years till I turned twenty one? How was I supposed to let her walk off into the sunset with someone who wasn’t me?
What startled me the most wasn’t the fact I had let myself cross a line I had known not to test. Or the fact that kissing Nora felt like the truest thing I’d ever done. No, what freaked me out the most was that she was actually kissing me back.
SIX
Nora
Right, confession time. I’d kissed a couple of guys before that night with Paul. It’s not really a huge confession, I was sixteen and guys had been hounding me for the last three years or so. It was inevitable that I’d have dipped my toes in the water, just to see what all the fuss was about. Plus I’d taken care to watch what people in movies did; tilt your head, try not to part your lips too wide, that kind of thing. Don’t even get me started on what the teen magazines I read suggested. I often wondered if the article writers had forgotten who their target audience was.
But I wasn’t one of those girls who waited anxiously for opportunities to swap spit with any guy who asked her. Technically Paul hadn’t asked. If it had been any other guy, I’d have shoved him off and whacked him in the face, hard. But it was Paul. A part of me had wanted him to kiss me from the second I saw him sitting there on his own. I had a feeling if he hadn’t gone for it, I’d have spent the rest of the night crying into my pillow.
Had I daydreamed about that moment in the past? Uhuh! More than a couple of times a week for the last few months. Deeply distracting thoughts I never imagined would come true, because I never thought Paul would admit to liking me. He was a hard one to crack. By our school standards, he could have been one of the popular kids. Good-looking, courteous (most of the time), pretty smart (going on his performance in Physics class), and laid back about stuff (except when he was punching out jerks). Yet he chose to fly under the radar and showed no real interest in anyone other than Cheung. Mind boggling, really.
I already suspected he was interested in me before the drama with Brandon. I’d caught him watching me in class and at lunch breaks, but he always acted like he wasn’t looking whenever I caught his eye. I had been a little confused when he’d freaked out the other day at the café when I’d suggested we become friends.
Which is why, as I sat there with his lips fused to mine, his heady scent filling every pore of my body, his hand tugging away intently at my hair, I wasn’t sure if I had drifted off into a daydream again. I wanted to pinch myself to confirm it was real, but that involved letting go of him and I wasn’t ready for that yet. So I let myself enjoy the little shudders of bliss rippling through my body.
It felt like hours had gone by when I finally slowly pulled away to catch my breath. Opening my eyes, I looked into his dilated pupils, our chests rising and falling in an identical heavy rhythmic motion. Had I really just been kissed by Paul Colt?
His hands grazed my cheeks, still holding my face in place so he could look into my eyes. He grinned, and I smiled back. Then he chuckled, and I giggled too. Damn it, why did his smile have to be so cute?
“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered without a hint of regret in his voice.
I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “It’s not like one kiss means we’re now boyfriend and girlfriend, or something.”
“Because you’re not allowed to date.”
“And you’re not allowed to either.”
The crippling truth hung in the air between us, yet we carried on smiling, because it didn’t matter. Nothing did.
“You know, for a little while I wasn’t sure if you were into me.” Somehow I felt brave enough to admit my fears to him. Kissing him seemed to have done wonders to my tongue.
He raised a brow and tilted his head to the side. “Nora, Nora, Nora. I’ve always liked you. It was just kind of impossible to let you know.”
“The no dating thing?”
He hesitated slightly before nodding. Why didn’t I believe him?
“So why did you try to run off at the café? You made me think I was creeping you out.”
Another chuckle from him. “Because you’re Nora Brice.”
What was that meant to mean? He’d said it like I was supposed to get it. “So?”
Sighing, he lifted his head. “Let me rephrase that. Beautiful little heart breaker, friend to everyone, dater of none. You said it yourself; people think you’re a bit of a tease. I wasn’t sure what you were playing at.”
I must have stiffened because his smile faltered as his eyes narrowed.
“I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re not a tease. You’re just like me, caught in a weird place with few options.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. Bloody stupid ban! Why couldn’t I have come from a family of female assassins or pathological liars? Why did their problem have to be promiscuity? If at least one of them had managed to keep her legs closed, I might have been able to go out on dates like everyone else. I didn’t care much about what people at school thought but I hated that Paul had bought into the idea of me being a flirt. I hadn’t given him any reason not to, but I was still annoyed.
He must have mistaken my continued silence for anger towards him.
“Do you need to go?” His voice was a little shaky.
“No, not yet.”
That was a lie. I should have checked my watch and called Agnes to let her know she didn’t need to pick me up from the party because I was going to find my way home. But that single action would have drawn me back into the real world, a place where Paul’s green eyes might never ever be this close to mine again. I didn’t want to leave the potent bubble we’d been drawn into, not yet.
“But I might kiss you again,” Paul teased, leaning forward to graze my lips with his.
“I’m not complaining.”
As much as I wanted him to, he didn’t kiss me. Instead he pulled my head on to his shoulder and held me tight. Fine, if he wanted to sit in silence, I could do that too. As long as I could remain close to him and not head home.
“Tell me something about you I don’t know.”
We would probably have sat in content quietness if he hadn’t spoken.
Something about myself?
“Like what?”
“I don’t know; something simple. What’s your favourite colour?”
I lifted my head to make sure he wasn’t kidding. “That’s very basic boring stuff. Are you sure you don’t want to hear something riveting?”
He shook his head as he steered mine back on to his shoulder. “Boring stuff’s the important stuff.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him. “Alright, I’ll play along, but this is silly. I’ve always been drawn to green. It reminds me of spring, regrowth, a chance to start over and get things right. I never liked pink like I was told I was supposed to. Agnes kept trying to dress me up in hideous shades of it because that’s what the geniuses at the stores stocked.”
Now that I thought about it, it made sense that I liked green so much. I’d been preparing myself to fall for the colour of his eyes.
“Who’s Agnes?”
Crap, I hadn’t intended for her name to slip out.
“My mother.”
It was his turn to shift, bumping my head off his body. “You call your mother by her first name?”
Why did people always think it had been my idea in the first place?
“And I call my father David. Trust me, they’d freak out if I called them Mum and Dad. Well, Agnes would, for sure. She has something against the word. Says it ages her. David doesn’t mind so much, as long as I stay out of trouble and get good grades.”
He was still looking at me like there was something wrong with that setup. People always thought it was weird, which is why I usually remembered to re
fer to them differently at school.
“What do you call yours then? Daddy dearest? Precious Mummy?”
I wished I hadn’t asked the question the second I saw a strain line touch his forehead. “It’s just me and my Dad. My mother left when I was very young. I don’t have any memories of her.”
Great work, Nora. I was the only one capable of wrecking the perfect mood I’d been trying to preserve.
“That must have been awful.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I put my head back on his shoulder and laced my arm around his waist. All my problems with Agnes and David seemed trivial compared to an absentee parent.
“Not really.” Despite his frown, his tone sounded like he genuinely didn’t mind. “I got used to the idea pretty quickly. It might have been worse if she’d left when I was older.”
It was time to navigate the conversation back to cheerier topics.
“Alright, it’s my turn to ask a question. What was your first pet? I’ve heard your choice of animal says a lot about who you are.”
Turns out he hadn’t owned one. His father had too much on his plate to indulge in the responsibility of taking care of an unnecessary animal. Fair point. We talked about my gold fish instead. Who knew I had so many fond memories of Goldie after all that time? When we were done with Goldie, we moved on to favourite music (mine obviously, as he literally wore his on his chest every day), then favourite food, and on and on we went, covering more basic stuff than I ever imagined we could come up with in one night. It was only when we touched on
Broken Ties (Prequel to The Mentalist Series) Page 7
