He responds with a jolt of electricity, smile disappearing, arms automatically tightening around me. Warmth shoots through my veins, prickling the tips of my fingers, bright pops of color speckling my vision. The press of his lips is gentle but firm until it isn’t: his fingers thread through my hair, bunching it for a moment in his fist, and the kiss turns bruising.

Before I can register the change, he releases me. He brushes a kiss to the back of my hand while holding my gaze, and somehow the action feels like dropping out of the sky, hundreds of feet from the earth.

Has anyone ever kissed my hand before? It strikes me now as the sweetest possible gesture.

Then he raises our joined hands over my head and twirls me in one fluid motion.

As I revolve, I notice how impossibly slowly Mom’s glass is moving as she lifts it in celebration of us; how Athena’s words, midspeech, are emerging low and stretched, taking an eternity to tumble out. A child’s laughter echoes from another room, sound visibly vibrating the airwaves. And from above, tinsel that landed on the ceiling fan earlier is drifting in slow motion, taking all the time in the world as it glitters past us like camera flashes.

I wonder if the slowing of time is intentional, or if he’s done it subconsciously.

After spinning me in a full circle, my lips still tingling from how unexpectedly—how fiercely—he reciprocated the kiss, the world catches up at rapid speed and no one is any the wiser.

“To Bettie and Hall,” he says quietly at my ear, one side of his mouth hooking back into a grin. The grin is a secret wink, a we fooled ’em, didn’t we. My heart drops, rattling in the pit of my stomach. Of course. It’s all part of the act. He’s gotten uncommonly good at playing the hero.

I try to match his grin, but, foolish as it is, I can’t help myself from thinking: I wish this could have been real.

*

Chapter Thirteen

FOR THE REST of the day, all I can think about is that kiss. Hall doesn’t mention it or behave as though it meant anything, acting his usual self. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? The kiss was fairly chaste, after all. Or is he just playing this incredibly cool? That evening, I march downstairs with the goal of cornering him alone in the kitchen—if I hint around the subject in circles, perhaps I can guess his feelings without having to ask what they are outright. Maybe we’ll kiss some more.

But before I can pounce on him, I hear that somebody’s already beaten me to it.

“So, what would you say your favorite thing about my granddaughter is?”

I wince, backtracking behind the door.

“How do I choose when there are so many options? She smells just enchanting,” Hall informs my grandfather earnestly. “I like the way her hair swoops at the ends. You know? And when she’s telling you to do something you know is bad, she stares at you with this nearly unbearable force, like you couldn’t look away even if the ground opened up beneath your feet, and I find myself feeling quite warm, like I’ve run all the way here from Florida.”