Page 69 of Kiss Me, Maybe

“That’s still good,” I tell her. “You never know, right? He could surprise you.”

“Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath.”

“Still. I’m glad you texted him.”

“Yeah?”

I nod. “Do you know what you’re going to say to him if he replies?”

“I keep going back and forth in my head about it.” She pushes a stray curl back from her face. “If I’m apologizing for the wrong reasons, is it still worth saying ‘I’m sorry’?”

“That depends more on whether he wants to hear it,” I say. “Plus, how wrong can your reasons for apologizing be?”

“Maybe it’s selfish,” she says. “Aside from last weekend, we haven’t spoken to each other since we broke up. Actually, I’m not sure we spoke at all.”

“Maybe that’s exactly why you two need to talk,” I tell her. “If you hadn’t seen each other at my house, neither of you would’ve bothered to reach out. Now you have an opening. It might be a hard conversation to get through, but maybe it’s needed.”

“You’re right.” She groans. “I’m just nervous.”

“At least wait until he replies to be nervous.” I smile dryly. She pushes at my shoulder, but there’s no force to it. “It’ll work out, regardless of whether he wants to see you.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I believe you’re capable of forgiving yourself,” I say, if only because I so desperately want that for her. “With or without Isaac.”

“That makes one of us, at least.” She looks up at me from the floor, and for the umpteenth time, I’m sucked into her orbit. “You’re a good friend.”

Those words can’t negate the pounding in my chest or my inability to breathe properly in her vicinity. I may be inexperienced, but not so much that I don’t know friends aren’t supposed to feel like this for each other. But at this point, I don’t see any other option for us.

“We shouldn’t try to be more than that,” I tell her. Tellmyself, because I need to hear it more than she does. “At least, not until after the scavenger hunt is over.”

“Right.” She bites her bottom lip, my eyes immediately pulled to her mouth. “We still have that rule.”

“Someone thought it’d be a good idea, not that I can remember why.” Not when she’s looking at me the way she is now.

“Well, you’ve had a couple drinks,” she reminds me with a stern look. “You’ll remember in the morning.”

I hop off the barstool, andboyis that a mistake. The room spins for a moment until I’m able to right myself by grabbing on to the bar. “Malibu, why hath thou betrayed me?”

“Angela?”

“That stupid boy threw off the portions in my drink.” I rest my forehead against the wood as my head starts to pound. “Too much grenadine, then too much booze. Or maybe it was the other way around. Too much booze, and then too much grenadine.”

“Who are you talking about?” She walks around the bar and pulls me into her arms. “The bartender who served you?”

“Isn’t it in the job description that a bartender has to know how to make a damn drink the correct way?” I’m spewing complete nonsense at this point. “Oh god, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

She power-walks me to the bathroom, where I hurl into a toilet bowl just in time. After pulling my hair back into a chongo, she tells me to stay here while she closes the bar, as if I was capable of moving off this floor by myself. Luckily, my stomach seems to be feeling fine after one barf session and I’m not nearly as dizzy as before.

Once the building is locked for the night, she returns to the bathroom to lead me to her car and helps me into the passenger seat. I reach for the seat belt above my head but can’t seem to find it for some reason. Krystal’s chest rises and falls with a long sigh. Just as I find the buckle, her hand closes over mine.

I glance up and holy shit her face is so much closer than I thought it was. The upper half of her body is bent over mine, her right hand braced on the seat beside my thigh. There’s that feeling again, like something’s clogging the back of my throat, preventing me from breathing.

“There we go.” She pulls down the seat belt and buckles it in place over my lap. She sounds as breathless as I imagine I’dbe if I was capable of speaking, but she recovers quickly. “You feeling okay?”

All I can manage is a nod, and not even because of the alcohol. When she closes the door, I’m finally able to catch my breath. Krystal walks around the car until she reaches the driver side.

“Let me know if you start to feel sick,” she says as she starts the engine. “I might have a plastic bag you can barf in if you need to.”

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