Page 53 of Silent Shadows

Our mouths meet softly.

Holy shit.

Daisy Bennett is kissing me.

The second my lips meet hers, an electric jolt tears through me, sharp enough to steal every coherent thought I had. It’s as if it’s rearranging pieces of me I hadn't realized were movable. Like someone reached into my chest and rerouted every wire without asking permission.

My hand finds her face before I even realize I've moved. I feel her fingers weave through the hair at the base of my neck, and she pulls my mouth back to hers. Her lips part, and I sink into a whole new level of delirium.

Whatever parts of my brain are supposed to be thinking about consequences pack up and leave. Everything rearranges itself around the impossible fact that Daisy Bennett is kissing me.

Then suddenly, she jerks backward, her hooded eyes slowly widening. “Oh fuck,” she blurts.

I blink at her, equally wrecked.

“That—” she points between us—“that should not have happened.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

Because I’m still stuck on the fact that it did happen.

Daisy stands abruptly, nearly tripping over the log.

“I’m gonna go ahead and pretend that never happened,” she says.

My brain finally restarts enough to answer. “But it did, Daisy.”

She stares at me for one stunned second.

Then she laughs despite herself.

“Nope, I’ll deny it,” she says breathlessly.

And before I can respond, she turns and practically speed-walks toward the Machine. The door slams shut behind her, and silence settles over the camp again.

I sit there motionless for exactly three full seconds. Then it all sinks in. She kissed me. Daisy kissed me.

Okay, we kissed each other, but that’s not the point.

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Then another. And suddenly I’m sitting alone beside the fire laughing like a complete idiot.

This is objectively complicated. My brain runs through the list of reasons this is bad: she lives in Los Angeles. I live wherever the Mystery Machine happens to be parked. She’s documenting us. I’m leading the expedition. She has bosses and sponsors and a career built around telling stories. I have three teammates who depend on me and a satellite internet bill to pay. If things go sideways with Daisy and me—with this podcast—I’m not the only one it hurts. It also hurts the crew and compromises the future of this thing we’ve spent years building.

There’s also the tiny issue that she’s funny and beautiful and way too smart, and she seems to like it when I talk about things most people don’t care about. But she’s not most people.

Daisy’s right. That kiss happening again is potentially disastrous.

Probably a terrible idea.

And yet, I can still feel the warmth of her mouth against mine.

Still hear her laughing.

Still see the way she looked at me when I talked about the migration theory like it actually mattered.

Oh, I’m in trouble.

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