Page 6 of The Kiss Keeper
“Should we do it?” he whispered.
She swallowed. “You mean kiss?”
She could feel him nod.
“Is it okay if I kissed you?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she replied.
He brushed his thumb across her collarbone. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure. Anything,” she answered, the anticipation near palpable.
“I’d want to kiss you even if we didn’t have to,” he said with the smile back in his voice.
She matched his grin with one of her own. “You would?”
“Do I sound like an idiot?”
She gently twisted the fabric of his T-shirt. “No, you don’t sound like an idiot because I think I’d like to kiss you, too—and not because we want to save your balls or avoid a kiss curse.”
He slid his hands from her shoulders up to her face and cupped her cheeks. “This kissing business may be tricky since we can’t see each other.”
She pushed up onto her tiptoes. “Is this better?”
His chest heaved with a tight exhale.
“Yeah,” he answered, leaning in and lowering his head.
His nose brushed against hers as their shallow breaths met in the tiny slice of space that separated their lips. She pushed up farther onto her tippy toes, ready to kiss the kindest boy she’d ever met when the sharp crack of a snapped branch tore through their pre-kiss bubble.
“Is somebody there? You know nobody’s supposed to be out here past lights out!” came a deep, irritated voice.
“Shit,” her kiss keeper whispered, then grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the well and off the trail.
Shit was right! Camp night patrol—counselors who roamed the property in search of kids sneaking out—had gotten wind of them.
He gripped her hand. “We need to go. We need to get back to our cabins.”
She swallowed back her nerves. “But I can’t take off this blindfold. I can’t look at you.”
He drummed his fingers against the back of her hand. “You won’t have to. I’ve got a plan. You’ll keep your blindfold on, but I’ll need to take mine off to get you back to your cabin. We need to be smart. If they find us together, we’re totally screwed.”
He was totally right. What would her grandparents think?
“Okay, I’m good with that,” she answered.
They had no other option.
He gave her hand a little squeeze. “I’m taking my blindfold off.”
A shiver passed through her—or maybe it was the spirit of Otis Wiscasset.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers and leading her into the forest before she could worry any more about ghosts and legends.
They wove their way through the thick foliage, past blackberry bushes and spiny jack pines that covered the property. Sightless, she relied on her kiss keeper until another snapped twig caught her attention.
She tugged his hand. “Stop,” she whispered as the sounds of the counselors’ voices drew closer.
