She grabbed his waistband, yanking him toward her. “Let me see.”
“Doesn’t it look a little bigger?”
“No, it looks the same.” She released the waistband, satisfied at hearing it snap against her husband’s taut stomach.
“Maybe we should kiss again.” He appeared earnest in this suggestion.
Catalina furrowed her brow as she eyed him in suspicion. There was no way she was putting herself under his spell again. Look what happened the last time. She was stuck in a worse situation than before when all she wanted was to never see his smug face again. Catalina crossed her arms. “Why?”
“If kissing made us shrink, then maybe kissing again could return things to how they were before.”
“That makes no sense at all. Why would kissing cause any of this? We’ve kissed plenty of times and never shrunk once.”
“But we’ve never kissed inside this room before,” he replied.
Okay, well, he had her there. In the face of a complete lack of viable options, she didn’t have any better solutions to offer. His plan was at least doable with very little effort or resources. “Fine,” she said after a moment, regretting the word when a grin slid across his face as though she’d agreed to date him again. “I don’t know what you’re smiling about. It’snot as if this is going to work.”
His expression didn’t waver. “But I get to kiss you again.”
Cat rolled her eyes to keep from melting, because although Trey could be an aggravating bonehead, sometimes he said the sweetest things. When he did, it was easy to overlook all the times he made her mad by being an aggravating bonehead. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice as he strode to her, fitting his arms around her. Before he could go further, she pecked him on the lips. “There. See? Nothing’s changed. Everything’s still weird.”
“No. Come on. That doesn’t count.” His forehead wrinkled in deep dissatisfaction, and his hand remained locked on her waist.
“You really think this is a practical joke the universe is playing on us? Rating the passion of our kiss in order to determine if we deserve to be unshrunk?”
“If we’re going to try this for real, Cat, you need to do it with your whole self. Stop half-assing it.”
“Did you read that on an inspiration poster somewhere?”
“Kiss me.” The heated intensity between them had returned, and he wasn’t backing down. With this she accepted the inevitable, relaxing in his arms, as his nose nudged hers. “Kiss me,” he said again in a soft breath, reminding her of when they first started dating, when he’d get soft and gentle, making her ache.
Her eyes fluttered closed as she let her lips press against his. There wasn’t the hot zapping along herskin she had experienced the previous time, but the kiss could still be described as lovely. Wonderfully familiar and, yet, thrilling, she felt it all the way to the depths of her stomach. While she doubted this kiss would solve any of their current problems, both in terms of their marriage and, more importantly, the whole shrinking issue—it was a kiss of promise, as if anything was possible. If a kiss could cause a miracle, it should be this one.
When their lips finally parted, she didn’t want to open her eyes, preferring to stay in the blissful darkness of whatever reality her mind chose to believe.
“Fuck,” Trey said when the environment around them remained unchanged.
“Yup. I told you that kissing wasn’t going to work.”
“Maybe we should try it again. Last time, you were pressed against the wall, and I was touching—”
“Stop,” she said, yanking from his grasp. “It’s not going to work. No more kissing.” Catalina couldn’t take the overwhelming emotions yo-yoing inside her chest. It was exhausting.
“Okay. Then what do you suggest?”
She hiked her heavy bag on her shoulder as she thought about it. “I don’t know,” Catalina admitted because she had no idea how to change their situation. On a whim, she retrieved her cell phone from her purse. She wasn’t sure what the emergency number was in Mexico. Did they also use 911? How would they explain the situation without being immediatelyhung up on? It was worth a shot.
“Oh, good idea,” Trey said, pulling out his own phone from his pocket. He soon frowned, tried dialing, and frowned again. “No service. You?”
“Same.” She tossed her phone back into her bag. “Maybe the phone is too small to get a signal, like it can't connect with the antennas or something.”
“Is that really a thing?”
She didn’t know, but it seemed to be a reasonable explanation. She shrugged and considered sitting on the floor and waiting for…well…something to happen because what else were they going to do?
“We can’t just stay here forever. I’m leaving,” Trey said after a moment.
