“Evelyn, I don’t think you understand. I feel like a bus ran me over. This is too much.”

“What about this: you revise with me and in return you get a kiss after every correct answer. Deal?”

Noelle’s head shot up so quickly I feared she got whiplash.

“Deal. But only if I also get one for every wrong answer you give.”

“Okay.” Ignoring the blush painting my cheeks pink, I picked up the page with all the questions we were supposed to answer and cleared my throat. “First question. What was Emily Brontë’s pen name?”

“Easy. Ellis Bell,” Noelle smugly said.

“Correct.”

Noelle scribbled the answer onto her worksheet before she reached out and pulled me into a coffee-flavored kiss.

When she leaned back, her expression was significantly brighter than before. “Okay, your turn. Please feel free to give a wrong answer,” she said. “When was Wuthering Heights published? Uh, I mean first published, sorry.”

“Oh no, I’m bad with dates. I think . . . in the eighteenth century?”

Noelle shook her head, grinning at me. “Close, but not the correct answer. It was published in the nineteenth century—1847, to be precise.”

With Noelle already cupping my cheek and pulling me in again, I couldn’t even be mad.

Slightly out of breath, I said, “Elle, we’re never going to finish all the questions if you keep doing this.”

“Hey, this was your idea. You can’t just promise things like that and chicken out later.”

With a breathless chuckle, I picked the next question. “Okay.

What is Edgar Linton doing when he’s introduced for the first time?”

“I don’t know . . . running after Catherine? He’s always just running after Catherine.”

“No,” I said. “He’s weeping over a puppy. Next question.”

“How are Ha . . . Hareton and Catherine related?”

“Catherine is Hareton’s aunt.”

“Correct,” she said. There was a frustrated edge to her voice and somehow I was pretty sure it wasn’t because I got the answer right. It was then I realized this was the first time I was hearing her read something out loud.

“Who is the main narrator of the book?” I asked.

“God, what was his name . . . Lock . . . Lockwood?”

“Yes, well done!”

I had intended for it to be just a short peck, but Noelle grabbed my face before I could back away and I was too far gone to do anything but kiss her back. My mistake in suggesting this game began to dawn on me; it was like one of those drinking games where the longer it went, the drunker you got, leading to you getting even worse at the game and in turn drinking even more.

I hadn’t stood a chance to begin with.

This time, it was Noelle who pulled back. A little haltingly, she read, “In what region of England is the story set?”

“Gloucestershire, I think?”

“Oh babe, you’re lacking concentration. I feel like you’re really not taking this seriously,” Noelle teased. “It’s set in Yorkshire.”