When I sit up, Kylie copies my movements. After carefully prying open the folded-up piece of paper, ensuring I don’t rip it, my eyes stray to Kylie. “Do you have a pen?”
She dives up from the blanket to snag a pencil from the table housing her hideous drawings. Once I have the paper open, I brace it against my thigh, then raise my eyes to Kylie. “Cross it off.”
In the silence of the night, the crazy beat of her heart can’t be missed. She kneels next to me while chewing on the end of the pencil. Her nervous, scared eyes stare into mine for several heart-thrashing seconds before they drop to the paper balancing on my thigh.
With one hand on my thigh and the other clutching a red pencil, she crosses out the very first item on her list.
1.Fall in love.
Kylie has had this list for years. She wrote it after watching a movie calledThe Bucket List.She explained she wanted to have a list of things to achieve to ensure she lived a full, adventurous life. We’ve crossed a few items off her list the past three months, but scratching this one off is by far the most rewarding one for me.
After folding the paper back together, I hand it to Kylie. “That’s not fair,” she whispers, placing her list back in her pocket. “You don’t have a list.”
Hiding my smirk, I pull her down onto the blanket, then glide my body along hers. This time, she doesn’t push me off. Her shallow, excited breaths fan my cheeks as she glances up at me with needy, hungry eyes.
“I… l-l-like you too.”
She pushes me off her for the second time. . .
My eyes float up to Kylie when she hands me the paperwork for today’s press conference. “Do you still have your list?”
Smiling, she taps her pen on a hidden pocket in her dress. Now I’m curious, and somewhat petrified, to discover what items she’s crossed off without me.
Chapter Eighteen
Kylie
Ifreeze halfway out of the bathroom when I notice Melanie sitting at the desk in my room with my bucket list and a black pen. “What are you doing?”
“It was all so boring.” She pulls a face like she’s in the process of dying. “I just added a little more sparkle to your list.”
Her eyes flick up from the tattered paper to me when I murmur, “I was only fourteen at the time.”
“That’s no excuse.” She lifts the well-used paper off the desk so she can see it without the reading glasses she swears she doesn’t need. “Number twenty-four, kiss a guy with tongue.” She gags, mortified I hadn’t achieved that by the time I made my list. “Number thirty-three, cut one class at school.One!”
Her overdramatic eye roll forces a ghost of a smile to crack on my lips. Her tone alters from playful to disgusted as she reads another three items off my list. When giggles bellow out of her so rampantly, her body shakes, I snatch my list out of her hand. Panic clutches my gut when I hear paper tearing. A sob rips from my throat when my eyes drop to half of my list still in my hand. The other half is in Melanie’s. I’ve had this list for years. This is its first tear.
Melanie’s wide eyes dart between the two fragments of torn paper before she yanks open the drawer under the desk. She groans something about the hotel being useless for not having the right accessories in every desk before she bolts into her room.
Within seconds, she returns with a roll of scotch tape. Carefully, she removes the paper from my tight grip before placing the two torn pieces side by side. With her nose screwed up and sweat beading on her brow, she matches up the rips so they appear almost like one piece again.
“It’ll get worse if you get it wet.”
I use the towel curled around my body to wipe away my tears before they drip onto my list. Once I have my tears at bay, I hold together the two pieces as requested by Melanie. When she’s confident they’re methodically joined, she places a large piece of scotch tape down the middle.
“There you go, just like new.”
I gently lift the paper to inspect her handy-work. Other than the shininess of the scotch tape, it looks like my well-worn and much-loved bucket list. It’s only a list, but this piece of paper means the world to me.
Once my heart rate settles down, I flip over the paper to read the items Melanie added.
153.Fuck a drummer backstage at a concert.
154.Fuck a drummer in the shower.
155.Fuck a drummer in a stretch limo.
156.Thank your best friend when you cross the above three items off your list!
