I stewed through every period, lunch and the rest of the day, thinking about Shane and how he’d known the dean was going to kick me out of the kitchen when he’d kissed me. I also went over and over that kiss in my head and knew for a fact that he’d initiated it, so it’s not like he could say I jumped him or took him by surprise before he could get a chance to tell me. He knew and he kissed me anyway. Or because of it. Either way, he could have warned me what was going to happen.
So by the time I was seated with my friends in the dining room that night for supper, I was pretty mad.
“Just go talk to him,” Kaylee said in my ear.
Alarmed, I looked around at my other friends, but no one seemed to have heard. They already knew I’d been relieved of my CSA until I pulled up my marks, but only Kaylee knew about the kiss between me and Shane.
“You know you want to,” she added in her best peer-pressury voice.
I did want to. Or, more accurately, I wanted to know what was going on between us without actually having to actually talk to him. So what I really wanted was to send one of my friends in there to find out. Except looking across the table, only Emmie or Chelly would agree to do it and neither of them could be trusted to be totally tactful about it, so better I did it myself.
I looked down at the plate of roast beef with all the fixins, my mouth watering and unwilling to sacrifice what I knew was Shane’s specialty (for good reason). “I’ll go after I eat,” I said. “I can’t talk to him on an empty stomach.”
Kaylee laughed. “Atta girl.”
~ ♥ ~
Although it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d been in the kitchen, I suddenly felt like I no longer truly belonged. No one else seemed to think that way, since I got a few friendly head nods and greetings as I walked in, like they expected me there. I wondered who knew, but it didn’t matter. I was there for a reason and that reason wasn’t to find out who knew I’d been kicked out of my CSA indefinitely.
“Is Shane around?” I asked Anna who was kneading a huge ball of dough on the counter. She looked up at me and smiled. She had a streak of flour on her forehead, the powder collecting in the crease as she looked around the kitchen and frowned when she didn’t see him.
“He’s here but...I think he said he had some paperwork to do.”
“Thanks,” I said, my throat tight when I thought about how I wasn’t going to be able to help her make bread or cinnamon rolls or morning biscuits anymore. I loved working alongside Anna; not only was she a great cook and baker, but she was a patient teacher, too. She’d been at Rosewood forever and she was as much a part of the school as the old stone building.
I walked to the back of the kitchen to the tiny office, seeing Shane sitting at the little desk before I even reached the doorway. His focus was on the computer screen, but it faced away from me, so he could have been playing a game as easily as doing his online ordering. I paused half a second to take a deep breath and calm my racing heart before I knocked on the door frame to get his attention.
He looked up right away but his face told me nothing. “Oh hi,” he said, not smiling, not frowning, just maybe a little surprised to see me. Jerk.
“You knew when you kissed me,” fell out of my mouth as it seemed I was unable to ease into my accusation.
That got a reaction. He frowned and stood up, grabbing my arm and tugging me into the office before he shut the door behind me.
Shockingly, he leaned in for a kiss and I almost let it happen, but stopped myself, ducking out of the way. “What are you doing?”
He smirked. “Saying hello?”
“That’s not how you are supposed to say hello to me.”
The smile disappeared from his face. “Oh...I thought...”
“You knew,” I said again and watched as it dawned on him that maybe I wasn’t there to be kissed.
He didn’t say anything. Could he be so daft that he had no idea? “You knew the dean was kicking me out of my CSA.”
He nodded as his eyes darted around my face like he was trying to figure out which part I was most pissed about. Try all of it.
“Don’t you think you could have told me last night? You know, before you kissed me? Or I guess even after you kissed me? Hell, even while you kissed me, I don’t know. But you should have told me!” My face was burning up but looking at his pink cheeks, it looked like his was, too. Good. I hoped he was embarrassed and ashamed. That would make two of us.
But then his brow wrinkled and he looked conflicted. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “The dean said she was going to. It wasn’t my decision, either, I want you to know.”
“But you kissed me,” I said, my anger suddenly running out of steam as I began to worry about his motives.
He snorted. “I remember. I was there.”
“Why?” I asked, taking a step back because he’d leaned toward me and was looking at my mouth. Like he was going to kiss me again.
God, it was hard to resist him. I tried to take another step away, but I backed into the door; there was nowhere to go.
“Why did I kiss you?” he asked, his hand coming up, his finger lightly tracing my jaw. “Because you’re very kissable, Sugar,” he said.
“I swear to God, if you call me brown sugar, I’m going to throw up,” I said. Which was a lie, because although I’d hate it, I wouldn’t puke and would totally still let him kiss me.
He chuckled. “Noted. But it wasn’t on my agenda. I just think you’re sweet and tasty. Are you as sweet as you were last night, I wonder?”
Only one way to know, I thought, his spell washing over me again. What is it about this guy?
He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine and I really, really wanted to fall into him and make this kiss what last night’s should have been before we’d been interrupted. But I still needed to know... “Shane,” I said against his mouth, pushing him back gently. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sighed and backed up a step, running his fingers through his hair. “I told you why. She said she would. I don’t want to lose my placement here.”
“Did you fight her to keep me here?”
He frowned. “No. I can’t fight her on how to run her school. I told her you were the best CSA girl down here, though, and that I’d be happy to have you back anytime.”
Hearing it from his lips was like a shot of adrenaline, but then a horrible thought popped into my head. “Did you tell her that because you like me?”
His eyebrows bunched up. “I told her that because it’s true.”
That was a relief on so many levels. I nodded. “Thank you,” I said, my eyes fixed on the name tag on his chef whites, pinned to the left side of his chest. It was slightly askew and I sort of wanted to fix it, but liked it off-kilter at the same time.
“But...” he said, pausing until I looked up at his face. “I do like you.”
My heart jumped around and I knew I should say something, but I couldn’t think at all let alone try to put together words that made sense and didn’t sound stupid.
“And while I’m sorry you are struggling with your schoolwork, you not being here makes things slightly less complicated if you like me, too.”
His finger was back, the tiniest of pressures lifting my chin.
“Do you like me, Sugar?”
“Yes,” I breathed, the word almost getting lost amid the sounds coming in from the noisy kitchen just beyond the door.
He must have heard it because a fraction of a second later, he was kissing me.
~ ♥ ~
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, causing us to break apart. It wasn’t as tragic an interruption as the one the night before had been, but I still felt something like grief over the end of the kiss. Just as well though, I thought as I looked at his messed-up hair and swollen lips.
I did that, I thought, rather proud.
Until I realized I must look the same. Uh oh.
“Shane?” it was Anna. “We’re having trouble with the Hobart again. We need your magic touch.”
I smiled. “You’ve got the magic touch.”
He grinned down at me. “Be right there,” he said loudly, not taking his eyes off me.
“Thanks, hon,” Anna said and then seemed to disappear. I wondered if she knew what was going on with us.
Before I had a chance to think about it too much, Shane leaned down and gave me one last lingering kiss before he groaned. “This isn’t finished,” he said.
“No?” I asked, breathless.
He shook his head.
I almost let him go, but then realized we had more unfinished business than just that kiss. “Shane?”
He stopped and looked at me, eyebrows high as he waited.
“What now?”
“I’ll text you,” he said and then opened the door, letting in the sounds and smells of the busy kitchen. He left me there in the office as he strode over to the giant mixer where Anna stood, frowning down into the huge bowl.
As Shane got to her, she looked up at him and smiled. Then, as though she felt my eyes on her, she turned and looked right at me and I could see on her face as the realization hit her. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked to Shane and then back to me. It was immediately obvious that she knew what we’d just been doing.
Shoot. Would she tell the dean?
I dropped my gaze and quickly shuffled out of the kitchen and back into the dining room. I hadn’t been gone long so I knew it would still be packed with people, but what I didn’t expect were the whoops and hollers as I approached my table. I looked up to see my friends grinning at me despite what was surely a look of horror on my face.
“Shut up!” I said, though I knew it was pointless. It was impossible to stop Chelly and Emmie, and then even other girls around them had joined in, probably not even knowing why. “Shut up, please!” I begged as I took my seat, head down, praying for death.
“If that wasn’t a walk of shame, I don’t know what it was,” Emmie said.
“No!” Chelly laughed. “It was a walk of SHANE!”
Everyone laughed, though I tried to shush them. I looked over at Kaylee, but she shrugged and shook her head which meant she hadn’t told them. They’d figured it out on their own. Great.
“You’ll get him in trouble!” I hissed. Thankfully, that did it. Shoulders slumped and clapping stopped as it sunk in that what they thought was harmless teasing maybe wasn’t so harmless. I glanced over at the head table, but thankfully, the dean seemed to be engaged in talking with the teacher beside her. Whew.
“Sorry,” Brooklyn said. “We were just excited for you.”
“Because you obviously got kissed in there,” Chelly said in a stage whisper.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked, looking at Kaylee who would tell me the truth.
She shrugged, smirking. “Yes. But you just confirmed it, didn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Like you and Declan aren’t attached at the mouth every second.”
She didn’t deny it. “Hey,” she said. “I’m happy for you. Although,” she nodded toward the head table. “You may want to be a bit more discreet about it from now on.”
Good point. I nodded and reached for my fork to dig into the pie that the girls had left for me.
Kaylee leaned into my shoulder. “So,” she said quietly. “You two are good then?”
I looked over toward the kitchen doors, even though I couldn’t see inside. “I think so. He couldn’t tell me, I guess. And yeah, he likes me.” I managed to get the last part out without squealing, which took effort. I wasn’t normally much of a squealer, but this felt like it kind of warranted it. “He said he’d text me.”
Speaking of, I took my phone from my pocket and looked at the screen. Nothing from him yet, but there was a message from James the tutor, confirming our appointment the next night. Right.
Good thing; I really needed that tutoring more than ever because I needed to pull up my marks so I could get back into the kitchen.
And more kissing.