Page 53 of Colliding with Ten

Oh. My. God.

I froze in the middle of the restaurant as heat crept up my neck. If the floor could swallow me, now was the time.

He looked up just then and caught me staring. He knew that I knew.

“Hey,” he said as if approaching a wild animal.

My jaw went slack. “Did you—?” I pointed to the book, unable to speak. “Did you read that?”

He set it down. “Define read,” he drawled.

“Oh, my God.” I dragged a hand over my face. “You did.”

“I might have taken a peek.” He winced, a grin sneaking through. “In my defense, it was right there, begging to be opened.”

“Lennox.” I hissed, collapsing into my seat. I buried my face in my hands and groaned. “You weren’t supposed to . . . Oh my God, this is . . .”

“Traumatizing?” he asked, amused.

Wait, was he making fun of me? I cut him a look through my fingers. “Mortifying that you read that.”

He chuckled, leaning forward on his elbows. “Yeah, and I can say it was the worst decision of my adult life.”

I glared at him. “You think this is funny?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” His smirk gave him away. “It was a grave mistake, and if I had the chance to do it over, I’d make better life choices for sure.”

I groaned again, sinking lower in my chair.

He laughed under his breath. “You’re acting like I caught you picking your nose and eating it.”

I made a yuck face because . . . gross. “This is bad.”

“How?”

“Because you read that scene!”

He pretended to look confused. “Which scene are we talking about?”

“Don’t you dare.”

He laughed, drawing a few stares from nearby tables. I covered my face, wishing I could disappear.

When he caught his breath, he lowered his voice. “For the record. I stopped after, like, three lines.”

I squinted at him. “Three lines?”

“Maybe five.”

“Liar.”

“Okay, seven. After that, I was blinded by sin and shame, I swear.”

He was an ass. “Give me that.”

“No, there’s a word I want to look up in the dictionary.”

I chuckled and lunged for the book, but Lennox was faster. He placed his hand flat on it and slid it out of reach, his mouth twitching with amusement.