Page 51 of #Starstruck

I went to the top of the stairs to look at him. “Am I going to see you again?”

He paused on the landing. “If you want to. Why would you ask me that?”

Why would I ask him that? Besides the fact that he was more inscrutable than the freaking Sphinx? “Most of my relationships never go past the third date.”

As if he’d heard something important in my voice, he walked back up the stairs, deliberately maintaining eye contact with me. When he got to where I stood, I backed up and pressed into the wall. He stood in front of me, not touching me but so close it almost felt like he was. “Considering that it’s four in the morning, I think a new day qualifies as a new date. Which makes it our fourth. And I hear important things happen on fourth dates.” His voice dropped to little more than a whisper with his last sentence, and it made my legs and arms tremble.

Was he joking around, or did he mean something else? Was he thinking of me in a different way?

And then ... he kissed me.

On the forehead.

Again.

“’Night, Zo.” He whistled softly as he left this time, and I didn’t say anything to stop him. I let myself into my apartment, feeling dazed and thoroughly confused.

As I locked the front door, I wondered whether I needed to invest in a neon sign that I could attach to my forehead that saidLIPSDOWNHEREwith one of those arrows. I kicked off my shoes and went to the bedroom, fully expecting the third degree from Lexi.

She was in her bed, totally passed out. She hadn’t even noticed I was late coming home. I grabbed an oversize shirt to sleep in and angrily took off my clothes.

Why was he so hard to read? I could almost hear Lexi’s voice in my head saying, “Duh. He’s an actor. You see only what he wants you to see.”

Did he not want to kiss me? Why would he talk about taking me to Ireland when he apparently wasn’t even attracted to me? He really did treat me like I was his annoying kid sister whom he had to let tag along with him. Thing was—he didn’t have to. But he spent time with me anyway.

I considered waking up Lexi to get her advice, but she turned over and started snoring, hugging her pillow with the Chase Covington cover.

I climbed into bed and decided it was beyond sad that my roommate was currently getting more action from Chase than I was.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

So of course when I woke up, the very first thing I did was check my phone. No texts from Chase yet, but there was that tweet.Best night ever.Ha. Only if his definition of “best night” was “Nobody got kissed.”

It was almost noon when I went into the kitchen to get something to eat. Lexi sat on the couch with one of her feet propped up on the coffee table, giving herself a pedicure. “Late night?” she asked with a sly grin.

I growled in response, not ready to talk until I had sustenance. I poured myself a super nutritious bowl of Lucky Charms and sat at our little kitchen table.

She’d lived with me long enough to know that I needed some time in the morning before I turned into a human again. She painted her toenails a bright candy-apple red and hummed a show tune to herself.

I drank the milk right out of the bowl and then put my dishes in the sink. “What does it mean when the guy you’re dating hasn’t tried to kiss you yet?”

“Gay.”

“Just because that happened to you once—”

“Eleven times,” she corrected, applying the polish in short, careful strokes.

“Seriously? Eleven times? Okay, just because that’s happened to you eleven times doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening here. And maybe you should stop dating fellow theater majors.”

She nodded in agreement as I collapsed onto the couch next to her.

“Do you want me to do your nails, too?”

What did it matter? It wasn’t like anybody was going to see them. But I was too tired to move. “’Kay.”

She put my right foot in her lap and used the file. “He really hasn’t kissed you yet? Haven’t you been out a bunch of times?”

“Yes. Apparently I’m too hideous to be kissed.”

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