Page 11 of Make the Play

This is the worst idea I’ve ever loved.

I force a smirk. “You wanna kiss me that bad, Carlson?”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Please. I think we can both handle a dumb, meaningless kiss for the sake of comedy. It’s a joke, it’ll be funny.”

A joke. Right. That’s what this is, what it always is with us. Banter. Laughter and comedy and nothing too serious.

So this kiss should be no different.

Except I’ve thought about kissing her for years, and this is not how I imagined it panning out. I should say no, slide her off my lap with a funny quip, and go get another beer.

Instead, I lean in, dropping my voice to match hers.

“On three.”

Her brows lift slightly, as if she wasn’t expecting me to agree so easily.

“Fine.”

The countdown starts.

3…

She licks her lips, and my self-control unravels.

2…

Her eyes flit to my mouth, just briefly.

1.

Zoe surges forward at the same moment I do.

Flash.

Her lips press against mine, warm and soft and the exact right kind of impossible. She inhales sharply, like she wasn’t expecting this, wasn’t expectingme.

Holy fuck.

This is not funny. Definitely not a joke. Anything but meaningless.

My fingers twitch, screaming at me to grip her jaw, to stroke her pulse point, to deepen this and take it further. And I almost do, just for a second. Just long enough to press in before I catch myself and use every ounce of my willpower to rip my lips off hers.

The timer clicks noisily as it resets again and we stare at each other.

We’re too close, locked in the tightest space imaginable with no room for escape. Not that I’d want to.

Zoe laughs, but it’s quieter now, a breathless and unsteady sound skating warmth across my jaw. She shifts like she’s about to say something, about to deflect or make a joke and reset the moment. But she pauses.

Her fingers curl into my shoulders, and I feel the second she notices the closeness. The heat. The weight of it presses in, closing the gap between what we say we are and what we actually are.

She licks her lips, and my pulse plummets to my goddamn knees.

Zoe Carlson is staring at my mouth, and I shouldnotbe staring at hers.

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