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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

‘I really want to kiss you right now,’ she says, and as I watch her eyes go from bright blue to black, I can feel myself shaking, this tremor that starts in the middle of my chest and ripples out – out, out – like a stone skimming the surface of a lake. ‘But I already know where our first kiss will be.’

‘Where’s that?’ I hear myself ask and I honestly don’t know how because it feels like I haven’t drawn a breath for a very long time.

‘You’ll see tomorrow,’ she tells me.

And just like that, we have a tomorrow.

Six

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SIX

My instinct is to call Adara as soon as Poppy and I say goodbye at the Old Steine, but something stops me. I just want to hold on to this feeling for a moment longer – just a moment – before I tell Adara and she warns me to be careful. She’ll do that thing she does whenever she’s in mine and Rosh’s room, touching everything and putting it back in the wrong place until everything Poppy said today is grubby and dissected to the point that it loses all meaning. The magic of it all smudged away as I lie awake wondering if it really did feel that way or if I just want it to.

No. Tonight, I want to lie awake for a different reason. I want the thought of where Poppy wants to kiss me to keep me from sleep. I wonder where it is. If she knew before she met me. If she saw it and thought, this would be a great place to kiss someone. Or did she think, this would be a great place to kiss Ash? I want to know what she was thinking when she thought of me. I wonder if she’ll warn me or just reach for me, like in the movies, sweep me off my feet in the middle of the street and kiss me until it feels like my feet are no longer touching the ground.

Or maybe it’s somewhere only she knows. Some secret spot that will always be ours. Somewhere we’ll write our initials and revisit in ten years when we’re in the supermarket and I’m tired and pissy and don’t care that oat milk is on special offer. Or when we’re Christmas shopping and bickering over what to buy my mother. Somewhere we can go back to that will remind us of our first kiss, when we were sixteen and our hearts felt brand new.

I know – I know – I’m getting ahead of myself again. After all, we’ve only been on one date. But I allow myself to wallow in it for a moment, to imagine what her mouth will feel like on mine. If she’ll taste of coffee or something only I know.

Something I’ll never tell anyone.

Not even Adara.