“That’s not fair,” he says. “I didn’t squeeze.”
“Guess you missed your chance.”
His eyes narrow. For the briefest second, his gaze dips down to my chest. It’s so quick that I almost think I imagined it. Then he leans toward me and, placing one hand behind my head, he pulls me the rest of the way to him and touches his lips to mine. It’s soft and slow this time, nothing like it was when he kissed me on his couch. He pulls back just a fraction of an inch, and against my mouth, he says, “Tina and Ryan are watching from their car.”
I start to turn my head around to see, but he keeps his hand on the back of my neck, keeping me in place. “Don’t look,” he says. “You’ll give us away.”
I nod as if they might be able to hear me if I answer him out loud. Then I move back in, touching my lips to his this time, except I’m not as soft and slow as he was. I pull on his lower lip with my teeth until he opens his mouth. He tastes like red wine. His hand moves away from my neck, sliding down my shoulder until he reaches my ribcage. He stops there. I wonder if he’s aware that his thumb is touching the side of my breast.
For a moment, I don’t care that we’re only doing this to put on a show because we’re being watched. I feel like this is what I want to do regardless of them watching or not. I kind of wish they weren’t. The realization that I’m having these thoughts is startling, but I’m too caught up in this moment to stop.
I want to grab his hand and move it all the way onto my breast. I wonder if that would be too forward. I touch my hand to his, but he must take it as a warning to back off because he takes his hand off of me and then pulls back. My mouth hangs open, caught off guard by the abrupt change.
“They’re gone,” he says, leaning back into his seat.
“Oh. Right.” My chest feels tight. For a moment, I forgot that we were only kissing to put on a show.
He clears his throat. I straighten out in my seat so that I’m facing the windshield again. I wonder if he can tell that I wasn’t ready for that kiss to end. He’ll probably find a way to laugh at me for it at some point. I’m dying to get out of here.
“So. Uh. Farmers’ market tomorrow?” he asks.
I sigh. “I guess we can’t get out of it now that Tina invited herself.”
ChapterFourteen
One Bird, Two Stones
“Ryan mentioned there’s going to be a firework display at the market today.”
This is the first thing Oliver says to me when I open the door in the morning. I just got out of bed and haven’t had any coffee, so his statement feels out of the blue. I have no idea why he’s telling me this.
I rub my eyes and yawn. “Why are you here so early?”
“It’s ten in the morning.” He frowns. “Did you just get out of bed?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“We need to be at the farmers’ market in half an hour,” he reminds me.
I groan. “Why did we agree to this?”
“Don’t blame me. You’re the one who told Tina we were going there.”
I open the door wider so he can come in. “Give me a few minutes to get ready.”
I head to my room and spend a few minutes getting dressed and brushing my hair. When I come back out, Oliver is standing in the middle of my living room, hands in his pockets, looking at my couch like he’s afraid to sit down.
“I’m getting new furniture,” I tell him. “I might even move now that I can afford to.”
“It’s not bad,” he says, but I know what he’s thinking. His house is nicer and he has better furniture and his bedroom looks like a picture in a magazine. I don’t even have a headboard for my bed. Even though we’re the same age, I feel like he’s a real adult and I’m just pretending to be one. I think of the guys I dated who slept in a hammock and on an air mattress, and I wonder if my standards were so low because I’m not that much higher above them. I wonder what Oliver would think of my bedroom.
My face heats at the thought. I don’t know why my mind is stuck on the idea of Oliver in my bedroom right now. These are dangerous thoughts to have. I can’t let him know that I’m thinking them.
“My bedroom isn’t as nice as yours,” I blurt out. So much for getting these thoughts out of my mind.
“I can’t argue with you there since I haven’t seen it.” He turns to look at me. The room feels a little bit smaller.
I cross my arms. My mind draws a blank and I can’t seem to figure out how to get us back on topic. “My bed is smaller than yours.”
