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Peering up at Preston, just over the rims of my glasses, I said, “What did you get?”
“Ninety-three.”
My heart sank.
Shit.
He’d beat me. At some point in the last couple of hours, he had out kissed me.
By one person.
One. Freaking. Person.
Double shit.
“What did you get?”
I swallowed hard. “Ninety-two.”
He froze. Surprise flashed across his handsome features, swiftly followed by absolute delight. He burst out laughing, grabbing his stomach as it hit him.
“One? I beat you by one?”
“Whatever.” I took my money, put it in a safety deposit box, and looked at him expectantly. “Well? Your money?”
Preston disappeared for a second before he handed me a wad of small bills from his side. I took them and put them with mine in the box before locking it and storing it safely in my purse.
“Let’s get this over with, then.” I hopped off the stage and dipped under the ropes to his side. “What are you staring at me for? I don’t have all evening. I have some rowdy raccoons to feed. If I’m late and they rummage in my trash, I’m calling you to come to clean up.”
His smile was lopsided, playful almost, and he slid across the stage, past the curtain and sat on his stool. “I wouldn’t want to starve your raccoons.”
“They aren’t my raccoons.”
“Whoever they belong to. We made a deal, and now you have to pay up.”
My heart thundered in my chest. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to kiss Preston? Right here, right now? On the lips?
That was the deal, wasn’t it?
I approached the stage.
No, it wasn’t the deal. Where the kiss could be placed was never specified. Just that we had to add a kiss to the winner’s tally.
I could do this.
I stepped up onto his side of the stage and dug a dollar out of my ass pocket. I brandished it in his direction with a small smile, then stepped over toward him.
His eyes followed me everywhere. He watched me like a hawk. It was unnerving and downright weird because he was looking at me like—
Like he wanted me to kiss him.
That didn’t make any sense. There was no way the hottest bachelor in town and my best friend’s brother wanted me to kiss him.
Was there?
This was too much for me. If it weren’t for the fact that I was a woman of my word where bets were concerned, I’d be running away right now.
Goddamn me, being a woman of my world. Morals were so overrated.
I walked right up to Preston. Bending over, I looked him in the eye, holding his gaze until it became so intense that a shiver danced its way down my spine.
Then I kissed his cheek. I planted a big, firm, red-lipped kiss on his stubbly cheek.
When I pulled away, there was a lipstick mark on his skin and the look of total shock in his eyes.
“The bet didn’t say where we had to kiss,” I whispered.
My lips pulled into a smirk, and I jumped off the stage. I broke into a run and darted out of the tent before he could argue otherwise.
I vaguely heard him shouting my name, but I disappeared into the insanity of the fair, falling in amongst the throngs of excited people who were having the time of their lives.
I’d gotten away with it.
That was one more day where I didn’t have to kiss Preston Wright.
I just had to make it through four more.
***
“You did what?”
The second I’d gotten home, I’d made a round or two of peanut butter sandwiches and refilled the water bowl on my porch. Before I’d had a chance to think, Reagan and Ava had come swinging in through my front door with stuff to make margaritas. They hadn’t taken no for an answer, despite my desire to just climb into bed and forget how Preston’s stubble had felt against my lips.
“I kissed his cheek.” I sipped my margarita. “We made a deal, and nowhere in that deal did it state that I had to kiss him on the lips. Kissing Booth rules dictate that cheek kisses count, so that’s what I did.”
Reagan exploded with laughter, sucking her drink up her nose until she choked. Her eyes watered and she went red until Ava handed her a bottle of water to wash it down with.
“I think that’s genius.” Ava sat back down. “Kissing people complicates things. You’re stuck there for a few more days, and the last thing you need is to sit opposite him and know exactly what it’s like to kiss him.”
“Yeah,” Reagan said scratchily. “It’s totally better for her to be imagining it instead.”
I groaned. “Look, we all know it’s never going to happen.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Because your brother is tall and hot and funny and rich and I feed peanut butter sandwiches to raccoons.”
“I actually happen to think it’s one of your better qualities.”
