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19
LYNDI
Kissing is gross.
Right.
Sure it is.
Maybe kissing other people was gross. Maybe theideaof kissing was gross. But kissing Beau Devereux could not have been more opposite of that word.
It was intoxicating. Electric. Consuming.
It was fireworks and champagne and freakingmagic.
Beau moved his lips over mine in a way that was so gentle and loving while also managing to be coaxing and confident in a way that had my blood boiling.
Some logical part of me knew this kiss wasn’t lasting as long as it felt like it was. We were standing in front of a photographer for crying out loud—with my grandmother not twenty feet away. But time and space didn’t exist at this moment, because the second his lips touched mine, the entire world fell away.
But all good things must come to an end, so after what felt like a lifetime and also barely a second, he lifted me out of the dip and drew his lips from mine. But he didn’t release me, thank goodness. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand if he did.
“That was beautiful,” Joanie said with a delighted squeal. “You guys are going to love these photos. Thank you!”
I was still trapped inside Beau’s eyes as he held onto my arms and gazed down at me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw her prance away like the ground hadn’t just split open under our feet.
“Lyndi,” he said evenly. My name falling off his pillow-soft lips in such a casual way yanked me out of the moment as if I’d been thrown from a dream.
He was fine. Just like the photographer who got us into that mess, he had no idea how amazing that kiss was.He didn’t feel it.He may have been holding onto me still, but his face was totally blank.
He didn’t have a broody stare that flamed with desire the way book boyfriends always did after an intense first kiss. There was no clenched jaw, or rattled expression, or raspy voice when he spoke his first post-kiss words.
He was simply…fine. Because to him, Mr. Fake Date, the master of being whoever he needed to be, this was all a sham. Pure and simple. I jerked free, not caring who was watching. Just as Layla said, fake-dating Beau was a terrible idea. Because now that he’dkissedme, I knew I was way past the point of being able to let him go without getting hurt, and that knowledge was a crushing weight on my chest as I ran away.
And he didn’t even try to stop me.
* * *
“Um, hello?” my sister called as she ran to catch up to me. When she reached me, she tugged me into the conveniently close bathroom and let out a noise of frustration. “What part ofno kissingdid you not understand? I saw that.”
I put my hands on my hips and paced the marble floor. “I know. I know. It was horrible.”
This brought her up short and she looked dumbfounded. “Wait. Really? I figured it was amazing. Ill-advised, yet amazing.”
“No, not the kiss itself,” I said. Leave it to Layla to give me a reason to let out a short laugh in the midst of heartbreak. “That partwas amazing. But that’s what makes it so horrible.”
She nodded like that made sense, then she stopped my forward momentum and pulled me into her arms for a tight hug. “Okay,” she said into my shoulder, “so, I’m kind of at a fork in the big-sister road, here.”
“Meaning?” I murmured with my cheek still squished against her neck.
She pulled back and used her thumbs to wipe my tears in such a way that wouldn’t ruin my makeup. “Well, I could take the road that leads to me telling you to get out of your comfort zone and maybe try to see what it would be like to leave Bluffton with him. If that kiss—and the rest of it, the stuff that’s been building for like a year now—all adds up to you being in love with him, then maybe that’s what you should do.”
“And the other road?”
“The other road is the one where I don’t try to make you do whatIwould do if it were me.”
I swallowed, turning to the mirror to clean myself up. “And, if you went that way, what would you say next?”
“That it’s going to hurt, but you should probably end things with him now. Call off this whole thing before it gets worse. Because I have a feeling if it goes on any longer, you’re going to be absolutelycrushedwhen he leaves, and I really don’t want that to happen.”
