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“I…I’m…” Words are hard to get out. They’re stuck in my throat, thanks to the intensity in his expression. “You know,” I finally manage to get out.
Kyle is already shaking his head. “No, I don’t. I know why Empire Records cares if I don’t step onstage again. But I have no fucking clue whyyou’rehere. Why you’re standing in the hallway of my house right now.”
“I’m here so I can keep earning a paycheck!” I snap. “Some of us can’t justdecideto stop working!”
I can’t ignore the way Kyle’s jaw clenches. Or the pang of guilt in my chest.
We’re standing in the hallway of his childhood home, decorated with mismatched furniture and threadbare rugs. He didn’t grow up with money. Didn’t buy himself a country music career. He drives a twenty-year-old truck and appears to own exactly two pairs of jeans. Whatever millions he’s made, they aren’t funding a flashy lifestyle.
I clear my throat. “I’m sorry.”
Kyle closes his eyes and exhales. “Whatisthis, Piper? Phase five of the plan to make me lose my mind?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’sno plan!”
He shakes his head. “You’re fucking infuriating, you know that?”
The words are angry. They’re also…affectionate. Filled with layers of emotions that I know I’ll lie awake later, trying to identify.
“What have I done that’s so terrible, Kyle? If you didn’t want me to go tonight, you should have just said so! I can’t—”
I stop talking when he kisses me.
I stand, silent and stunned, as his tongue traces my bottom lip.
Words—forming them, let alone speaking them—are no longer possible. I’m not even thinking. Everything has stalled, so all I can think about is the warm glide of his tongue as it slips inside my mouth.
Kyle Spencer is kissing me.
Those five words run on repeat through my head.
And they sound insane.
But it feels right.
Kissing Kyle feels like coming home. Like slipping into a favorite pair of jeans and then climbing onto a roller coaster. Comforting and thrilling.
He tastes like root beer, and it mixes with the mint flavor lingering in my mouth.
It’s gentle and tentative at first, then quickly turns frantic and heated. I’m pushed against the wall right next to the bathroom door as Kyle kisses me with a desperation that’s as unexpected as him kissing me at all. That suggests maybe he has noticed me in the same way I’ve been focused on him.
We’re both breathing heavily when he pulls away. But he doesn’t go far. Remaining close enough that I can memorize new details in the face that’s already familiar, like the freckle above his left eye and the faded scar in the center of his chin.
“What’s that from?” My pointer finger traces the old cut lightly, avoiding the penetrating weight of his gaze.
Asking about old injuries is easier than discussing what just took place between us.
He leans one hand against the plaster behind my head, studying my expression before he answers me. “I crashed my bike riding over to Hudson’s in third grade. Eight stitches.”
“Was that the last time you were allowed to ride your bike over?” I tease.
Kyle’s expression darkens, like a cloud passing over the sun. “No.”
My hand moves, running along the line of his jaw and down to his tensed shoulder. Offering silent sympathy because that’s the only kind he might accept.
“Did you mean it?” he asks.
“Mean what?”
