I. Am. Kissing. Liam. Coquyt.
It’s soft, gentle, no tongue, not even any open mouth. But despite how thin and chapped his lips are, they’re warm and perfect. And then it’s over all too soon. He leans away and looks at me.
My lungs are about to burst from holding my breath. Did he not want to do that? Did I misread everything? Is he mad at me?
But his hand comes up to my face, and he traces the shell of my ear, the line of my cheek, the dip of my chin. Tingles buzz across my entire body, like that time I got very slightly electrocuted plugging in the fairy lights for the ballroom scene in Cinderella.
And then he’s leaning in again, and I’m meeting him, and this time it’s him who presses his lips to mine. His hand moves to cradle the back of my head, and it’s warm and soft as his fingers slide through my hair, and I keep kissing him back harder, and then he uses his lips to press my mouth open.
His tongue meets mine, and it’s like he’s doing this choreographed dance, and I don’t know the steps so I just let him lead. I taste the chocolate of his mocha, feel the heat of his breath. My own hand squeezes his—the one on my knee, not the one on my neck—because if he accidentally shifts he’s going to find out just how much I enjoy kissing him.
My heart’s hammering like I just did an entire scene change on my own when he finally breaks the kiss. I look up into his eyes: The pupils are dilated, black swallowing blue; his whole face is red, and he’s smiling at me like he just saw a sunrise for the first time.
“Was that okay?” I think he asks, but I’m still too stunned to listen properly. He frees his hands, leans back a bit to sign, “Okay okay?”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “What was that?”
“Did you not want me to?”
“I did.” I shift a bit, angle myself so my crossed leg makes a barrier between us. “I . . . thought I started it.”
His smile crooks to one side. “I’m pretty sure I did.”
“Don’t taarof with me,” I say, but instead of teasing me more, he leans in and silences me with another kiss. This one slow, and lingering, and sweet.
When he breaks it, he smiles. “Sorry. You’re cute when you’re arguing.”
“I wasn’t . . .”
He blinks at me.
“We kissed each other.”
“Yeah.”
“So are you . . . um . . . I mean . . .”
“I like you.”
He likes me.
Liam likes me.
My head spins. Can roasted coffee get you high?
“You like me.”
“Yeah. I . . . do you?”
“Do I what?”
His face is already pink, but somehow it flushes toward crimson.
“Do you like me?”
Do I like him?
I like him so much I can’t get the words out, of my mouth or my hands. So I just nod.
Now it’s my turn to go crimson. My ears and the back of my neck burn. So does my chest, somewhere deep inside, because I like him. And he likes me.
We like each other.
And he dated my sister. The breakup list I made for him—lied about making—is still burning a hole in the back of my binder, inches away from us.
“We can’t tell Jasmine,” I say.
“Oh, god.” He leans back and runs a hand through his hair. “Jasmine. I never should’ve . . .”
He clamps his mouth shut.
“What?”
He switches to sign.
“I never should have dated her.”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t know. I thought you wanted me to?”
I thought I wanted that too.
“And I thought you were unavailable. I don’t know. Looking back it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You thought I was unavailable?” I haven’t dated anyone since Cam. Everyone knows that.
“Don’t be mad.”
“At what?”
“I thought there was something going on with you and Bowie.”
I snort. He’s joking, right?
He’s not joking.
“I know better now.” He squeezes the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I know it’s no excuse for how I treated Jasmine. I just . . .”
“Just?”
“I just really liked you. So much. And I didn’t know what else to do. I thought I could learn to like her. And I did, just not enough. She was always pushing and it was getting weird and then, over break, when you yelled at your mom about you and Bowie, I just . . . I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“So you dumped her to be with me?”
Liam looks like I’ve punched him.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “Just . . .”
He blows a breath out of his mouth. “Somethingsomething awful, doesn’t it? God.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I was so mad at my dad. Like father, like son, huh?”
“No. It’s not the same. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Feels like it.” He frowns.
I take his hand, twine our fingers together. “I could’ve said something too. Told you I liked you before all this happened. But I thought you were into her.”
“She wasn’t the one making me shmoodies. Well, not at first. And she wasn’t the one who liked me for me. Not for . . .” He gestures up and down his torso.
I blush. “I like everything about you,” I say, pulling him in for another kiss.
“I like everything about you too.” He kisses my lips, my nose, then leans back. “So what do we do? What do we tell her?”
“Nothing. For now.”
Liam opens his mouth to object.
“No. Listen. If we tell her, she’ll go nuclear.”
Not only that, she’ll tell him about that list. The one I never should’ve helped make. The one I lied about.
“We have to give her time to cool off. Let her process the breakup. Move on. And then I’ll figure out how to tell her we’re . . .”
What are we? He likes me, and I like him, but what does that even mean?
“Seeing each other?” he offers. His lips curl into a gentle smile. “Together?”
“Together.”
Me and Liam. Together.
Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe a Leko fell from one of the electrics and hit me on the head, and I’m actually dying on the stage of the theatre and this is all a hallucination as my brain runs out of oxygen.
But then Liam leans in, and his nose brushes mine, and we’re kissing again.
What a way to die.