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I brush it back. Stare into her strung-out eyes. “Am I missing something major?”
“I have to turn in my new book. And Vi wants the blurb to promote at the party.”
Still not enough to drive the amount of panic pulsing in her voice. “And that’s a problem because?”
Her fingers form a steel bracelet around my wrist. “I didn’t write it.”
“How hard is it to write a blurb? It’s just a few lines.”
“The book.” She turns her head away. “I didn’t write the book.”
Oh. I gently turn her head back. “Any of it?”
Gripping my wrist tighter, she shakes her head.
I let out a breath. “Yeah, that’s pretty major.”
“What am I gonna do?” She closes her eyes. “I have no concept. No outline. No characters. No plot.” Her eyes pop open, and she cuts off the circulation in my wrist.
“Your editor didn’t ask you what you were going to write about?”
“I turned an idea in, but I can’t write that story. I’ve tried for months. And nothing happens.” She gives up her iron grip to grab my shoulder. “Tell me what to do. Help me fix this.”
“Jess, I...” Have nothing. When I always have something. I stare at her uselessly, still working out exactly whatI didn’t write the bookmeans for her.
She jackknifes off the bed, almost clipping my chin with her head, and stalks across the room. “Right. You can’t fix this.” She stalks back. “No one can fix this.” She throws her arms up and paces along the rectangular desk, her nailsclick, click, clickingon the smooth surface.
I crawl off the bed after her.
She rounds on me and grabs my upper arms, her anxiety piling up like a multi-car wreck in a fatal traffic accident. “What. Am. I. Going. To. Do?”
Her personal carnage rips into me until I’m desperate to do something. Anything. I stare into her wild eyes, feel the chaos swirling inside her, and do the only thing I can.
I rip off my glasses, hike her onto the desks, and kiss the shit out of her.
chapter 43
Jess
I wanted to be wrong about the affair, but Dad moved in with a woman named Stacy and her two little boys. He’s already replaced me. I wanted to be wrong about that too, but he hasn’t stopped by or called or given me his new number. My chest is so tight, I can’t even cry. T snuck in my window and held me all night. I need him so much it scares me.
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age16)
The wild press of Gabe’s mouth instantly shuts down my freak-out.
He’s everywhere. His body pushes between my knees. His hands grip my hips. His lips seal across mine, over and over, until we’re breathing the same air. He explores my mouth like he’s on a quest to discover everything there is to find.
Heat builds in my stomach and bursts into a thrilling roller-coaster rush that sweeps underneath my skin. Locking my hands around his neck, I do my best to hang on for the ride.
When he finally winds down his conquest of my mouth and ends our kiss, he grips the edge of the desk on either side of my hips.
“What was that?” My lungs left in a tangle, those three words are a breathless mumble.
“Didn’t know what else to do.” He touches my face, his serious survey of my eyes as intense as his worship of my now swollen lips. Instead of the cocky smirk I expect after a feral kiss like that, a line of worry creases the space where his eyebrows draw up. “You okay?”
Lips tingling. Heart hurrying. Blood burning. “Yeah.”
“Yeahas in we’re never doing that again? Oryeahas in mind blown?”
