Page 97 of The Vacation Mix-Up
The kiss certainly didn’t feel terrible to me; it was amazing. Sweet. Passionate. Mesmerizing. If anything, it wastooamazing.
Utterly mortified that perhaps I kiss like a wet fish, I sink into the plush velvet chair next to Brittany, my mortification made worse by her fuming stare drilling into the side ofmy head.
“I think I’m hard,” Ben says, adjusting his crutch. “You two need to bang one out.”
“Shut up!” Riley and I both snap.
“Whoa!” He chuckles. “Just go and fuck and get it over with.”
Riley turns in his seat, his torrid eyes targeting on Ben, his nostrils flared. He looks ready to launch over me and hit the imbecile, and even though Ben probably deserves a fist to the nose, I don’t want Riley to be the one to do it. Not over this. Not over me. It’s my fault we played the stupid game and were forced to kiss, and clearly, he’s far from impressed about it.
“Thank you, everyone,” Paul announces. “You’ve been brilliant as always. I’ll see you back here tonight for the magic show with our resident magician Darren Banes. In the meantime, let me leave you with this joke. What vegetable do we not allow on cruise ships?”
I think about it for a moment, my mind wandering to cabbage, because… well, it stinks.
“Leeks!” Paul yells. “We can’t have leeks on the ship.”
Half the auditorium groans, and the other half laugh, including me—it was clever.
Riley shoots to his feet and storms out of the theatre, and again, I scurry after him. “Hey! Wait up.”
He refuses to slow down, so I reach out and touch his arm. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Uh… yeah, you do.”
“I don’t.”
Feeling as if I’ve been punched in the gut, but also guilt-ridden for pushing him to win at all costs and kiss me when he may not have been ready to kiss another woman, I apologize for the mess we seem to now be in. “I’m sorry, okay? I never thought we’d be asked to kiss. But… you didn’t have to do?—”
“It’s fine, Riles. We won. You got your spa voucher.”
“You meanourspa voucher.”
“I don’t care about the damn spa.”
I clasp his T-shirt, dig my heels into the ground, and force him to stop walking. “Riley?—”
“What?”
Taken aback by his harsh tone, I let go.
He sighs, his eyes finally settling on mine as he places his hands on my shoulders. “It’s fine. I’m happy we won.”
Searching his face for answers, for why his jaw is tense and why his delightful crinkles are no longer there, my heart pinches; I miss his crinkles. Every fiber of my being wants to cup his cheek and bring his lips to mine again, to feel what I felt on stage, but… I don’t. I wouldn’t dare. The game is over.
“It was just a kiss,” he says, swallowing heavily, his hands falling to his sides. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Yeah.” I clear the lump in my throat. “You’re right.”
“Good. Now, can we just forget it and move on?”
“S-Sure. Of course.”
“Great.”
“Great.”
