Page 899 of One More Kiss

"Clever," a voice came from behind me, causing me to jump. "And here I thought I was the one who was dead. Guess I'm not Dr. Malcolm Crowe after all."

My heart did a backflip. It was the guy from the club. Handsome I'll-hold-the-door-for-you guy. The one who somehow knew my name.

I had no clue who he was talking about. "Who?" Yes, I was drowning in his honey-colored eyes, but I still had some wits about me.

"The Sixth Sense? Bruce Willis?"

"Ohhh!" It seemed that I was limited to one-word sentences around hot guys.

Great.

"Never mind. Are you going in?"

I nodded, and he opened the door. I ducked under his arm and made my way inside.

"Small world," he said quietly.

The room was exactly what you'd expect. The desks were shoved against the walls, and a circle of chairs was in the center of the room. Only two were empty, and I thanked God that they were across from each other, not beside each other. Because talking to him was one thing. Sitting a foot away from him, being able to smell him, was another. I'd never be able to concentrate with the scent of oranges and rain infiltrating my thoughts.

I chose the farthest seat and sat up straight with my arms crossed and feet together. Maybe if I held myself together, I wouldn't fall apart.

A woman walked in with a forced empathetic smile on her face. She was thin, had mousy-gray hair cut short, and wore a purple short-sleeved pantsuit. I assumed she was the counselor because she was the only person old enough to be my parent in the room.

"Delta Burke called," the girl next to me mumbled, "she wants her shoulder pads back."

Although I hadn't a clue who Delta was, I knew what shoulder pads were, and hers were huge. Without warning, a small laugh escaped my throat, coming out as a snort. I attempted to cover it up with a cough, but it was no use. I knew it was wrong to laugh at someone, but I couldn't help it. I was awful. That was another side effect of being emotionally damaged—dark humor.

She took a seat, talking gently to us about sadness and feeling safe while passing out little tissue packets. I looked around the room, out the window, at my phone, anything to avoid looking across the circle because I could feel his eyes on me.

My brain decided it didn't care that I needed to avoid eye contact because my gaze turned to him, and we locked eyes momentarily before I glanced away, my cheeks flushing.

Trying to avoid looking his way made the hour drag on—not that it wouldn't otherwise, but it made it worse. As we went around the circle, talking more about ourselves than why we were here, I became increasingly anxious. As much as it made me want to climb the walls like a cat and stick to the ceiling to avoid talking to the group, I was anxious for his turn. I wanted to know who he was. It wasn't unreasonable. After all, he knew my name.

When it was his turn, I finally looked up from twisting my hands in my lap. His honey-colored eyes locked with mine as he began to speak. "I'm Daniel. I'm a junior. Majoring in music. But I got in on a baseball scholarship." His voice was confident as he spoke, and I briefly wondered if he'd done this before.

I made a mental note of everything I could. Tucking it into a pocket in my mind for later. He had been straight-up sexy in the moonlight, with messy hair and flushed cheeks, but under the unforgiving fluorescents, I could see his imperfections—not that he had many.

Although he was fit, he was on the slimmer side. The one thing that gave away his confidence was that he slouched a little like he wanted the chair to swallow him whole. He also drummed his fingers on his leg, swallowed more than he needed to, and had a constellation of random dark freckles on his collarbone.

In short, he was real. And he was beautiful.

When the buzzer indicated the session was over, I grabbed my things and made my way to the door as quickly as possible. The crowd of people bottlenecked, and since I'd never been a pushy person, I ended up in the back. An older man who was walking by held the door for the girls in front of me but let go just as I was about to walk through. I closed my eyes and raised my arm, anticipating it slamming me in the face, but it didn't. I opened my eyes and looked up to find a hand overhead holding the door open.

"We have to stop meeting like this." Daniel offered a smile.

Did he have dimples? Why yes, yes, he did. Good God.

"Thanks." I managed to get out that one word before rushing through the open door.

Victoria was parked at the curb right where she'd dropped me off. I hopped in, closed the door, and let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

"I got milkshakes!" She smiled. "How did it go?!"

I looked over at the building just as Daniel walked out. "Just drive."

"Oh no. Tate? What happened?"

Daniel happened.

---