Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(79)

Audible gasps rolled out. People pointed and stared. Someone whispered his name.

I glanced over at my parents across the room. They were both loyal UW football fans. They knew exactly who he was. Their mouths hung open in shock. I looked back at Emmett. His eyes stayed on mine, gray and piercing. He headed toward me and I somehow managed to pull myself up, despite my bones feeling like they had liquefied.

There was no game face behind Emmett’s eyes. It was pure, raw emotion. Like he was about to lose someone he loved. Or he finally found her.

He stopped a few feet in front of me. I wasn’t sure which was generating more heat, Emmett’s presence, or the crackling flames next to us.

“I thought about sending you an email,” he said. His mouth turned up on one side. “But I don’t know your email address.”

I smiled. I appreciated the joke. It made everything suddenly seem normal, like, maybe in a strange way, this was meant to be our journey. Strange, unpredictable paths that connected at some moments and veered apart at others, until they finally came together.

“Damn it’s cold up here,” he said. He blew on his hands to warm them up. I looked at his long fingers, pink and chapped from the cold. The urge to touch him was unbearable.

“So, people choose to live up here, right? They’re not, like, exiled?” He looked around at the people in the room, half of them wearing ski bibs, as if they were all teetering on the edge of sanity, ready to lose their minds. Like I felt right now, if I couldn’t touch Emmett soon.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. I was still taking him in, this guy that I was completely in love with. His face was peppered in stubble. My eyes fell to his lips and they looked soft and warm. I felt myself leaning forward. It was such a relief to look at him, to finally look at him the way I wanted to, without holding back, without feeling regret or longing.

“Thanks for the message,” I said. The wind howled against the glass panes and thick snowflakes brushed the window.

“You liked it?”

The fact that he had to ask was adorable.

“The song you wrote makes sense now,” I said.

He nodded. “I wrote that song about you,” he said. “It was always about you.”

The wind wailed and we both looked out at the blowing snow.

“I think you’re stuck here for a while,” I said. He smiled, like being stranded with me was possibly the greatest predicament in the world.

He took a step closer. I sucked in a shaky breath. I could see a roomful of eyes on us. On me. For the first time, I didn’t care. I just cared about him. His eyes.

“I reread all our emails. All our texts. You’re right, I should have figured it out. It’s so obvious now.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

“I wanted to delete all those emails,” he said. “Like that could fix everything. But I couldn’t. I can’t erase how I feel.”

I nodded in agreement. I had tried the same thing.

“Did you really mean everything you wrote?” he asked.

I nodded.

“So did I,” he said.

“What about Bryn?” I asked.

“I thought about that,” he said. “After you came over, I went back and reread everything. I was never writing to Bryn. Every single message, every word was to you.”

I looked down and felt a small smile creep up on my face. The music drowned out the people as if everyone and everything slipped away and it was just the two of us.

“I’m not in love with Bryn,” he said. He blew out a sigh. I lifted my head and met his eyes. “I’m in love with you.” He said it so easily, so honestly. “God, it’s such a relief to finally say that. To you.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. My face broke into a smile.

Emmett put his hands around both sides of my face. He cradled me, like he was holding something so precious. I had dreamed about the moment a guy would look at me like this. He raised his eyebrows in a question and it made my breath catch. It was possibly the most vulnerable I had ever seen him. I wrapped my hand around his neck and pulled his face closer. It was my way of answering him. He bent down and closed the distance between us. His mouth claimed mine. When our lips touched I felt a feeling so strong in my heart that it made my body shudder. Every cell was spinning. His kiss started out slow and delicate, but then it became harder and more desperate. My lips melded with his. He wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me tighter. I swear, if he wasn’t holding onto me, I would have fallen to my knees. All I knew was, this kiss had been worth the wait.

I let myself fall, all in.





Two Months Later…





EMMETT

There is an unusual structure in the center of Library Mall on campus. It is a jumble of steps, columns, and stairs. Separately, the pieces don’t seem to fit, like opposite personalities or wavering thoughts that don’t always connect. Sometimes they collide. But it’s their differences, the way they complement each other and allow each piece to stand out, that makes it work as a whole.

CeCe and I sat on a concrete step, looking out at the courtyard, lined with students and a handful of food trucks. We were finishing up our lunch from the Ethiopian truck. I gulped down lemonade to cool the burn of the spicy meal. She leaned against my shoulder as I finished my last spoonful of tangy soup.