“Listen,” she says, oblivious to my spiraling thoughts, “we don’t have to kiss. Not if you don’t want. You never have to do something with me that makes you uncomfortable. I just figured, since the bowling alley kiss, you didn’t mind—”

“I don’t. Mind, that is.” I stare at her mouth, the line of her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder, and the edge of her tattoo, a swirling dotted line whose composition I can’t figure out. Brushing my fingertips against her cheek, I slip them into her hair. “It’s just . . . different this time. Last time, at the alley, was . . . impulsive.”

She strokes my other palm with her fingertips, her eyes searching mine. “You know, it was a really great kiss,” she says quietly. “In case you were doubting that, or anything. At least, you know, from my side of things.”

Pleasure hums through my body. “I thought so, too.”

“Definitely convincing,” she says, her eyes on my mouth. “We had them eating out of our hands.”

“Definitely.”

“So.” She clears her throat, blinking away. “You kissed me last time. How about this time, I’ll kiss you? It’s only fair.”

“You’ll kiss me?”

She nods seriously, her eyes meeting mine again. “And you better kiss me back.”

I feel the rare impulse to smile as an odd pang of affection thrums in my chest. “I promise to kiss you back. For plausibility’s sake, of course.”

“Plausibility.” Bea smiles. “Of course.”

The air’s warmer, the space between us heavy with silence. I break it, taking the final step that sets us toe-to-toe as the wind sends her skirt billowing against my legs. “Ready?” I whisper.

Slowly, she presses up on tiptoe, her eyes on my mouth. “I hope so.”

I bend, closing the distance between us.

When our mouths meet, plausibility is the last thing on my mind.

· NINETEEN ·

Bea

Jamie leans closer, warm and tall, his hazel eyes glowing as he peers down at me. My knees weaken a little, and I don’t mean to grab his shirt, wrinkling the fabric inside my fists, but I do. I need something to hold on to, something to anchor me as the world fades around us.

His hands rest gently at the base of my throat, both thumbs sweeping across my collarbones. A shower of sparks beneath my skin follows in their wake as my heart pounds against my ribs.

I’m reminded forcefully that I got the short end of the stick. It’s much easier to kiss someone in the heat of the moment, the way Jamie did at the bowling alley. But now? Now I’m the one who has to kiss him while moonlight bathes his beautiful face in an otherworldly glow and the wind throws my skirt his way, as if nature itself is urging me toward him. My determination dissolves. This doesn’t feel safe or fake.

It feels dangerously real.