Page 30 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Her cheeks turn a faint rosy pink. She turns and stares ahead, watching where she’s walking. “Yeesh, that got me good. Excellent practice flirtation.”

I don’t tell her I didn’t even mean to say it, that my brain was thinking it and my mouth just said it.

I don’t tell her I wasn’t trying to practice at all.

—

“What’s your favorite season?” I ask.

We’re walking toward her place, after I started to feel her slowing down on our stroll around the park. I offered to drive her home, but Juliet said the day is too beautiful to spend in a car. So instead, I’m walking her home—she doesn’t live far from the coffee shop where we met.

She peers up at me. “My favorite season? Spring.”

“Why?”

She smiles my way as we turn the corner onto the next block, passing a stretch of hedges that stand like sentinels protecting towering brownstones. “It’s the season of hope and new beginnings,” she says. “The promise of life turning lighter and lovelier. Green grass and fresh flowers everywhere and lush gardens. I’m a sucker for flowers and gardens, though all I can swing at the apartment is a few window boxes and some houseplants. What about you?”

An image jumps into my head—Juliet walking through the wildflower field back home, past the cultivated gardens, up the path to my house. Standing beneath the rose and wisteria trellis that flanks the pavers leading to my front door. I swallow thickly. “Spring,” I tell her quietly. “Spring’s my favorite, too.”

She smiles. “Spring supremacy. Thank you!”

The door of the next house—on second glance, building—down swings open, drawing Juliet’s attention, and the smile drops from her face.

And that’s when Juliet yanks me into the hedges.

•Nine•

Juliet

I’m not thinking. I’m reacting. Out of sheer panic.

Will and I tumble through the hedges, their prickly branches grazing my skin.

I yank him down with me because while I can manage to hide by crouching a little, he’s so tall, his head pokes out above the hedges. I had to pick a giant to practice romance with.

“Juliet, what are you—”

“That’s my sister,” I hiss at him. “AndChristopher.”

Will spits a leaf out of his mouth. “I thought we agreed there’d be no sneaking around.”

“Well,” I whisper, “I didn’t exactly expect them to come waltzing out of my apartment right when we were headed toward it!”

“Your apartment?” He frowns. “Why were they in your apartment?”

“Who knows,” I mutter while trying to peek through the hedges. I can’t see a damn thing. “They’ve got keys to the place; maybe they needed something I had while they were in the city that would be a pain to catch the train back to Christopher’s house to get? That’s not the point, though.”

“Whatisthe point?” he asks. Unlike me, he isnotwhispering.

“Shh,” I hiss. “Talk softer. They’ll hear you!”

Will sighs heavily.

I listen for footsteps, the sound of Kate’s and Christopher’s voices. No footsteps, their voices getting no louder. They must be stopped in front of the apartment. I don’t know why. What I do know is it’s darn inconvenient. My knees ache so badly when I crouch like this.

Will plops fully onto the ground and tucks his legs in, crisscross applesauce. It puts him very much in my space. “Come on. Sit,” he whispers, nodding down at his lap. “If we’re going to hide here like bandits, might as well be comfortable.”

I eye his lap, my knees throbbing. The thought of sitting sounds so much better, but I vividly remember from our little tussle in the greenhouse last week what kind of heat that man’s packing between his thighs, how great it felt, just for a split second.

---