Page 40 of What's in a Kiss?

He blinks. “You’re really not coming in?”

“Not even if I were blackout drunk,” I say. Which I very well might be.

He sighs, rubs the space between his eyes. “I don’t get it. But you know where to find me.”

I watch him turn and walk toward the faux-Loire chateau.

Only after he’s gone do I realize I don’t know how to get out at the gate. I wander the yard, looking for the fastest route down. It’s lush with laurel trees and jacarandas. Fanning from the pool is a vast deck from which it looks like you could take a running leap and hang glide to your massage appointment in West Hollywood.

An iron fence looped with twinkling lights lines the perimeter of the lawn. This fence looks over into my backyard. I’ve only ever seen it from below. I rise on my toes, hold my breath, and look down.

The lamp I always leave on in the kitchen casts a warm glow out the window. My heart swells at the sight, and I want to be inside, locking doors and drawing curtains. But I hear voices. Voices coming from my property. People sliding open my back door.

“Stop!” I shout. “Thief!”

They don’t hear me, of course. The distance and the echo are too far. And quickly, I realize this is for the best, because now a woman emerges from my back door carrying—

A candlelit birthday cake.

The happy birthday song carries up the canyon. She placesthe cake before a man, and a troop of guests applaud as he blows out the candles. Someone cuts the cake. They all sit down and eat. Leisurely. Like they own the place.

My gaze gropes around the yard and finds the furniture is different. There’s a cold metal table instead of my warm teak one. A grill where my hammock used to be. Thick cotton maroon drapes where white lace curtains hung this morning.

A different dog runs across the yard.

My stomach twists. “Oh my God. Where is Gram Parsons?”

The birthday boy flips a switch that sends a white shaft of light through the canyon, illuminating the cliff twenty feet down the hill from where I stand. Trumpets blare—the unmistakable fanfare of a Twentieth Century Fox film.

They’re projecting Gwyneth’sGreat Expectationson my cliff!

But it isn’t mine. Not here. Not anymore. That much is clear.

I spin away and fall to my knees. Across the yard, on the other side of the pool, I see Glasswell through wide glass French doors.

He’s in a gorgeous kitchen, brightly lit. He’s changed into a white T-shirt and black joggers. He’s cooking something on a steaming range.

He lives up here.

And those birthday burglars live down there.

Where doIlive?

The room next to Glasswell’s kitchen is also lit, also exposed by broad French doors. It’s a library—an exquisite one, lined with books on three walls. I see some expensive-looking leather-bound editions and some very cool art books, but my gaze ispulled toward the top shelf of the far-left corner of the room. Something looks familiar.

Too familiar.

I squint. Are those...my diaries?

I let out a shriek and rush across the yard to get a better look. I don’t dare go inside, but I don’t need to. I’d recognize those books anywhere. It’s not my full canon of color-coded journals, only the first five books I wrote. Eighth grade through senior year. Strange. I zero in on the fifth one—the pale-yellow edition I know I stashed in the glove box of my LEAF yesterday. Right beside it, serving as a bookend, is a framed photograph in black and white.

It’s a couple in profile. They’re dancing, the man dipping the woman in his arms.

I press my face against the glass and cease to breathe. Because...

The man in the photograph is Glasswell. The woman he’s dancing with... is me. He’s in a tux. She’s—I’m wearing a white dress. We’re smiling, gazing deep into each other’s eyes.

“No. No way,” I whisper, even as I know. Even as I feel it to be true.

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