Page 74 of This Time It's Real
“Y-yeah,” I manage. Swallow. “Yeah, like that.” One small step, and I’ve closed the distance between us. I lift my lips to his ear and whisper, for only him to hear, “Now hurry up and kiss me before people start leaving.”
I brace myself. Try to empty my mind. It’s supposed to be a professional kiss, if such a thing exists. Neither of us should feel anything other than grim determination to do this well, and maybe a hint of annoyance, impatience at having to do this in the first place.
But this is what happens instead:
Caz cups my face with one steady, slender hand and traces a gentle line down my cheek, and my mind—my mind teeters toward oblivion. My breathing betrays me. His ink-black eyes lock on mine, and I am staring up at him, half in shock and maybe awe. He’s unreasonably beautiful and he’s so close it makes me ache and I want him closer still. I want him even though I shouldn’t. I want him to want me too.
I can’t even remember what we were supposed to do.
Then, slowly, he brings his other hand up to my face. His fingers tremble slightly, and the air between us changes. Solidifies. Overheats. My mouth parts of its own accord, and he sees.
He makes a soft, barely audible sound that could be a sigh or the edge of a laugh or something else, a surrender, and then he leans all the way in, presses his lips to mine like he can’t help himself, like he’s been waiting forever just to kiss me—
And I kiss him back.
I kiss him with an intensity that shocks me.
Because somehow, I realize I’ve been yearning for this: the softness of his lips moving against my own, the firmness of his grip, the small, hungry fires spreading from every single point of contact.
Then, just as quick as it started, it’s over.
I don’t know who pulls away first, but we’re suddenly scrambling backward, standing apart, nothing but our uneven breaths touching the space between us. For a split second, Caz looks stunned. Almost drunk.
But in the next second, he is himself again. Confident. Assured. He straightens, runs a bored hand through his hair, and looks out at the students on the school oval.
My blood is pounding so loud in my ears I’d nearly forgotten they were there, but I gaze down too, assessing their expressions. Some are staring at us with open envy and shock. Others . . . Others are frowning, like they’re not entirely sure what it is they’ve just witnessed.
“Do you—do you think it worked?” I ask Caz, my voice way too high to be normal.
“Honestly?” I hear him swallow. “No.”
“Wait—what?”I demand, twisting around. But before I can even continue, he grabs my wrist and pulls me out of sight, leading me away until we’re concealed by jade bamboos and mandarin trees, hidden in a mini garden of our own, soft shadows dancing around us, light bleeding through the gaps in the leaves. “What?” I repeat in a hiss. He still hasn’t let go. I’m intimately aware of the warm press of his fingers against my skin, the precise shape and sound of his every breath.
“Yeah, no, these scandals are rarely resolved in a day—or with a single performance. You need to give it a lot more time.”
“Then why—” I shake my head. My head is still spinning. I manage to produce exactly one coherent thought—Caz Song and I just kissed—before my brain runs into a wall and crashes.Caz and I kissed, and for a long moment, from when our lips met, Caz had kissed me like . . . like he really meant it.No. Stop. Not the point here.“If you didn’t think it would work, why did you agree to the plan?”
Something flickers over his face, but he merely shrugs. “You just seemed like you really wanted to kiss me. And who am I to deny you the pleasure?”
My face bursts into flame. He says it like he’s teasing. No, like he’smockingme. But of course he is. Of course he hadn’t actually meant it—that’s how he kisses everyone, all his beautiful costars on set. Who am I kidding? A kiss is just a kiss to him.
“Wow,” I say, shifting back, mortification burning through my body like hot oil. “Okay. Well, clearly this was a mistake—and for the record, I absolutely didnotwant to kiss you. At all. It was only for a bigger cause—dire times, and all that—”
“Really?” He moves forward. Cocks his head. “Then what are you thinking right now?”
“I—What?” I flush harder. Through my humiliation, I’m thinking, unforgivably, about what it’d be like to kiss him again, to kiss him and really savor it, even knowing that it’d be more real for me than it could ever be for him.
But it’s like the kiss has unlocked every suppressed fear and feeling inside me. Because I’m also thinking about how tens of thousands of people across the world are somehow invested in Caz and me, but only in the fantasy version of our story. I’m thinking about how it would feel to have Caz only to lose him, the way I lose everyone when I leave, the kind of bone-deep, inconsolable pain I would have to suffer as a consequence of my wanting. How easy it would be to revert to that old, familiar loneliness, except this time, the loneliness would hurt more than it ever has before, a loneliness shaped entirely by his absence.
I’m thinking that if I tell him what I really feel, just lay it all out there, there will truly be no going back from this. That it’s been hard enough just to get to where we are—from strangers to begrudging allies to actual friends—to demolish every painstaking brick of trust built between us by asking for something more. That I’ll have broken every rule I’ve laid down for myself, just to give Caz—beautiful, unpredictable, guarded Caz—all the ammunition he needs to break my heart.
“I’m . . . not sure what to think,” I say.
He takes another step closer. I step back automatically, the bamboo stalks rising up around me, brushing my cheek. He stops. Releases his grip on my wrist, only to bring his hand up to the curve of my jaw, and it’s all I can do not to dissolve right there or utter something incredibly dangerous and sincere.
“So you don’t have any real feelings for me?” he asks, his voice dipping into a low register I’ve never heard before. “Not even a little?” He keeps his gaze steady on me, but his fingers trail down to a soft, vulnerable spot at the base of my neck, and I flinch, like an idiot.
I can’t speak; I shake my head.
