He nodded, contemplating this, and I thought, Okay, all is good. Then he said, “This may be out of left field, because I’ve never had a sister, but I’m pretty sure that if I did, I wouldn’t kiss her like that.”

I froze, my hand in his, and despite the drafty Jeep, I felt my face heat. I had a sudden flash of memory of me in the Weeks living room, bombed, kissing a number of people. I recalled kissing Kane, but what I’d thought felt so right—the warm, soft pleasant feeling of his tongue melding with mine—now hit me like a wall of bricks. How incredibly wrong it was. How incredibly wrong I was.

And I’d wanted Declan to send me a flower? I was lucky he was still speaking to me.

“God,” I breathed. “I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t know…”

There was no explanation for it. Saying I was smashed didn’t seem to be enough, because it still made me a jerk, since I’d gone and gotten myself that way. He shrugged, reached out, and smoothed my hair behind my shoulder. “It’s okay, Hail. It’s okay.”

“Don’t be so nice about it!” I said to him. “Yell at me. That was horrible. Oh my God.”

Suddenly, going out to the movies seemed like an exceedingly stupid idea. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. At that moment, I vowed never to drink again.

Instead, I said, “Declan. I love you. I don’t think of Kane that way at all. I must have been out of my mind. I am so sorry.”

He nodded. “I know you are. It’s already forgotten.”

But I could tell that it was still on his mind. Maybe I knew him too well. Declan felt emotions deeply, and I knew there were some scars in his life that he’d never forget, that he’d take to the grave. This would be one of them. This was my first relationship, so I didn’t realize it then, but sometimes the most innocent mistake can cause two people to stop heading in one direction and begin moving in another direction entirely. I felt like we’d turned that corner, and I didn’t like where we were going.

And God, I would’ve given anything to turn us back.

But I couldn’t cancel my little get-together. I’d orchestrated it. So I drove him to the theater, and we barely talked at all. I tried to convince myself it was because the wind ripping through the top made it too hard to carry on a conversation, but that had never stopped us before.