Page 75 of The Last Kind of Kiss
The girl immediately shifts her attention, matching my excitement with a squeal as she makes her way over to me.
“Lila? I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” she says, embracing me in a hug that I didn’t know I needed. Although it’s a little awkward while riding—I mean,sittingon—my boyfriend.
She pulls away. “Oh, and you’re on a man! How fun!”
“Hi, Cali,” Bristol greets.
If Cali was drinking anything, she would’ve done a spit take. “Bristol? Why are you—the man you’re sitting on is Bristol?! Oh my God! Are you two…?”
He nods with a proud smile. “Took me a fucking minute, but I finally pulled my head out of my ass and got the girl.”
Got the girl.
Ugh, how does he always know the right thing to say? I mean, he always had that annoying quality about him, but I thought it would eventually go away. APPARENTLY not. He’ll be instilling charm in our maybe babies.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
Cali blushes the color of a blood orange in late January, and the reason for her presence comes careening into her at the speed of light, knocking her onto her back like some housebroken golden retriever. Gage—one of Bristol’s teammates and the so-called troublemaker of the group—hovers over her while he peppers kisses on every inch of her face.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he murmurs in between smooches, so head over heels that I don’t need to look in his eyes to confirm the love hearts popping out of them.
She giggles and squirms underneath him. “I was only gone for five minutes!”
“Five minutes too many. I grieved your absence like a widowin mourning.” He collapses on top of her, crushing her with his full body weight and draping a dramatic arm across his forehead.
“I didn’t know you two were together,” I pipe up, unsure if I should give them some space while Gage puts on the most public display of affection I think I’ve ever seen—and that beats out the old couple I saw groping each other in the line for Space Mountain.
“Yep,” Cali wheezes, doing her best to push him off her. “This is the man-child I’m dating.”
Gage lifts his head and momentarily breaks character. “I love the little nicknames she gives me.”
“I’llgiveyou a bruised nut sack if you don’t get off me!”
“Ooh, kinky. Can I bruise your cervix in return?”
Dear Lord.
“Gage!” she reprimands. “Not appropriate in public!”
“Half the stuff we do isn’t appropriate in public,” he banters.
Bristol’s the first one to bark with laughter, and that rich, brassy rumble streamlines right into my body. I think I could subsist on that sound for the rest of my life—set it as my alarm so that it’s the first thing I hear when I wake up. I may be jinxing things by saying this, but everything feelsright. The subtle touches, the not-so-subtle glances. My heart’s in a frenzy, and the drinking game hasn’t even begun yet.
Once Gage rolls off Cali, he finally notices that I’ve been using Bristol as my makeshift chair, and his lips hitch into a puckish grin. “It’s about time you two got together. Ugh, you should have heard him, Lila. He wouldn’t shut up about you. It was always”—Gage imitates a hilariously deep voice—“‘Do you think she still likes me? I miss her so much. I ruined the best thing in my life. Oh, woe is me, whatever will I do? I’m going to die alone with a shriveled-up penis because I’ll never get laid again!’”
Bristol deadpans, “I didnotsay that last part.”
A playful chuckle peals out of me. “The rest is pretty accurate, though.”
“I—ugh, I hate you both,” Bristol grumbles, though the tiny smile on his face belies his allegedly “deep-seated hatred.”
Maybe I’ve caught the love bug, but I can’t stop my own affection from colliding head-on with Bristol’s, my nose tucked against his jawline and my lips parted to savor the expanse of his skin. “You hate me?” I jokingly whisper.
He turns his head so that our noses bump, his mouth only a few centimeters away from staking his claim. “Oh, yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hm.”
