AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
“Ten!”
Shit, I was missing it.
“Nine!”
I shut the door to my room and ran down the hall while the countdown continued. “Eight! Seven! Six!”
As I stepped into the courtyard of the resort I called home, the crowd shouted, “Five! Four!”
There was only one person I hoped to find as I waded into the throng, even though this was definitely a bad idea. The fact that it was New Year’s Eve didn’t actually justify kissing one of my best friends.
And yet here I was, with a racing heart and sweaty palms, searching for Lorenzo while all around me people yelled, “Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”
Confetti rained down as Auld Lang Syne began to play, and I brushed the colored bits of paper from my dark hair. I’d missed my opportunity. No wonder, since I’d spent over an hour pacing in my room and trying to talk myself out of this.
When someone touched my shoulder, I spun around and found myself face-to-face with Lorenzo. His brown eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at me and said, “Happy New Year, Will.”
Before I could stop myself, I stretched up to kiss him. He was six-three to my five-foot-ten, so it wasn’t easy, but I managed to press my lips to his. He deepened the kiss before stepping back with an expression that was both confused and startled. An awkward pause stretched between us. Finally, I blurted, “Happy New Year, Lorie,” and fled into the crowd.
A few seconds later, I bumped into my friend Vee, who exclaimed, “Hey, Will! I’m glad to see you changed your mind about blowing off the party. Happy New Year!”
“To you, too.”
He tilted his head and asked, “You okay? You seem flustered.”
“I just did something I really shouldn’t have.”
“Do tell.”
“I decided to use New Year’s as an excuse to kiss Lorenzo. It immediately turned awkward, and now I’m mortified.”
“He’s totally watching you,” Vee told me, as he glanced over my shoulder. “But don’t worry, I got you, Boo.” My friend grabbed the lapels of my gray suit and planted a big, wet kiss on my lips. Then he grinned at me and said, “Now he’ll just think you’re going around kissing everyone.”
“Um…thanks?”
We were joined by a cute guy I’d never seen before. Vee pushed us together and said, “Craig Yi, this is Will Kandinsky. Will just embarrassed the shit out of himself by kissing a friend he’s been crushing on forever, so we need you to make out with him for a sec. The guy he likes is watching us, and we want him to think Will’s gone off on a drunken New Year’s kissing spree.”
The guy muttered, “Okay,” before tipping me back and planting a kiss on my lips. When he returned me to an upright position, I happened to catch a glimpse of Lorie across the courtyard. He looked more confused than ever.
Vee produced an empty glass out of nowhere and announced, “We need more champagne! Follow me, boys.” I tried to tell him I just wanted to go back to my room, but he threw his arm around my shoulders and said, “You can hide later. For now, just have one drink with me.”
After a quick stop at the outdoor bar, we selected a patio table in a relatively quiet corner, and I asked Craig, “How do you two know each other?”
“We met this afternoon, and Vee invited me to the party. I’d been spending the day here on Catalina Island with my sister and her family. They took the last ferry back to L.A., and I stayed behind.” He took a sip of champagne before asking me, “Do you work here at the resort?”
“Kind of.”
Craig frowned at that. “How do you kind of work someplace?”
“It’s like this,” Vee explained. “Will and I are both friends with this guy named Beck. He’s one of the co-owners of Seahorse Ranch, along with his Uncle Ren. He’s been letting us live here for free while we’re in limbo, and even though we’re not technically staff, we lend a hand as needed. For example, I took the lead on this year’s holiday decorations.” He gestured at the pair of Spanish-style buildings that formed an ‘L’ around the courtyard, which were festooned with a mind-boggling number of lights. For no particular reason, he’d gone with a pink and purple color scheme.
Vee’s new friend asked, “How exactly are you in limbo?”
“In my case there are some things I need to figure out, like what I want to be when I grow up, even though I’m twenty-eight. My parents emigrated from India before I was born, and they keep acting like such a stereotype by telling me, ‘Be a doctor, Vihaan, like your brother’. Oh, okay. Let me get right on that.” Vee sighed and reached up to tidy his dark hair. He’d used some kind of rinse on it, so it had a purple sheen. It made me wonder if the holiday lights had been selected to match. “As for Will,” he continued, “he’s waiting for his big break in Hollywood.”
