Finn reached up to smooth his hair with his hands.
I’d spent years longing for a kiss from Finn, and now here we were.
But now that I had one for the taking, I wanted it to be… better than this. In my endless, persistent fantasies about getting a real kiss from him, the moment was always dreamy and swoony. It was always breathtaking and life-changing. It was always adrenaline-infused joy sprinkled with magic.
It was never like it was now:annoying.
Now Finn cleared his throat.
This was happening, I guess.
But why didn’t I feel anything good? Why did this feel like a chore I had to perform?
Maybe I was stalling—but next thing I knew, I was explaining it all to Finn like he might care. “You see,” I said, “you were my first kiss.” Before I lost my nerve, I kept going. “That truth-or-dare kiss on the playground that day was a big deal for me. My sister thinks that—for personal reasons of my own—I imprinted on that kiss. And that it’s become a kind of curse for me where no other kiss can compare. And so the theory goes that if I can get you to kiss me again, I can break the curse.”
“Huh,” Finn said.
“Yeah,” I said, thinking he was interested by the theory.
But then Finn said, “What truth-or-dare kiss on the playground?”
I looked at him, likeSeriously?“At school?” I prompted. Then, waiting for something to ring a bell: “On the playground? I was ten and you were thirteen? All the dares that day were blindfolded ones—do a handstand blindfolded, climb the pear tree blindfolded? That kind of thing?”
“I was blindfolded?” Finn asked.
“No,Iwas blindfolded.”
“Huh,” he said, factoring that in.
“Nothing?” I asked.
More headshaking. “It’s not ringing any bells.”
“Think,” I demanded.
“I’m thinking,” Finn said. “But I really don’t remember kissing you.”
“How many people have you kissed in life for this tonot even register?”
Finn gave a little shrug of apology. “Lots,” he confessed.
I looked around. Just exactly how forgettable was I? This was wildly insulting.
“Maybe,” Finn suggested next, “if we kiss now, it’ll jog my memory.”
Great. Now I wanted to kiss him even less. Did I want a second kiss from a guy who couldn’t remember the first one?
But maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.
I should probably do it. I should get closure, if nothing else. I should see if Ashley’s theory was right.
“What else is there to do, anyway?” Finn pressed.
I cannot stress enough how surreal this was. I was right here, on a moonlit deck, about to get exactly what I’d been working so hard for this whole time from Finn. My life’s biggest crush—the guy I’d longed for, fantasized about, and lightly stalked for so long—was standing in front of me on a moonlit ship’s deck, Cary Grant style, leaning in.
It was a personal triumph beyond description.
My inner teenager needed a fainting couch.
