It was a very tiny closet and Camden was pressed against me. I tried to back up but hit shelves and heard the clanking of glass bottles.
“Careful,” he said.
I felt something metallic brush against my face and realized it was a chain for the overhead light. I pulled on it and a very dim light bulb came to life.
“What is that?” I asked. “One watt?”
He didn’t answer. I finally made eye contact with him and realized that the fading light made shadows over the planes of his face, hiding his eyes from me. This somehow made him more exciting and this moment both thrilling and nerve-racking.
“Is it happening?” I heard Mary-Ellen ask.
“I don’t know!” was Sadie’s reply. I leaned over and hit the door with my fist, their fading giggles letting me know that they were scurrying off.
“You didn’t put up much resistance,” I said to him.
He reached up to rest his hand on the shelf just above my head, effectively boxing me into place. “Why would I?”
His words burned inside me, melting away my rational thought.
“This is stupid,” I protested, attempting to ignore the way my internal body temperature seemed to keep rising. “We’re not thirteen.”
“No, we’re not,” he agreed.
“We don’t have to actually kiss. They wouldn’t know.”
“We would know. We wouldn’t want to be dishonest.” He had shifted closer to me and my heart throbbed so hard in my throat that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to speak.
I held on to the one argument I could think of. “What about Dan?”
Now he was nuzzling my hair on the side of my face and even though he technically wasn’t touching my skin, it felt like he was. “I don’t want to kiss Dan.”
“No.” I gulped. “I meant he doesn’t want anything like this to happen.”
“Then they shouldn’t have put us in a tiny closet together.”
It wasn’t like we could hold them accountable. “They’re all tipsy.”
“That sounds like a them problem.” He reached up to push my hair behind my ear, then ran his fingers down the side of my face.
Sighing with delight, I said, “They don’t know what they’re doing. We do.”
“You’re right. We do. We’re adults. We can make our own decisions. Any decision we want.”
Everything he was saying made such complete and total sense. Here I’d been so proud of myself for keeping my urges in check. I’d spent an entire night next to him and totally resisted his overwhelming magnetism. I’d counted that as some kind of win.
But there was about to be a total upset.
I could feel it. I knew he could, too.
This was what had changed between us.
He reached out with his left hand, resting it on my waist and pulling me closer to him. The shock of his body pressed fully against mine made my brain stop working.
“We should kiss,” he murmured next to my mouth and I burned for him to press his lips against mine.
“We should kiss,” I said, like he was using some kind of Jedi mind trick on me.
“It would be a good idea.”
I nodded. He was totally right. “Yes, it would be a good idea.”
“Onomatopoeia.”
“What?”
“Sorry, I thought you were going to keep repeating everything I said.”
“Maybe . . . ,” I said, pushing forward, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Maybe this isn’t a time to joke.”
“I wish you were always this agreeable.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right. I don’t. I like you just the way you are,” he said.
The anticipation was literally killing me. Even though a part of my brain was screaming that I was headed for a hormonal Chernobyl—that there would be a huge explosion and then a ton of fallout—I didn’t care.
I knew I should care. Maybe it was because the time we had left together would be so short that I was rationalizing why this would be okay, despite what I’d said to Krista. Or because I’d wanted to kiss him for what felt like an actual eternity that doing so suddenly seemed reasonable. Logical, even.
His hands pressed into my back. “Do you feel sick?”
Other than taking a total leave of my senses? “Nope.”
“Drunk?”
“Not even a little.”
“Good.” His lips made contact with my forehead, kissing me gently, almost like he couldn’t resist doing so for one more second. I let out a soft noise, loving the way that felt.