He laughed. “Okay then.” He leaned forward.

This time I didn’t dodge the kiss. Or make it randomly European. I took it right on the mouth. And his lips felt nothing like my kiss thief’s.

“Thank you so much!” I said. I was officially down to a normal dozen suspects.

He smiled at me. “Anytime, Scarlett.”

“Can you please tell Billy O’Reilly to come over here?” Sophie asked.

“We’re about to play.”

“Just tell him.”

“Sure thing.” He put his helmet on as he jogged off.

I watched as he talked to Billy in the huddle.

Billy looked over at us. But then Uncle Matt said something and Billy turned back to the huddle.

“Darn it,” I said. “How did we not think about the fact that the team was going to be busy playing the whole time? I’ve only gotten to check off one guy.”

“Definitely not August?”

“Definitely not. Twelve more to go.”

Some random guys started getting in our line again.

“Billy!” Sophie yelled, ignoring the line forming.

Billy turned his head again.

Sophie waved him over.

He snuck out of the huddle and ran over to us. “You guys, I’m kinda busy right now.”

“Just kiss Scarlett real quick,” Sophie said.

“I don’t have any cash on me,” he said.

“We’ll pay you $5 to plop one on her.”

Okay...this was mortifying.

“Wait, you’re paying for the kisses?” Billy laughed. “I’m not sure that’s how a kissing booth is supposed to work.”

“Well, the money is going to the football team,” Sophie said. “And you’re on the football team.”

“Right, but...”

“Just kiss her!”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” He turned to me.

I leaned forward. I really didn’t want my kiss thief to be Billy. He’d taken so many cheap shots on Jacob during that boxing match. But maybe he’d taken cheap shots because he...liked me?

He pressed his lips against mine.

Nope. It was all wrong. I quickly pulled back and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Billy!” Uncle Matt blew his whistle. “What the heck are you doing over there?”

“Gotta run,” Billy said and ran back over to the huddle.

“Can you send over Eli Jones?!” Sophie shouted, but Billy didn’t respond.

And then all the guys were running onto the field.

“Billy is definitely not the kiss thief,” I said. “And this isn’t going to work.”

“What are you talking about? You already narrowed it down to 11 guys.”

“But all 11 of the guys left are on the field. Maybe we can try to lure them over here during halftime? And shut it down in the meantime?”

“But we have a line,” Sophie whispered.

Yeah. We did. And I didn’t want to mouth kiss any of these random guys. “If you hadn’t chucked that chalk, we could have written that it was closed until halftime.”