What the hell happened back there?
One minute we were dancing—swaying, really, because I don’t dance—and the next she was asking about other women. About exclusivity. Like she actually thought I might be out there hooking up with someone else while she’s been slowly dismantling every wall I’ve ever built.
And then I kissed her.
Not a fake kiss. Not a performance for anyone’s benefit. A real kiss. The kind of kiss that changes everything.
I don’t know what happens now. I’m so far out of my element, it’s not even funny.
Winnie is quiet beside me, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the passing streetlights. Her lipstick is almost gone—my fault—and her hair is slightly mussed—also my fault. She looks like a woman who’s been thoroughly kissed.
She looks beautiful.
I pull up to her building and put the car in park, but I don’t turn off the engine. The universal signal forI’m not coming up.
Except I want to come up. I want to follow her inside and finish what we started, to learn every inch of her body until I’ve memorized it all.
But that’s not what we agreed to. That’s not the arrangement.
“Thanks for tonight,” she says, breaking the silence.
“Thanks for being my date.”
We sit there. Neither of us moves.
The engine idles. The moment stretches.
“I should go in,” she says.
“Okay.”
She doesn’t move.
The space between us feels electric. Charged. Like one wrong move—or one right move—could set everything on fire.
“Banks…”
I turn to face her. “I know this is supposed to be fake. I know the rules.”
“But?”
“But I want to kiss you again right now. And it wouldn’t be for show.”
She inhales sharply. Her eyes are wide in the dim light of the car, searching my face for somethingI don’t know how to give her.
“It’ll complicate everything,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“We have boundaries.”
“I know,” I say again.
She reaches up and touches my jaw. The same gesture she made after the game, when my lip was split and my knuckles were raw. Soft. Careful. Like I’m something worth being careful with.
“One more kiss,” she says. “Just to see if that storage room was a fluke.”
I close the distance.
