Never Sweeter(56)

It was the only possible response to everything he had done.

And all the things he had said.

Since the stairwell, she thought.

But it only made her dazed expression worse. By the time they got to her door she felt as though she’d just staggered through the rubble of a postapocalyptic wasteland. Her hair was sticking up on one side where she’d worried at it. Her eyes seemed to be staring far too intently at every single thing about him. And when she finally got words out, they were not the ones she had intended.

Play it cool, her mind insisted.

But her mouth had her other ideas.

“Do you want to come inside?”

Of course she immediately realized her mistake. His answering expression said it all. A grin stuttered across his face, followed by an excruciatingly disbelieving laugh. It was the one he used to aim at her when she tried to do something outside her wheelhousesomething cool maybeand it made her flush all over just like it had then. It made her want to correct him: no, I didn’t mean for more sex.

Only it was too late to clarify. Much too late.

“I would love to, but I really got to get some sleep.”

“Oh right, yeah, absolutely.”

“My wake up call’s, like, six thirty.”

“No, you don’t have to explain, it’s cool.”

She tried to laugh like he had as she turned to put her key in the lock, but it didn’t come out right. Her voice was too hollow, her amusement too tinged with that raw, red embarrassment. And it got worse the longer he just stood there. Why was he just standing there? He was supposed to go now.

Instead, he seemed to have gotten closer.

His voice seemed to have dipped lower.

“So that’s just it, huh? You’re going in. Goodbye.”

“Well, yeah, you just…said…You have to go.”

“Man, I can see I’m gonna have to give you as much of an education in how to be in a relationship as I am in all the crazy sex stuff. But that’s cool. That’s okay. We can start here.”

“Start where?”

She looked up at him as she asked, expecting to see that laughter in his eyes. The faint smile on his lips.

And that was when he kissed her. Right in the middle of those lingering memories and still-present doubts, right when she was at her most vulnerable. He just leaned right down and took her face in his two hands, lips pressing so sweetly to hers you would never know what they’d just done. It was almost chaste, that kiss. It was the kind of thing two teenage sweethearts might try at first.

But that made the loveliest sense to her.

They were teenage sweethearts.

They just hadn’t known it at the time.

They hadn’t understood what this would be like: all bright and burning and brilliant. He barely did anything beyond that one tender push of his mouth against hers, yet somehow it set her heart pounding in her teeth. Her lips were tingling in all the places where he made contact, and they continued to long after he had pulled away. As though he had tattooed her there with his feelings, she thought, then had to fight to stop herself saying something stupid and gushing and amazed.

Not that it would have mattered if she had. His first word was not a word at all.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.”

“That…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you…feel that?”

“I felt that.”

He seemed to sag when she admitted it.

With relief, she thought, then wanted to cry.

Doubly so, when he spoke again.

“I think maybe I changed my mind about coming in.”

“That’s probably for the best. I need you to carry me the three feet to my bed.”

“Well I’m screwed then, because I was going to ask you to carry me. You might have to carry me. Feels like my knees just dissolved and ran right down my legs.”

“I want to mock you for being a romantic cliché, but I can’t because the butterflies in my stomach are trying to eat me alive and my heart is about five seconds away from exploding. Seriously, I might need a paramedic. You should call 911. Tell them I’m dying of feelings for someone.”

“Oh, say that again. Say it again only slower, way slower, super, super slow.”

He leaned as he said this, but that only made it harder to do.

Impossible, in fact. All she could do was blush and give excuses.

“I can’t. I’m embarrassed now.”

“That just makes it better. That means you mean it, right? You mean that you have feelings for me.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that that is the case. You’ll have to speak to my attorney.”

“Should I tell him or her that I have feelings for you, or will that come out later in court?”

“I guess…I guess it depends how guilty you are.”