Page 14 of No Way Home
Her fingers glided over my cheeks. “Si c’est ça que ressent la serendipity, alors je suis croyante,” she repeated, her nose brushing mine. “It means, if this is what serendipity feels like, then I'm a believer.”
“I can’t top that,” I breathed. “So just…same.”
Her hands curled around my neck, and her head tilted, ready.
Now that we were here, I took a beat. You only get one first kiss, and I didn’t want to rush it. Wanted to get it exactly right. My hand slid over her knee and up her thigh until it reached the hem of her skirt. Goosebumps sprang up under my fingertips. There was something I had to get out. Something I’d wanted to say all night. I blew out my breath and went for it. “You probably shouldn’t wear miniskirts around me anymore.” I was committed now.
“Why?” she murmured, and it lit up my gut like a bonfire.
“Because…” My nose nuzzled hers. “You have the best legs I’ve ever seen. And you made it very hard to focus tonight. Very,veryhard.”
“The best legs you’ve ever seen?” she asked, like I was full of it. “Ever?”
“Ever,” I whispered. “Give me a lie detector test if you want.”
She studied me, pupils blown, lips parted. “Okay,” she rasped in surrender. Her fingers dug into my shoulders like she might fall out of my lap if she didn't hang on. “If you’re going to kiss me, you better hurry. I’m two seconds from disintegrating.”
“Well. We can’t have that. Can we?” My hands slipped up her sides. Lips only a millimeter apart, I leaned in and?—
WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO,her phone rang. Actually, it blared—a fire engine ringtone that could not have been louder or more annoying.
We smacked noses. Hard.
Ouch.
She scrambled off my lap like she’d touched an electric fence, grabbing her phone with shaky fingers. With one frantic swipe, the blaring stopped—she practically hurled it onto the couch like it might bite her.
She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
I nodded, but there was pressure building between my eyes. “Fine,” I lied.
“Do you think that was serendipity trying to tell us something?”
“Definitely not.” I rubbed my nose.Except to silence our cell phones.
Her chest heaved. “Okay. But…can I have a minute? I need to use the restroom.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Be right back.”
Once the bathroom door was shut and she turned on a ceiling vent that sounded like it was chewing through scrapmetal, I fell back onto the Twister mat, every nerve buzzing, nose throbbing.
A framed picture of her and another girl I suspected was Foot Cop—a petite brunette who had the eyes of someone who would destroy a man over his hairy feet—smiled from a shelf above me. I stood to study it. But then Velvet’s phone blared with that annoying fire engine ringtone again.WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO. I reached down to lower the volume…
And my blood ran cold. Because the contact picture of the person calling was none other than…
My older brother Griffin.
I hit end call and dropped it on the couch like he might punch through the screen and throttle me. Why was Griffin calling Velvet? How did they even know each other? And why were they close enough that she knew his ringtone should be a fire engine horn?
Wait.
All summer, Griffin had been going on and on about a girl he volunteered with at the rescue squad. A blond girl.
With a bob.
Who was fluent in two languages besides English.
