Penn’s eyes spark. “Who said anything about love?”
He smiles and my stomach flips, and I may as well be the thirteen-year-old girl who wrote out this future, because when Penn’s lips crash into mine, my whole body comes alive, like I’m being kissed for the first time. He tastes like spearmint and smells like citrus, and he lets out the softest, sexiest sound as my hands slide into his hair. I feel it, then: the heat of electricity. What must be the magic working its tricks.
Penn starts to pull back, but I tug him closer, afraid to separate—scared of what’s on the other side, and what isn’t. There is no version of us like this anywhere else.
I stay pressed to him, determined to make the kiss last, and soon we’re all hands and hungry sighs, fingers pressed into skin. Nothing about what we’re doing matches the sweet, simple kisses I imagined when I played the game. It’s sharp longing finally getting its release, time stretching and folding in on itself, entire years collapsing into these heady, fervid seconds.
The kiss is overwhelming, a current pulling me under. I give in and let go, and as the potent want pools inside me, I wonder how new it really is. How many years the longing has been pent up. For both of us.
When Penn inches back, breathless, I bring my hands to his face, brushing my thumb across his scruffy jawline. He stares, his lips swollen and parted, a smirk waiting in the wings.
Air catches in my throat. I brace for the scene to go hazy. I wait for a million sparks to circle our heads and whoosh me back to Curly’s. Back to who we really are.
But I squeeze my eyes shut, open them again, and there, still, is Penn’s face, the most tender expression. He dips his head to kiss me, soft and sweet—straight out of a fairy tale—before pulling back to look at me again. Like he’s savoring the sight of me.
Nothing changes. Not the scene, or the sparkling starlight of a look in Penn’s eyes, or the unexpected heat that keeps surging beneath my skin.
So I kiss him again. And again. Because chances are I’ll wake up back in reality tomorrow, and I may as well make the most of whatever magic lies between us while I can. While I’m still here.
14
Horned-Up for 500
Bridget’s classroom dooris like the rabbit hole inAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Pass through, and it’s all whimsy and color. School started a few weeks back, so big, summery suns hang from the ceiling and there’s a neonWelcomesign she must’ve rented, because we are best friends for a reason, across universes.
“Jesus, Ruby.” Bridget sits at her desk while her class is in PE. At the sight of me, she stops eating her everything bagel, extra cream cheese. “You look like shit.”
Correct. I look like if Gollum shopped at Limited Too.
This morning, at a little after eight, Penn texted me to ask if I was awake and wanted to go out for breakfast. I told him I couldn’t—that I had a meeting. Then I fled the mansion wearing purple jeans and a pastel sweatshirt with glittery stripes, a pair of massive pink sunglasses covering my swollen, tired eyes.
I slump into the wooden chair opposite Bridget’s desk and scan the rainbow ABCs strung along the chalkboard. I wish anything in adulthood was as simple as the ABCs. Nobody teachesyou that someday, you might get stuck inside a backassward universe you came up with when you still thought butterfly clips were deeply sophisticated.
“I didn’t sleep.”
Bridget snorts. “Yeah, your string of midnight messages hinted as much.” She lifts her phone with a knowing smirk, my early-morning hysteria filling the screen.
BRIDGET. HEEEEEELPPPP!!!
SOS
CODE. RED.
HE KISSED ME AND…NOTHING!
I’M SERIOUSLY TRAPPED.
FOREVER!!!!
Frankly, my panicked stream of consciousness seems quite appropriate considering I’m doing something wrong, and I don’t know what.
“Penn’s a bad kisser,” Bridget says. “Isn’t he?”
God. I wish.
Clocking my dismay, her eyes widen. “Was it that bad? Or were you just not feeling it?”
“No, I…” My cheeks blaze at the memory of Penn’s hands on my skin. “I…”
