“Are you OK?” she asked, her eyes concerned. “I’m sorry people are staring at us,” she said. “It’s my fault, and it’s probably making you feel weird.”

“Your fault? I think it’s my fault.”

Her eyes went wide. “Your fault? Why would it be your fault? I’m the one who made an ass of myself on national TV. My God, I drunk-rode a mechanical bull for seven seconds.”

“Fuck,” I said with a straight face. “That’s a horrible number.”

She looked confused, and then it registered. “Oh, ha ha ha.” She slapped my arm. “I’m glad my humiliation is so amusing.”

Laughing a little at her red face, I assured her I had never heard of the show and couldn’t care less about it, nor did I care what other people in here might be whispering about her.

“Thank you. I wish more people cared less. I keep getting the evil eye from all corners of the room.” We sat back as our server set two plates in front of us and warned us they were hot.

“You know who you are,” I said once we were alone again. “Fuck them.”

She smiled ruefully. “I wish I could have that attitude. I know I shouldn’t care about what people think, but easier said than done.”

“Yeah. I know that feeling.”

She gave me a sympathetic half-smile and picked up her cheeseburger. “So you had a good day today. Tell me about it.”

While we ate, I told her about how I’d hung a hammock between two birches that morning and took a nap in it this afternoon.

“I love naps,” she enthused, munching a french fry. “Any day with a nap in it is automatically better.”

“Agreed.” For a moment, I indulged in a fantasy of the two of us in my hammock, Skylar lying on top of me, head on my chest, her bare feet tangled with mine, the leaves shading us from the afternoon sun. I’d play with her hair and she’d sigh softly, and I’d feel her body melt into mine. We could fall asleep to the sounds of the birds and and the wind, and the water, and—

Fuck. I wish things were different.

I picked up my beer and took a long pull. No sense in thinking like that. I was who I was. “So did you have a good day?”

“I guess so. I worked this morning, and then I went shopping for something to wear to the reunion.”

“What reunion?”

“Ours. Our ten-year high school. It’s this Saturday. I was going to ask you if you were going.” She picked up her wine glass.

“Uh, no. No fucking way.” I took another drink and shook my head as I set the bottle down. “There’s no one there I’d want to see.”

“Oh.” Her face fell, which she tried to hide by taking a long sip of wine. Several long sips.

“Let me rephrase that,” I said, sorry I’d hurt her feelings. “I’m looking at the only person I’d want to see.”

Her eyes lit up, her cheeks blooming pink. “Thank you.”

“But there’s no one there who’d care about seeing me.”

“That’s not true,” she said, setting down her empty glass. “I’d care.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather fucking shoot myself than go to that thing.”

She sighed. “That’s kind of how I feel about it now too. I know everyone there will just be talking shit about me, being pretend-nice to my face.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t, everyone will talk shit about me.”

My forehead wrinkled. “Wait, you just said they’d talk shit about you if you did go.”

“Yeah, but it would be worse shit talk if I wasn’t there,” she said with some sort of baffling female logic. “So I have to go, and you should go too. In fact, we should go together.”

I almost choked. “What?”

“We should go together.” She braced her elbows on the table and leaned toward me, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Then we could give them something new to talk about.”

I leaned in too. I couldn’t resist. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Like this.”

And without any warning whatsoever, she kissed me. Put those soft pink rose petal lips right over mine and left them there for a second, during which I was too stunned to move. My cock jumped, and I pulled away.

Then she sat back, her expression horrified. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”

Holy shit. What did I just do?

I kissed him. I kissed him.

I kissed Sebastian Pryce.

I tried to read his expression, but I couldn’t. Best I could tell, it was somewhere between Jesus Christ, why the hell did she do that? and Goddamn, let’s flip this table out of the way and go at it.

An eternity passed. Several species of birds went extinct. Continents drifted.

“Say something¸” I begged. “I feel horrible right now. I shouldn’t have done that. Can I blame the wine?” Yes. That was it. Pin the kiss on the Pinot.

But had it been the wine? Maybe it was something else. I was no math expert, but this was an intoxicating equation: Hot Guy with Mysterious Past + Way With Pretty Words x Chivalry at Beach / His Aloofness at Coffee Shop (Immunity to My Face & Flirty Efforts) + Innuendo at Hardware Store x Honest Confession about OCD Struggles —> Curiosity + Arousal (Belly Flutters + Pulse Quickening)=ATTACKISS.

Right?

Or was I overthinking it? Maybe the plain, crazy truth was just that I was really attracted to Sebastian Pryce. But he was probably one of those quiet, tortured geniuses that didn’t go for girls like me. He went to law school, for heaven’s sake! He wrote poetry!

His lips tipped up slightly, those warm lips that had felt so good against mine. “Ah. Sure. It’s fine. Don’t feel horrible, really. You just surprised me.” He shifted in his chair.

“I can tell.” I reached for my wine glass but it was empty. Frantically, I looked around for our server. Waiter! This is an emergency!

“Hey.” He put his fingers over my wrist. “It’s OK.”

“Are you sure?”

His sea glass green eyes were clear and his voice gentle. “I’m sure. I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“OK.” Since he’d been pretty forthcoming about everything tonight, I was sort of hoping he’d elaborate on his feelings, but that’s all he said.

For the rest of the night.

I mean he totally shut down.

Not in an angry way or anything, but he just stopped talking. No more jokes, no more smiles, no more stories. Was he anxious? Angry? Confused? Scared? In any case, I was so embarrassed and flustered I talked about anything and everything just to fill the silence.

We finished our meals—I decided against the second glass of wine, especially since he just had the one beer—and he drove me back to my car. I chirped like a bird on crank about random nonsense the entire ride back, and as we pulled into the hardware store lot, I looked over and saw him laughing a little.

“What?” I asked.

“You. Do you ever stop talking?”

I slapped my hands over my face. “No. I mean yes, but no. Not when I’m nervous.” Beneath my palms, my face was hot.

“Why are you nervous?”

“Because! I made an ass of myself by kissing you in the restaurant! And you’re all smart and silent and mysterious and I’m just…” I threw my hands in the air. “Obvious and silly.”

“Is that what you think?” He put the truck in park and shifted on the seat to face me.

“Yes.” I turned toward him. “Because before I did that, everything seemed fine. And then afterward, you kind of just…shut down.”

Nodding slowly, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“Why? Are you mad?”

He looked at me strangely. “Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know! I can usually read people pretty well but your face was like totally impassive. Fucking stonehenge. And you weren’t talking either, so I felt crazy awkward and tried to talk for the both of us.”

He cracked a smile. “You did it well.”

I stared helplessly at him, finally out of words.