Starry Eyes(71)

“And then,” he yells, “I had to listen to Brett—fucking Brett, of all people—brag about how close he was to ‘hitting that.’?”

Ugh! What did I see in him?

“It was just a kiss!” I tell Lennon. “One kiss, and it wasn’t even that good. It wasn’t good with Andre, and it was less than nothing with Brett. Is that want you want to hear?”

“I don’t mind hearing that, honestly,” he says, cheeks dark with indignation.

“And what about Jovana? Andre and I had sex one time. Once! You probably screwed Jovana’s brains out for months.”

“I’m not going to dignify that. She’s a nice person.”

“Aha!” I say. “You avoided the question.”

“There was a question? Because all I heard was an implication. And yeah, we had sex. But I wasn’t in love with her.”

“Does that make it better?”

“You’re not hearing me. I wasn’t in love with her.”

“I heard you.”

“She left me because I was hung up on you.”

“Then why didn’t you talk to me?” I say.

“Because you made it clear that you didn’t want me to. Because you were busy making out with Brett at parties. Because you made new friends and avoided me at school. Because your father was always watching me.”

“You should have fought for me!” I shout. “Why didn’t you fight for me?”

“You gave up on me!” he yells back. “How can I fight for someone who pretends I don’t exist?”

“I was trying to protect myself. You hurt me. My entire world fell apart.”

“So. Did. Mine.”

I’m shaking now. At least the angry crying has stopped.

“It’s not supposed to be like this!” I tell him.

“What isn’t?”

I gesture angrily from him to me. “This! If this were meant to be, it would be easier. Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.”

“Oh?” He stalks closer, getting in my face. Towering above me. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” I say, less sure.

“I really want to know, Zorie. What do you think the universe is trying to tell us?”

“That we . . .” My mouth hangs open, and I can’t finish the thought. He’s too close. Inches away. My head is empty; the words on my tongue have vanished. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. What I’m feeling. I just have the sense that we’ve come to a decisive moment and something is about to snap. It’s as if the energy between us has suddenly spiked and is now vibrating. Like the sign behind me warns: STAY CLEAR OF THE EDGE. ROCKS ARE SLIPPERY.

“You want to know what I think?” Lennon says, head dipping lower as he tries to get level with my eyes. “I think that if the universe were trying to keep us apart, it’s doing a shitty job. Because otherwise, we wouldn’t be out here together.”

“I wish we weren’t!”

“No, you don’t,” he says firmly.

“Yes, I do. I wish I’d never come on this trip. I wish I didn’t know any of this, and I wish—”

Without warning, his mouth is on mine. He kisses me roughly. Completely unyielding. His hands are on the back of my head, holding me in place. And for a long, suspended moment, I’m frozen, unsure of whether I want to push him away. Then, all at once, heat spreads through me, and I thaw.

I kiss him back.

And, oh, it is good.

His hands relax, fingers tangling in my hair, soft tongue rolling against mine. And when I run out of air and have to pull back, he kisses the corner of my mouth. My cheek. My forehead. A trail of kisses on my jaw. All over my neck. My earlobe—and now I’m close to passing out with pleasure. He even tugs back the collar of my shirt to kiss the hidden skin beneath it. His mouth is hot, and his stubble is rough in the best way possible. The kisses are long and slow and deliberate, and they are very, very confident. And it feels as if he’s drawing a map on my body, following a path of landmarks that he’s plotted in his head.

He’s relentless with all of his exploration, and I’m making weird groaning noises that are halfway embarrassing. But I just can’t stop. And now I’m struggling to get my mouth back on his skin, any skin I can reach, and my arms are around him, pulling him closer, and I’ve found my way back to his mouth, and GOD, IT’S GOOD.

How could I have forgotten?

Did he get better at this? Did I?

Because my God.

Waterfall mist covers my legs, and my knees are giving out. My bones don’t work anymore. It’s as if he’s pressed some sort of secret on switch, and I’m at the mercy of my body—which likes his body quite a lot and desperately wants to drop to the ground and let Lennon have his wicked way with me, right here in front of God’s Voice. I absolutely would, too. In this moment, I’m a trollop. An unrepentant floozy. I’m a raging wildfire of feelings and sensations, and I can’t put them out.

Oh, wow. I seriously can’t breathe. I think I need to learn how to pace my trollop-y ways. Or at least learn how to breathe through my nostrils while kissing.

I try to steady myself, and that’s when the voices in my head start whispering. He abandoned you. He hurt you.