Page 71 of Make the Play

Now she’s in my head and on my mouth. Now I’m spiraling because she kissed me and didn’t mean it, but I did.

I haul myself off the mat, chest heaving and sweat slicking down my spine. My body is wrecked, so I head for the shower, dragging my heavy limbs across the tiles. I already know I won’t sleep tonight because I never sleep on nights like this.

Not when the world goes quiet, not when the silence gets too loud. Not when my brain remembers what I’m trying to forget.

And definitely not after tasting her and knowing I’ll never be able to pretend again.

Chapter sixteen

It’ll keep your hand from breaking

Zoe

Iwake up to forty-two unread messages, seventeen Instagram tags, and a dull, traitorous ache in my lower back that tells me I slept like a shrimp.

Big shock: I didn’t sleep much. Not because of the paparazzi pictures, or the fact that “Chaz” is trending with some truly feral fan edits already, but because I can’t stop thinking about the kiss.

Still half-buried in the duvet, my phone buzzes and lights up.

That’s between us and God??????

Claire:

Ok, I’ve watched the kiss 15 times and I’m still not over the way he tucked your hair behind your ear like a goddamn romance novel hero.

Tamara:He had a hand on your waist and in your soul.

Lulu:

You touched his jacket like it owed you money and he looked like he wanted to die happy.

Charlie:That kiss had plot, Zo. You were literally smiling INTO his mouth

Lulu:Y’all. Tell me why this fan edit has me kicking my feet like I’m 13 again watching One Direction perform in the rain.

She sends the clip, and I know I shouldn’t watch it. So obviously, I press play. I try to laugh it off as I watch the most deranged video footage of us in slow-mo, but my stomach does this weird swoop that has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the fact that Iliked it.

It’s grainy footage from some Instagram story, cropped vertically with a fake romantic filter slapped on top. The music is low and dramatic—a catchy bridge, of course—and the video is slowed to a crawl right at the moment I grab his lapels.

I watch myself pull Chase in. Watch the way his hand finds my waist, the way he kisses me back like it’s instinct.

And I hate it.

Not because it’s a bad kiss, it’s not. It’s… God, it’shot.

It’s the kind of kiss that ruins things. Replaying on a loop you can’t scrub out, slipping under your skin and ticking like a bomb.

Lying in bed with my heart racing and my phone still buzzing, I can still feel the echo of his mouth on mine.

I shouldn’t have kissed him. Even worse, I shouldn’t be thinking about kissing himagain.

Because the moment it ended, the second he looked at me like he didn’t recognize what just happened, I knew I’d fucked something up. The whole ride home was quiet and tense, like we’d accidentally pressed play on something we were supposed to keep paused. He didn’t even make a single joke. It felt way too serious, and it’s supposed to be fake.

I groan and flop dramatically onto my pillow, dragging the phone onto my chest. Half my hair’s doing this Medusa thing, and my mouth tastes like regret and poor choices.

This is a problem. Because Chase is loud and ridiculous and cocky in ways that should irritate the hell out of me, but somehow all he has to do is lean in, flash that stupid grin, and my brain forgets what it was yelling about five seconds earlier.

And it’s not just his stupid pretty face, it’s worse than that. It’s theease. I’m starting to forget to be defensive when he’s around. He gets under my skin without even trying. Somehow, he makes me feel seen in this awful, inconvenient,softkind of way. And I hate that I don’t hate it.