I thought the answer was pretty much obvious. “I need to win prom queen.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh, even though I knew he wanted to. “Why?”
I blinked. “Why?”
He nodded. “Why?”
God, if this was anyone else, I would never spell it out. But then again, if he was anyone else, I wouldn’t have to.
“Because I’m a winner,” I said. “It’s what I do.” I used that over-the-top haughty tone that usually made him laugh, but he kept staring at me, all serious and all seeing.
I shifted in my seat and looked out the windshield to the empty parking lot beyond.
He was quiet while he waited for me to continue. This guy knew how to use silence as a weapon.
I relented with a sigh. “Look, I know you don’t understand the whole popularity thing.”
“That’s true,” he said slowly, quietly. “But I want to.”
I turned my head to face him. “Popularity equals power.”
His gaze was dark and intense and I had the super uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing into all the dark places of my soul.
Awesome.
I started babbling in the face of his earnest sincerity. “Popularity means not getting walked on or ignored.” Oh hell, I was saying too much.
“So does respect,” he said.
I let out a loud exhale. He didn’t get it. “You’re naïve.”
He arched his brows again, his lips twitching up with amusement. “You’re jaded.”
I narrowed my eyes, struggling not to smile as he leaned in and I did the same. “You’re unpopular,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He grinned then and it lit up his face, and made his eyes do that crinkly thing at the corners that was just too damned sexy. He lowered his voice and leaned in closer as if to let me in on a secret. “You’re nice.”
“Ugh.” I feigned disgust as I rolled my eyes. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But you’re not as bad as I’d thought.”
I was keenly aware of how close he was. How close we both were. There were mere inches between us as we leaned in. I could have pulled back, but then again, so could he.
Neither of us did.
My brain felt scrambled. I was losing the threads of this conversation. Maybe I was losing my mind altogether. My voice came out far too breathy when I finally came up with the appropriate retort. “And I guess you’re not as much of a loser as I’d thought.”
His gaze met mine and holy crap was it sexy. His smile had faded and the air between us grew thick with tension.
No…anticipation.
I forgot how to breathe as I waited for his response.
“Careful,” he said softly. “That was almost…sweet.”
I let out a soft laugh but it was cut short by his kiss.
Oh hell, his kiss was perfect. Soft and tender, his lips firm and warm as they slanted over mine. Unlike the last kiss, this one was slow and sweet, his lips nudging mine apart, his tongue teasing mine like we had all the time in the world.
Like this was only the beginning.
I didn’t mean to moan but it came out soft and low, and I felt his response as the kiss became more intimate. His hands slid into my hair, holding me to him like I was infinitely precious. Like I was some delicate and breakable treasure to be cherished.
My heart fluttered in my chest, beating so rapidly and aching so painfully all at once.
When he finally pulled back and we caught our breath, I leaned back against my car seat and had two random thoughts at once.
This was a mistake.
And also, this was the best mistake I’d ever made.
Chapter Six
Julian
I shouldn’t have done it. I’d told myself I wouldn’t kiss her again, but of course I did. Who did I think I was fooling thinking I could resist her forever?
I prided myself on having good self-control, but it wasn’t like I was some saint. I watched Tina’s gaze return to normal, that dreamy, dazed expression fading.
I didn’t want to see it go—I loved when she looked at me like that.
Like she felt it too.
But I had to stop this before it got out of control. I gripped the steering wheel and took a deep steadying breath. It had to stop this before it got any more out of control, because let’s face it, I was already off the rails here.
After that first kiss, I’d come to my senses…eventually. I’d realized the next day that what had happened couldn’t happen again. At least, not anytime soon. My head was in no place for a new relationship and I couldn’t do anything less. I wasn’t one of those guys who could just hook up and walk away. And even if I could, it would have been impossible with this girl.
Tina was in my system. She’d gotten into my blood.
Cheesy? Perhaps. But true. Maybe it was just the timing of it all—the way we’d found each other when we needed someone who understood. Maybe this connection between us would fade along with our heartaches.
Maybe.
But I didn’t think so. Mutual heartbreaks might have been what brought us together, but over the past couple weeks, Tina had become my friend. Maybe more than my friend.
I shook my head quickly to rid myself of that thought. I wasn’t going there, remember?
For now, at least, we were friends. I didn’t want to ruin that because my body had a thing for her body. I glanced over and saw her licking her lips and taking deep breaths.
Yeah, that was so not helping my situation. I focused on my hands that still gripped the steering wheel. Eventually I couldn’t take the silence any longer. I had no idea what she was thinking. I had a pretty good idea what she was feeling physically, because I felt it too. But what she was thinking was a mystery. Then again, the way her mind worked was pretty much always a mystery to me. That was part of the fun. She never ceased to surprise me.
I cleared my throat. “So,” I said slowly.
“So,” she repeated just as slowly.
“That happened,” I finished.
She let out a short laugh and the sound was such a relief in that awkward silence that I started to laugh too.
We’d kissed twice and both times ended with laughter. Was that weird? Maybe. But it felt good to be laughing. Almost as good as it felt to be kissing.
The fact was, being around Tina felt good.
That fact was still amusing and startling and just a little insane. I mean, this was Tina. This was Briarwood’s resident mean girl, its psycho sweetheart, its crazyface, its drama queen.
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t any of those things. If she ever had been, she wasn’t anymore. When I looked over again, she still wore a small smile, a remnant from her laughter.
“You are beautiful.” The words just sort of slipped out and when she turned to face me I saw her surprise.
I cleared my throat, reaching out to brush back a lock of light brown hair. “I meant to tell you that earlier.” I was striving for normal but my voice just sounded strained. “I like your hair.”
Her answering smile was enigmatic. A hint of the cocky, impish grin I’d come to love but mixed with a shyness that was new and heart wrenching.
Which was the real Tina?
Both. That was the beauty of it. The beauty of her. She wasn’t a mean girl and she wasn’t a sweetheart. She wasn’t cocky and she wasn’t humble. She was everything in-between.
I mean, I guess we all were. No one was so black and white as we’d like to believe. But with Tina the dichotomy was fascinating and every time I caught a glimpse of a new facet of her character it made me want to dig deeper, to know her better.
I wanted to know all of her, inside and out.
She tugged at a strand of her hair and peered at it as though she’d never seen her hair before. “I still don’t know what came over me.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked up at me and I saw the confusion written all over her face.
“I mean…” She threw her hands up. “I mean, I don’t recognize myself these days. I’m all over the place.”
I nodded. “Welcome to the club.”
She shot me a quick look. “It’s not the same. You’re reeling from your first heartbreak. Of course you’re feeling out of sorts.”
Out of sorts? More like insane. I just kissed Tina Withers. For the third time. My world was no longer right-side up. My life was barely recognizable some days, and my heart? Well I had no idea what the status was there.
But sure, out of sorts worked too.
“You’re getting over a heartbreak too,” I pointed out. I loved to state the obvious.
“Yes but it’s not the same thing,” she said.
I assumed she meant because she’d broken up with Alex so often, but she surprised me when she continued. “I wasn’t in love with Alex.” She shrugged and I saw a hint of pink in her cheeks. “Not anymore, at least.”
Something in me eased, a twisted knot I didn’t know I’d had inside me uncoiled. Holy crap, I’d been jealous. And not in the same way I’d been with Leila. I wasn’t even sure I could call that dark emotion jealousy. It had been something far more complicated. It had been less old-fashioned jealousy and more deep-seated anxiety. It had been a noxious, overwhelming sensation of being duped or the butt of a joke.
Which I supposed I had been. Neat.
But this? The tension in my gut that I hadn’t even acknowledged, the one that had been growing since our first conversation in the stockroom?
It was jealousy. Envy. The old green-eyed monster. I’d been jealous of Alex, and it had nothing to do with his good looks or his charm. I’d been envious because he’d had Tina’s heart.
What the hell?
I found myself staring at her with my jaw hanging open but luckily she wasn’t looking my way.
“You were right,” she said as she twisted that same lock of now-brown hair around her pointer finger, back to examining it with avid interest.
“I was right?” I could only repeat her words because I was in something of a daze.
She nodded. “You were right that I’d been with him because it was familiar. It wasn’t exactly easy, but it was easier than being without him.” She wrinkled up her nose as she looked at me. “Does that even make sense?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it definitely does. The devil you know, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” But she didn’t look convinced. “There was more to it though,” she said slowly. “I think…”
I watched her swallow. Then I watched her tongue flick out to lick her lips, the dead giveaway that she was uncomfortable.
“It’s so hard to walk away from someone who makes you feel wanted and pretty and understood and…” Her voice kind of faltered at the end.
“Loved?”
She let out a long breath. “Yeah.”
We didn’t look at each other. She wasn’t crying and she wasn’t moaning about it, but I could feel her loss as surely as if it was my own. “I’m sorry,” I said. It was a lame thing to say but my chest was aching on her behalf.
She lifted her head and turned her head to face me. “I’m not,” she said with a decisive shake of her head. “I’m not sorry it’s over.”
She held my gaze for so long I wondered if she was going to speak or if I was going to kiss her again. The latter was a tempting option.
One side of her mouth lifted up in a half smile. “It wasn’t real on his part either,” she said. “He doesn’t love me anymore, and I know that. So if I continued I’d just be settling, right? I’d be settling for some half-assed version of love.”
Before I could reply, she continued. “And I’m too good for that, right? I mean, I don’t settle for knockoff brands so why would I settle for a boyfriend who doesn’t really love me?”
I kept silent because she wasn’t really expecting a response. It was clear she was working through all this in her own head and I was here to listen. And I was fine with that because I was still trying to figure out what was going on with me.
I mean, I’d started this day thinking I could be friends with Tina. I’d thought maybe this bond between us was just a side effect of our similar circumstances. But now I had to face the fact that maybe this was more. At least, for me.
I’d been telling myself since that first kiss that we needed to go slow because she still had feelings for Alex and I still had feelings for Leila. But she didn’t love Alex, not anymore.
And me?
I cleared my throat and gripped the steering wheel again, clenching and unclenching my hands on the wheel. “I’m not in love with Leila anymore either.”
I felt Tina’s eyes on me. “You’re not?”
I shook my head. “I think I fell out of love with her a while ago, if it ever was love.” I turned to face her, my own crazy thoughts pouring out of me before I could stop them. “Can it be love if it’s so one-sided?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t think so. I think that’s infatuation. And even that…” I shook my head as I tried to put my feelings for the last few months into words. “Even that feeling turned into something dark toward the end.”
“How so?” I heard her shift so she was facing me, the interest in her voice unmistakable. But was she just curious as a friend or did she have the same vested interest that I had in her emotional state.
I gripped the steering wheel again, focusing on the feel of its solid weight in my hands. “It stopped being fun,” I said. “It stopped being about good conversations or flirting or even making out.”
She was quiet on her side of the car, patiently waiting.
“Toward the end it was just such a struggle,” I finally said. “I was always worried that I’d messed up, or worried what she was doing when she wasn’t with me. When we were together she always seemed distracted or like she wanted to be somewhere else, or maybe just with someone else.”
The only sound in the car was our breathing and I focused on the sound of it, on the way she smelled, on the way I could feel her in the car with me, my body attuned to hers so that it was constantly aware of her every movement.
Having said all that aloud, I felt better. Relieved. Like a weight had been lifted.
“I’m glad you’re over her.” Her voice was soft and uncharacteristically vulnerable. “She didn’t deserve you.”
I nodded, uncertain what to say to that. No one deserved to get hurt like that. But it was still nice to hear.
After another long silence she spoke again and this time her voice was a little louder and sounded far more normal. “So…this still doesn’t resolve my prom issue.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” Laughing, I turned to see her giving me that impish grin.
God, she was beautiful. Her eyes were lit up with laughter. She looked less cynical than I’d ever seen her. The urge to lean forward and kiss her senseless was nearly overwhelming.
I swear she saw it in my eyes because she tilted her head to the side. “Are we ever going to talk about that kiss?” She pursed her lips for a second before adding. “Or should I say those kisses, plural?”
I lowered my brows and pretended to think it over. “We never did talk about that first kiss, huh?”
She shook her head, silent laughter making her shoulders shake. “We never did.”
I let out a weary sigh. “And now we have a whole new kiss to address?”
She laughed out loud at that. “It’s too much, right?”
“Way too much,” I said. “We don’t have to figure all this out today, do we?”
“Definitely not,” she said. “I mean, I just definitively ended things with my long-term boyfriend. One thing at a time.”
“Exactly,” I added. “Everybody just slow their roll.”
“Yes!” She was outright laughing now even as she feigned disgust. “God, what’s the rush, people?”
“Seriously.” I let out a dramatic huff of indignation that had us both laughing like morons. An invisible weight in the atmosphere h
ad lightened and it seemed like we were both giddy with the lack of oxygen.
Maybe we were both laughing with relief that we’d given ourselves a pardon. We’d let ourselves off the hook.
And thank God. I seriously had no idea what was going on between us. Well, I had some idea, but I definitely wasn’t ready to face it. I couldn’t even admit it to myself while she was smiling at me like that, let alone tell her to her face that I had a suspicion I might be falling hard and fast for my new BFF.
“We have too much going on right now,” she said. “Let’s not read too much into a stupid kiss.”
“Or two,” I added quickly, mainly because I wasn’t loving this new turn in the conversation. Stupid kiss? I might not have been ready to talk about what it meant, but those kisses—and more than that, these conversations—they meant something.
Right?
“We should avoid any more complications,” she said.
“Definitely.” Because we absolutely should. That much was obvious, but…
“So we’re friends then,” she said.
The relief in her voice made me stiffen. I mean, we were friends, but also…
“Great,” she said before I could come up with a good response. “Friends.” She said it in a tone that brooked no arguments.
We were friends, but somehow agreeing would have made me feel like a liar. A liar by omission, maybe, but still a liar. So I sat there and stewed, my gut churning in discomfort as I realized that I’d just agreed by default to stay in the friend zone with a girl I might very well have a crush on.
No, there was no ‘might’ about it. I liked her. I liked Tina Withers.
She shifted so she was a little closer to me, her knees brushing up against mine. “Do you know what friends do?”
I cast her a sidelong glance, wary at her wheedling, teasing tone. “They braid each other’s hair?”
She ignored me. “They help one another out.”
“Uh huh.” I narrowed my eyes in her direction. I had a suspicion where this was going and it made me distinctly uneasy. “Like, for example, sitting in a tiny car for nearly an hour to listen to their friend’s breakup woes?”
The Prom Kiss Page 10
