The memory of the kiss is there every time I make eye contact.
I push off the lamppost and fall into step beside her. “You’re more of a strawberry. A strawberry with teeth.”
“Hmm.” She squints at me with one eye shut. “I’ll take the teeth part. Nice save.” She bumps me with her shoulder and tries to get ahead of me on the path. I edge her into the bushes.
She darts ahead and jogs backward. “I should tackle you right here, but it wouldn’t be sporting.”
Her eyes are devilish. I can tell she’s trying to control her laughter, but every time she rolls her lips to keep it inside, I can feel it ballooning between us and stealing the air.
“I’ll show you sporting,” I growl, and she shrieks, and we pound down the path back to the security center. She slaps the wall first and leans against it, her laughter ringing over the grass.
“One problem,” she pants.
I lean next to her, one shoulder braced against the stone. I am weak from adrenaline and too much sugar, and I’m drunk on her smiles.
“Problem?”
“Yeah.” She gulps air.
I fight a grin. This is how it always is with her. She’s the only person in the room, the magnet that draws my gaze. When she smiles, I feel it in my chest. Even better, when she gives me those narrow-eyed glances and pretends to be annoyed.
“Nothing about that was date-like.”
I blink at her, my thoughts stopped in their tracks.
“What do you mean?”
I think that’s how I’d want a date to go. An endless day of summer sunshine and good music with the person who finishes your sentences and knows all your quirks. And when it ends? That sticky kid at the beach feeling from when you were little.
“We did friend stuff. Not date stuff.”
She sounds annoyed and I huff a laugh. “Okay, what would you do if this were a real date?”
Her eyes go unfocused briefly, before she settles on, “Take him up to the roof.”
There’s a hot, twisting sensation in my stomach. “You’d take him to our spot.” I amjealousof this other fictional man. He doesn’t even exist, and I want to push him off the roof.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Well, right now, that guy is you.” Her tongue dips out against her bottom lip. I remember exactly how plush it was against my own. I had that bottom lip for thirty-seven seconds and I’d give up all my earthly possessions to feel it for five more.
Hell, one more.
“What would you do? If this were a real date?”
My stomach plummets.
Easy, Tristan.
“Probably something corny,” I say lightly.
Her eyes gleam with amusement. The brown eye looks like gold under the lamplights. “Like what?”
“Ah, I’d probably say you were made for me.”
She giggles. “That’s a line if I’ve ever heard one.”
I bump her with my shoulder, even as that hot, twisting feeling from earlier goes screw-tight in my stomach.
“Try it.” She giggles again. “Try it on me. I want to see what I’ve been missing. The Tristan Prince magic at work.”
