Except she’s already pulling away. The song has ended, and now Jack shakes her head and laughs breezily as if to emphasize that it was a joke all along, that it never stopped being a joke.

I do the same, releasing my hold on her hips and giggling, so she’ll never know that for one minute, dancing with her in this stolen cabin, I thought it all was real.

Jack takes her loose limbs and tucks them back into a rigid posture. She busies herself with the record collection. My body buzzes with anxiety and an almost-kiss, and I think we’re both going to pretend that moment between us never happened, let it float away in a haze of whisky and Celine Dion. But then Jack settles another record on the turntable, and “Holly Jolly Christmas” fills the room.

She turns to face me. “Nothing can happen between us tonight,” she says over the sound of Burl Ives. “You’re still with my brother, and I can’t betray him like that, even if he did cheat on you with Dylan.”

“I know. I understand,” I say, even though I don’t. We’re standing two feet apart, close enough to touch in a dozen different places, but not touching anywhere.

“Why did you kiss me in the bathroom last night?” I ask.

“Elle, let’s not—”

“Honesty game.”

Jack stares down at her fingers, helplessly holding onto the record sleeve like it can protect her. She exhales. “I kissed you in the bathroom because I wanted to. Because I literally always want to be kissing you. Because seeing you with my brother did nothing to change those feelings, no matter how much I hoped it would.”

I try to take a deep breath, but I have too many ribs, too many feelings. Jack stares at me from two feet away. No, she stares at my mouth. I involuntarily swipe my bottom lip with my tongue. “Elle.” Jack says my name so delicately, I can barely stand it. “Why did you kiss me in the bathroom?”

I bite down on my bottom lip.

“Honesty game,” Jack says.

“Because I wanted to.” I breathe the words out. “Because I’m not over you. Because I realized I was never over you the moment I saw you at the cabin, because you’re all I think about, because being with Andrew could never change that, because—”

Jack is a blur of movement, her hands on my face, her body against mine, and this time, it doesn’t matter if she kisses me or if I kiss her, because we’re kissing.

Chapter Twenty-Four

There is something impossibly magical about knowing Jack is kissing me because she wants to.

Fingers in my hair, her mouth on mine. And oh. Oh, the taste of her whisky lips, the sweetness of her, the solidness and strength of her body holding mine.