Page 74 of Stuck with You

“Because you don’t,” she replied. “Besides, shouldn’t you have a whole heap of pickup lines memorized by now? I can’t imagine it would take you long to come up with something.”

“Oh, I do, but I was going for something original.”

“So, what is it?”

“Well, I couldn’t come up with something original.”

“Okay, then let’s hear one from the archives.”

I laughed and leaned against my bedroom door as I tried to think of one of the many pickup lines I’d looked up since Clary had started living here. Most of them were corny, and slick lines had never seemed to work on Clary at school. But I’d been using them on her since she’d arrived, and they seemed to make her laugh, so I’d kept going with them.

“Okay.” I cleared my throat and stood a little taller as I focused on Clary. “Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?”

Clary stared at me for a moment before she let out a laugh. “That’s bad even for you.”

I paced toward her. “Oh, really?”

“Yep.”

I stopped when I reached her and pressed my arms against the wall behind her, caging her in. “You sure about that?”

She swallowed and nodded as she looked up at me. “Uh-huh.” Clary had such a strong personality that I sometimes forgot how small she was. It wasn’t until I held her in my arms that I remembered.

I leaned my head in closer to hers until I could feel her breath on my lips. “So, it’s not good enough to deserve a kiss?”

“Mmm, nope.”

She smiled up at me before ducking under my arm to escape, but I grabbed her hand before she could leave. She squealed as I pulled her back to me and started laughing as I wrapped her firmly in my grasp. Without any hesitation, she reached up to wrap her arms around my neck before lifting herself onto her toes to give me a kiss.

I loved kissing Clary more than anything, but the part I liked the most was how much she seemed to enjoy it too. I could feel it in the way her lips smiled as she kissed me and how she seemed to grasp me a little tighter whenever I went to pull away. I was completely addicted to this girl, and we’d only been dating a couple of days.

When we finally pulled apart, I tried to remember why I’d actually been staring at Clary’s room in the first place. My mind was a complete fog though, and I had a suspicion that kissing Clary temporarily stopped my brain cells from working properly. Instead of zapping messages between each other like they should, it was like every one of them was solely focused on Clary.

As my arms released her a little and she stepped back from me, I finally remembered what I had to ask her. “So, school starts tomorrow,” I said.

She lifted one eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. “You were thinking about school while kissing me likethat?”

“Well, the thoughts of school definitely came after. I don’t think I was thinking at all while we kissed.”

She shook her head at me. “You’re such a guy.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“Not sure that was a compliment,” she replied with a playful smile. “Anyway, back to you stating the obvious…”

I laughed. “Yeah, with school starting tomorrow, I thought we could go to your house and pick up your books this morning.”

“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that,” she replied. “I’m probably going to need them, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” I agreed. “So, do you want to head there now?”

“I mean, I’m going to need a coffee first…”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started walking her to the stairs. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

* * *

On the driveover to Clary’s house, I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird Mom had been acting this morning when she’d suggested this. My mind kept trying to come up with reasons for why, but I was still drawing a blank. Mom was usually too busy to be cryptic. She rarely hid anything from us, finding it so much quicker and easier to just be honest with Elliot and me whenever something was up. It was probably why she’d done such a bad job at trying to be subtle this morning. She had zero practice at being secretive.

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