Back Out of Character
Chapters (53)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. Chapter Forty-Two
  46. Chapter Forty-Three
  47. Excerpt for Conventionally Yours
  48. Chapter One
  49. Chapter Two
  50. Book Club Treasure Hunt
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. About the Author
  53. Back Cover

“It wasn’t an experiment.” Making a face, Milo gestured at the still foggy windshield. “Come. On. Stupid heater. The one thing that I don’t like about this car.”

“The hell it wasn’t an experiment.” Now I was mad. And I didn’t get mad very often, but I’d had about an eight-year running start on this head of steam. “Look at you right now, desperate to get away from the fact that you kissed me. And I could tell it wasn’t something you do on the regular. You haven’t kissed a guy before, have you?”

“You could tell?” Milo made a horrified noise that would have been adorable under other circumstances. “It was bad?”

No, actually it was stupendous, gloriously good. But I wasn’t admitting that. “The fact that you don’t know whether it was good or bad is more proof that this was some sort of walk on the wild side—”

“Stop saying that.” Milo punctuated his demand by finally putting the car in gear and heading to the exit.

“Oh. I’m sorry. You just happened to collide mouths with the guy you couldn’t stand until a few days ago. Yep. Totally normal everyday occurrence. Dude bros do that all the time, right?”

“Would you stop?” Milo braked harder than necessary at the bottom of the parking-garage ramp.

“Watch it.” I almost lost my grip on the card display case. Turning, I gently transferred it to the back before something could happen to it—like me losing all patience and launching it at Milo’s head. Which would be ill-advised and totally unlike me, but I wasn’t exactly feeling the most composed right then. Better not risk it.

Milo glared at me as soon as I settled back into my seat. “I never said I couldn’t stand you. You’re the one who hates me—with good reason.”

“Oh? You did a really good impression of it for years.” I still wasn’t over high school. Earlier in the day, I’d thought some of my hurt was mellowing, but now the kiss had brought everything I’d tried to ignore right back to the surface.

“I know. I fucked up. Both back then and again right now. I gave you a bad kiss you didn’t want in the middle of a parking garage where anyone could have seen us.” Milo made the turn out of the parking garage to head for the interstate. His tone was as mournful as his eyes. “I get why you’re so angry at me. I do. But you’ve also got it all wrong.”