Page 46 of Sweet Caroline
“That makes sense.”
I can certainly understand needing to find yourself—find your footing. Feeling cold, I rub my arms.
“I ignored the advice before, actually, which wasn’t great. The first time I tried to quit drinking, I started dating someone right away and it blew up in my face. The breakup was pretty stressful. I kinda spiraled, and I relapsed pretty badly.”
My brows pinch at the pained look on his face. “I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t ready.” He pauses for a moment, visibly shaking it off. “Still not ready. Still working on figuring myself out, taking care of myself better. So, I guess it’s not a hard rule in AA but, for me, it has to be.”
“I’m glad you’re doing that. All of it. And congratulations, by the way. Ten months is huge.”
He nods, a genuine smile touching his lips as he grips the railing on either side of him. “Thanks.”
“I hope the kiss earlier didn’t break any of your rules.” I hug my arms, rubbing them again. “Sorry I kinda sprung the idea on you in the car, I?—”
“What kiss?”
I balk. “What do you mean,what kiss? At the fundraiser.”
He scrunches his nose. “Dunno. We got interrupted. Wouldn’t say it was even akiss, really.”
“No?” I ask. “I thought it… I’m pretty sure it counted.”
The corner of his mouth curls and he straightens, shoving hishands in his front pockets. “Caroline.” He meets my eyes with an intensity that traps the air in my lungs. “When I kiss you, you’ll know it.” A muscle flickers in his jaw. “There won’t be any doubt about whether it counted.”
“Oh,” is all I can manage. Those hummingbirds in my chest are back. And they’re freaking out. And on fire.
“I mean,” he shrugs, stepping closer, “we can do a hell of a lot better than that non-kiss.”
I search his expression. “What are you saying?”
“Uh, well, you mentioned something earlier. About practice?”
I try to mask the way my stomach flips at the implication. “Yeah?”
He drifts closer still. “Well, we didn’t really get to, y’know, do it right before. So maybe we need a do-over.”
“You want to practice?” I huff a nervous breath into the small space between us. “Now? Here?”
“Just this one time,” he adds with a one-sided shrug, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. “Without an audience. No pressure, no interruptions. If we’re gonna fake a relationship over the next few weeks, we’re gonna have to get comfortable with this stuff, right?”
“Right.” My voice isn’t much more than a whisper. “So, how would you… um…” I swallow. “How would you do it differently? Do it right, like you said.”
“Well,” he says, slipping his hands from his pockets to rub gentle strokes over my bare arms, “first, I’d wanna warm you up.” He gently fingers the strap of my dress and electricity skitters across my collarbone. “God, you must be fucking freezing in this.”
“I am,” I say, scrunching my nose. “Fashion over function, right?”
He unzips his hoodie, then shrugs it off and pulls it around my shoulders. Immediately, his clean, earthy scent engulfs me.
“Thank you,” I whisper as I work my arms through the sleeves.
He reaches up to untuck a stray curl from under the fabric, and I shiver when his fingers graze my neck.
“Then…” He steps toward me and cups my jaw, brushing his thumb over my cheek and down to my lips. There’s something hypnotic about the slow way he’s closing the space between our bodies. “If this is a do-over—like, if this is afirstkiss, I mean—I’d wanna make sure I have your… explicit… consent.”
The way he’s drawing this out is unfurling some long-dormant part of me that lives low in my belly. I lift my hands to his stomach, tentatively touching his waist. His T-shirt is buttery soft and he smells so good that I have to resist the urge to yank him against me. It would be tootake me now—too forward.
“Consent is… very important,” I say quietly, relishing the way touching his body heats more than my fingers; admittedly, it isn’t just the evening chill pulling me into his chest.
