Page 55 of Not Fooling Anyone

That must mean Ethan and I are kissing today.

My stomach does a strange flip-flopping motion, not sure if it wants to sink or float. My mind tells it to sink. This is terrible. I don’t want to kiss Ethan again.

But my body… Well, it apparently didn’t get that memo.

Maybe outside was a fluke. Maybe it won’t be like that a second time. His lips soft but firm. Testing yet controlled. Warm and delicious and…

All right, no more thinking about it. I’m blowing what happened completely out of proportion.

Dr. Clark greets us and explains how she’ll be taking swabs of the insides of our cheeks, testing our saliva at different points to measure our levels of oxytocin.

Isn’t that a drug? No, wait. That’s OxyContin. Yeah, there’d been some of that around the house over the years, too.

“What’s oxytocin?” Ethan asks, never shy about asking questions.

“It’s a hormone generally associated with, well, love. Relationships, sexual activity, trust. It’s all tied together. We’re looking to see if your levels change based on various interactions with your partner.” She leads us over to a tray of long Q-Tips. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and take the first sample to establish a baseline.”

She swabs our mouths and sticks the Q-tips in clear-capped cylinders, labeling the sides with a Sharpie.

“If you could take a seat over here,” she continues, motioning to two chairs, “we’ll move on.”

We sit down, angling our chairs toward each other when she indicates for us to do so.

“Now, you’ll stare into each other’s eyes for the next two minutes.”

Excuse me?

“No talking. No looking away. Once you’re ready, I’ll set the timer.”

Ethan’s brows raise as he looks at me, as if to askyou ready?

I nod, preparing myself. I mean, how hard can it be to look at him?

There’s the quiet beep of the timer starting, and we’re off, the first twenty seconds or so okay given that all I can think of is how weird this is.

But after that, I start to really focus on him. Superficial things like how green his eyes are, how the shape of his brows complement his face. And when my gaze strays south toward his lips, I snap it back up, reminding myself to keep eye contact. There’s no need to concentrate on his mouth. The slight pressure he kissed me with, enough to have an effect without becoming overwhelming. The gentle bristle of his beard as it had brushed my face. That low sound he’d made as I kissed him back.

The next time we kiss, will he make that sound again?

Will I make one?

I swallow heavily, shifting in my seat, unable to get the image out of my mind now. Can he tell the direction of my thoughts? Is he thinking of that kiss too?

No, he’d seemed annoyed at me earlier, probably fed up with all the bullshit I’ve put him through so far. Asking him to be my pretend boyfriend and then not following through on simple things like touching and kissing. Things a normal girl would do. Things that shouldn’t be a big deal to anyone else.

I thought I had put all those memories behind me. Cody kissing me that last time, his hand on my throat holding me in place, teeth knocking against mine as he’d struggled to keep me still.

No, no. I push the memory away. That’s not happening again. Never happening again.

Ethan’s brows knit, his hand coming out to reach for mine. Did he see something on my face? Did I reveal too much?

His hand drops as Dr. Clark immediately tells us not to touch, and I let out a shaky breath. There’s no reason to be thinking about Cody right now. I’m supposed to be concentrating on Ethan. The guy who’s nothing like I expected.

“Time’s up,” Dr. Clark says, swabbing first Ethan’s inner cheek, then mine. Will they be able to tell we’re not really in love? It’s one thing to spin them a tale, but I can’t change the chemicals in my body. My data alone will probably skew the study’s results.

“You okay?” Ethan whispers as our professor turns to label the second set of samples.

I nod, putting on a smile for him. Not that I’m fooling anyone.

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