Page 130 of Before We're More Than Friends
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, his kiss spreading from my lips to my cheek. “I’m here with the girl of my dreams. My moonlight.”
“My sunshine.” My other hand combed through his curls. Man, they were softer than I’d imagined. Not that I’d been imagining his hair that often. Only a little. “What do you use for your hair? I think I might need it, too.”
“Just some shampoo from the store,” he said, his cheeks flushing in the way I loved. Everything about him made my heart, which had been broken for so long, melt into a puddle. “If you like it that much, then I’ll keep buying it.”
I grinned against his mouth. “Please do.”
We kissed for another minute, our hands tracing the lines of each other’s bodies, before breaking apart. The moonlight shone in his dark eyes, and another grin broke out on my face. It’d been so long since someone made me smile like this. If I ever had before.
For the first time in a long time, I felt so over the freaking moon.
“I hope that was fun,” Dallas said, touching his lips as the redness faded from his face. “I-I’d never kissed anyone for longer than two seconds.”
“Darla from Dallas?” When we’d first met in fifth grade, Dallas had a crush on a girl in his class. She’d asked him out but only because she was doing a challenge with her friends. It’d crushed him, but I’d comforted him and assured him there would be another girl out there who’d like him for who he was.
Never had I thought that girl would be me.
And I for sure wasn’t mad at it.
“Don’t remind me.” Dallas groaned as we sat on the nearest bench. “That girl crushed meandstole my first kiss. Though I’m more upset about the latter.” He wrapped his arm around me and kissed my cheek. “Way more upset,” he whispered, his lip brushing against my ear.
“She was a loser,” I said, though my skin prickled from his touch. “But you’re definitely not.”
“I guess Oliver gave you some good practice.”
My cheeks grew hot. “Who told you?” I purposely never told him about my little stint with Oliver, my fourteen-year-old self too embarrassed about the crush.
“Caleb brought it up one day at lunch.”
Now I groaned. “Gosh, that crush was so embarrassing. Oliver and I only kissed two times before . . .” I swallowed. “Well, Caleb had his arm amputated, and Oliver was too distraught to keep things going with me. But then he got distracted by Natalie Mao—who apparently was a much better kisser because that’s all they did for the two weeks they dated.” Oliver had also stopped things because he found out that someone else had been into me, but I didn’t want Dallas to worry about that part.
“I’m sorry,” Dallas said. “He really missed out.”
I smirked. “Why be sorry when you get to be with me instead?”
He laughed. “That’s true. In that case . . .” He pressed his lips against mine again. “I’m not sorry at all.”
I giggled before kissing him back. “Good. I don’t want you to be.” I traced my finger around his wrist, embracing the cool feeling of the bracelet’s black star. “You never fail to impress me.”
“I’m glad. Because that’s all I want to do.” He looked into my eyes, his still shining in the moonlight. “All I want to do is adore you.”
Dallas drove me back to my house in his steel-gray Honda Pilot, wanting to take me home like it was a proper date. Penrose and Houston didnotenjoy being in the car together, barking so loudly that we couldn’t hear our “songs that make us believe in love for once” playlist, but we managed to survive the three-minute car ride.
Dallas’s jaw dropped as he pulled into the driveway. “This is your house?”
I giggled. “I always told you it was big.”
“Yeah, but this big?” He gasped at the monster of a house as he killed the engine. “How do you even navigate—it’s the size of my whole street!”
“You’re not wrong.” I got out of the car and grabbed Penrose from the back seat. She whimpered as I let her out, probably plotting revenge by crushing my chest tomorrow morning.
Dallas put Houston on his leash and walked me to the front door, his jaw still on the ground as he took in our property with huge eyes.
“You’re going to swallow a bug, you know,” I told him, brushing my shoulder against his.
“Sorry, it’s just . . .” His black lashes fluttered. “This is freaking crazy.”
“I know it is.” I let go of his hand once we reached the door and took my keys out of my purse, Penrose pulling the leash in the opposite direction as she sniffed the plants. “If you’re shocked now, you’re going to die once you see the inside.”
