Page 4 of Kiss the Girl
“Landon,” Miss Lily called from the other side of the terrace.
“Excuse me, I need to see what Gran needs. We’ll catch up later, Grace?” She nodded. “Nice to talk to you, Noah.”
Silence fell between us when Landon left.
“It was you in the garden,” she said. It was an accusation.
I nodded. No use denying it. “Get everything, um, fixed?”
She cleared her throat and shifted from foot to foot. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “Yeah. It’s all fixed.”
Did she even realize she kept smoothing the skirt of her dress like she was checking to make sure it was still in place?
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m sure you saved the wedding.”
Her eyes flickered to mine and she gave me a pinched smile. “Yes, I’ve saved the wedding, and no one will ever know. Just your average undercover superhero. Wouldn’t want anyone to suffer a rogue tulle attack.”
“Tulle? Is that what you call the—” I waved my hands in the air, trying to figure out how to describe the fabric on the arbor—“fairy stuff?”
“Fairy stuff?”
“It looks like fairy dress material.”
She eyed me, the color in her cheeks returning to normal. “I have questions.”
“About?”
“About why you know what fairies wear.”
“I have a five-year-old niece.”
She paused then nodded as if that explained everything. If she knew Evie, it would.
“So.” I cleared my throat. I was not a ladies’ man or player or whatever it was guys who were smooth were called these days, but I hadsomegame. But the advice about picturing people in their underwear to make yourself less nervous was one hundred percent backfiring at the moment. “Uh, you’re friends with Brooke?”
“Yeah. Helped her with some remodeling. We hang out.”
I risked studying her more closely. “You seem familiar to me.” It wasn’t a line. She did, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. When she looked wary for a second, I flinched. “Not because of the garden. I mean yourfacelooks familiar.”Oh, nice one, Noah. Way to make it even worse.
“Probably seen me in the hardware store. I run it for my dad.”
“I’m not very handy. If anything goes wrong at my place, I call the apartment manager.”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure, then.”
Her face got the closed look I saw on students every day. It was the look of someone deeply uncomfortable but pretending not to be.
With my students, I tried jokes or distraction to nudge them out of it. It was worth a shot here if it meant she wouldn’t look like she was scoping the terrace for easy exits. I didn’t want her to walk away. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy the view as she did.
“I think I need to even the score,” I said.
Her gaze shot up, a spark of curiosity in her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll embarrass myself in front of you, then we can be chill around each other.”
“How would you do that? I’m curious to see how embarrassed you think you need to be to equal the show I gave you.”
Oops. Hadn’t looked at it that way. This suddenly felt like I’d asked myself a trick question, only I didn’t know the answer. I scrambled to think of something. “Um, pretend to be drunk, stagger around, crash into the dessert table, and knock everything over?”
