Page 82 of The Last Kind of Kiss
“It’s pretty much all I’ve done for the past three months. Your eyes get all dark and stormy when you’re mad or upset, and when you’re happy, they’re bright blue with barely noticeable flecks of gold in them. Like the glistening surface of water in the sunlight.”
Maybe it’s because I’m not constantly staring at my eyes in the mirror, but I never knew they changed color—I just assumed they were always boring blue. But the way Bristol talks about them makes them sound like they’re the most beautiful thing in this world, which isn’t a title I’d necessarily give any feature of my body.
The gratitude I want to express gets lost in translation somewhere in my groggy head, and I’m left with my last line of pathetically non-nonchalant defense. “What color are they now?”
Bristol pretends to scrutinize me—as if he hadn’t already spent a full minute committing the exact shade to memory—and an oafish smile breaches his lips. “Bright blue. With flecks of gold.”
Of course.
I duck my head shyly as the heart palpitations set in,wanting to bury my face back into his neck so that I can subdue this embarrassment. “What else do you know about me?”
“You snort when you laugh—which you hate—but it’s my favorite sound in the whole world. You’re partial to wearing dresses rather than pants. You can impressively eat your weight in burgers. You put everyone else’s needs before your own. You care a lot more than you want people to think. How much more do you want to know?”
I blink in shock, slow to name the weird feeling in my belly that makes me simultaneously nauseous and excited at the same time. It’s something I’ve constantly felt with Bristol, but nothing I’ve ever feltbeforehim.
“I…we’ve never talked about any of that.”
His fingers come up to skim my cheekbone. “I don’t know if you know this about me, angel, but I’m a pretty observant guy,” he brags subtly, an arrogant grin in place of that deceptively coy smile.
“I really don’t think I’m that interesting of a subject.” I glance down at the hand that caresses me, making note of how close our bodies are, making note of the carnal craving that thrives in my blood, my viscera, my bones—that thrives only forhim.
“Really? Because I’ve been obsessed with you for five hundred and one days, and even that hasn’t been long enough for me.”
God, I don’t even know how torespondto that. I’ve never been good at accepting compliments, and with Bristol, it’s even harder. He’s just…he’s every woman’s dream boyfriend. Nothing else exists when it’s just me and him and that razor-thin wire of lust. I need to kiss him until my lips are numb. I need to become so intertwined with him that we can’t differentiate where one of us ends and the other begins.
He’s really been keeping track all this time. He’s really beenthinkingabout me all this time.
A smile broadens over my lips. “You’re a big softie in the morning, you know that?”
“Nope. Only when it comes to five-foot-eight girls with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a knack for knocking me on my ass.”
“That could be anybody. Half the female population in Riverside is blonde.”
His hand migrates to a strand of my hair, and he twirls it around his finger. “Not the kind of blonde that looks like it’s been dipped in sunshine,” he says in a hushed whisper, his heavy-lidded gaze oscillating between my eyes and my lips.
I don’t know what to say. I’m too captivated by the essence of him. And I don’t think there are any words in this world adequate enough to describe Bristol—the way his dashingly good looks must be a reincarnation of Apollo himself, the infinite well of his kindness, the shining beacon in his chest that points the way home every time I stumble astray.
But thankfully, I don’t have to say anything because Bristol steps into me, crashes his lips over mine like we only have five more seconds before the planet implodes, and gifts me with enough love to make me feel like I’m flying.
When we makeit back to earth with all our limbs still intact, the mantle of mist over Temecula has lifted, and fingers of morning fire sweep through the acreage of vines, striating the horizon in marmalade streaks. It’s even more beautiful up close, and Bristol leads me to the second part of our date—a surprise wine tasting.
I can’t believe he remembered that I mentioned a wine tasting at the gala. It was a joke, of course, but the fact that he listened to me makes me feel so…seen. We meander into the belly of a large winery, and a cellar made of mahogany and stone welcomes our parched throats. Ceiling-high racks of wineline every wall while the archways are constructed of mortar-slathered granite, and there’s a single table spotlighted under a wagon wheel chandelier.
My mouth’s permanently wrenched open while I take in the understated beauty of it all, and Bristol pulls out my chair for me like the gentleman he is. I’ve always known wine tastings to be on the classier side, so I’m lucky I wore a milkmaid sundress that adheres to both the weather outside and the etiquette inside.
“Bristol, this is…this is incredible,” I gasp, coasting my eyes over the cellar and admiring how the golden, disembodied glow from above cocoons us in an invisible safety net.
He winks. “Just wait until you taste the wine.”
My belly’s overrun with nerves, and the hazy illumination framing Bristol’s side profile shines through those fine bristles of his lashes, slopes down his straight nose, then caresses the plumpness of his lower lip. In here, under the low light and bound to him by a gravitational pull, I can even make out the faintness of sunbaked freckles on his cheeks.
Our server—a man with excellent posture and coiffed hair—brings us two flights of wine and a complimentary charcuterie board. There are ten glasses of wine in total, all filled with a few ounces of either semitranslucent or opaque liquid, and they range from pale white to a deep red. He regales us with the backstory of each glass, of the fermentation process, of the love and dedication put into each flavorful experience, then leaves us to the tasting—not forgetting to mention in a thick, Italian accent how cute we are as a couple.
I pick up the first glass by the stem, glancing at the moondust-colored liquid that sparkles with tiny bubbles. “What if I don’t like it?” I ask Bristol.
“You can spit it into the spit bucket,” he replies, gesturing to the metal bucket next to us.
“Isn’t spitting…disrespectful?”
