I’m not sure I hear him correctly. “Wait… you mean you want to practicekissing?”
He shrugs again like this is no big deal to him. “Yeah, why not?”
“I don’t… we don’t…” I can’t even get the words out. I take a deep breath to compose myself. “That’s ridiculous. Why do we need to kiss at all? Maybe we’re one of those couples who don’t do PDA.”
“Nowthat’sridiculous,” he says with a smirk. “Of course we do PDA.”
I can’t believe he’s being so nonchalant about this while I feel like I’m having a stroke. The thought that he wants to kiss me, even if it’s just to prepare for tomorrow, makes my head spin. I’m in way over my head. “We don’t have to.”
“Tina is going to know something’s up if we don’t kiss each other. What’s the big deal?”
I stammer, trying to find the right words. “I don’t make out with every guy I date in front of her. Why does this have to be any different?”
He frowns. “Why are you so against kissing me?”
“I just… I don’t want our first kiss to be practice, okay?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize what I’m implying. My face heats. I look away from him, trying to think of how to backtrack.
“Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You want it to be special.” He says it slowly, his voice a little lower. My body might as well be on fire.
“I just mean any kiss in general. Not with you. I just… I don’t kiss people for practice. It’s not because I want it to be special with you specifically.”
“Okay, I get it,” he says, cutting me off and saving me from rambling. “We don’t have to kiss in front of them.”
“Fine. Good.” I face forward, staring at the black screen of the TV. Oliver does the same. Even though neither of us says a word, the room still feels loud with my racing thoughts. “But do you think that they’ll be suspicious if we don’t?”
Oliver throws his head against the back of the couch. “Seriously, Priscilla? Make up your mind. You either want to kiss me or you don’t.”
“I don’twantto kiss you, but I don’t know. Maybe it would be more realistic.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You want to practice, then?” He scoots a little closer to me so there’s only half a cushion of space between us.
My heart rate picks up. I panic. “No!”
I exclaim it louder than I intend. He stops moving and rubs his hand over his face. “So you don’t want to practice, but you think we should kiss in front of them?”
“I don’t know what I want,” I admit. “I guess I just haven’t thought it all the way through yet.”
He sighs. “I’ll leave it up to you then.”
“Fine,” I say, though I’m not sure this is any better. I kind of wish he would make the decision for me. “Is Ryan even going to let you plan his proposal? I hope we’re not going through all this trouble for nothing.”
“He is. He likes the idea of using my marching band. He also has a few other ideas.”
“Like what?”
“He wants an airplane to spell out ‘Marry me, Tina’ in the sky.”
I clap my hands over my mouth. “I love it. And he wants you to book that, too?”
“He said that he would book it, but I convinced him to let me do it. I told him that way I can make sure it happens perfectly in time with the band. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”
“Okay. Perfect. What else?”
“He wants fireworks.”
I shrug. “Easy enough. Tina already asked for fireworks.”
“Great,” he says. “So all I need to do is find a pilot who has good airplane penmanship.”
