Page 58 of Kiss Me Now
“Did I do something wrong?” Now he sounded confused. I got it. I was confused too.
“Nothing. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that...”That I have never had the sensation of wanting to drown in someone, and I’m a little freaked out.“That’s not what I brought you out here for. I think...” I looked around, disoriented, until I caught sight of my tote. “We should get back to biology. Meaning mushrooms!” I hurried to add when I saw the glint in his eye.
And I scooped up the bag and almost sprinted for the trail, not even checking to see if he was following.
Chapter Nineteen
Ian
Brooke shut down again. I could almost feel it like a physical sensation, a wall going up between us. Kissing her had felt like the one time I’d gone skydiving, but now it was as if that jump had ended in a crash landing.
The blood still surged in my temples, and I took a deep breath to settle my body down as I followed behind her on the trail. “Should we talk about that?”
“No.” She crouched by a stump to examine it for mushrooms. “We definitely aren’t going to talk about that.”
“Got it.” I could use some time to process the fact that I’d just made out with Gran’s hot neighbor in the woods, and she had blown my mind. I picked my words carefully. I didn’t want to make her feel like she had to retreat even more. “Change of subject. You grew up near DC?”
“Yeah. Virginia suburb. You?”
“Not really. Baltimore.”
She looked up at me. “Baltimore is almost as close to DC as McClean is.”
“Yeah, but it’s more its own city than a lot of suburbs are.”
“I feel like I should defend McClean against that slander, but it’s true, to be honest. The whole point of McClean is for everyone who works in DC to have a fancy zip code. Even PTA races are about social climbing and networking. Baltimore isn’t like that?”
“No. My parents are both ambitious, but it’s not really about politics. My mom teaches at Johns Hopkins, my dad is a vice-president at an electronics company, and I’m the only one who even ended up in DC.”
“But youarein DC. You didn’t escape the vortex. It eats up everything around it.”
“Not true. We even have our own baseball team. That’s how you know it’s a real city and not a suburb.”
She snorted. “Tell that to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.”
I picked up a stick and pointed it at her like a sword. “I will duel for Baltimore’s honor.”
