Joey’s eyes widened as he pulled back.
“I should have asked if I could do that before I did that,” he said.
“You can do that.”
“I already did it.”
“You can do it again.”
Chris leaned in again, kissed her again. By the time that kiss was done, she had her smile back.
“And again,” she said.
“Are you sure? This is a little weird.” Chris winced. He was even cute wincing and that was cute.
“Weird? Why?”
“Because I wanted to do this ten years ago. And then I didn’t think about it for, oh, nine years and six months or so. And now...here I am doing it. High school me is freaking out.”
“What about grown-up you?”
“He’s freaking out, too. But in a much cooler way. Like, so cool you can’t even tell.”
“I can tell,” she said.
“How?” The corners of his eyes crinkled a little when he smiled.
“Because I’m freaking out and I’m projecting.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, and in high school you were perfect.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, too.”
“And?”
“And...”
“I didn’t look perfect in high school?”
“You wore a chain wallet.”
“So there was a lot of room for improvement.”
“You improved. You definitely improved.” She leaned forward and kissed him back.
He deepened the kiss subtly and gently, but she felt the change. The first kiss had been tentative and sweet, the second kiss playful and now this third kiss...this third kiss was something else entirely.
Ben didn’t have a beard. No facial hair at all. And she was pretty sure she’d never kissed a guy with a real beard, not just a five-o’clock shadow. Very quickly she decided she liked it. The hair tickled her top lip and her chin while he softly kissed her lips, and when the tickling grew to be too much, she opened her mouth to him and he slipped his tongue between her teeth.
This was now officially a real kiss. A really real kiss. A kiss that was going places. She cupped his face, lightly stroking his chin and cheeks with her thumbs as she deepened the kiss. Chris made a soft sound in the back of his throat, a distinct sound, pure pleasure. She wanted to hear it again.
And again...
Joey couldn’t believe she was doing this, kissing Chris. Not because it was Chris so much as it wasn’t Ben. Kira told her the quickest way to get over one guy was to get under another, but that was Kira’s thing, not hers. Joey never even dated in high school and had one boyfriend in college. She’d never had a one-night stand, never took risks like this, making out—and maybe more—with someone who’d been a virtual stranger all of two hours ago.
Except he wasn’t a virtual stranger even if they hadn’t seen each other in years. This was Chris Steffensen. He’d driven her and Dillon to school for two straight years of high school. He’d taught her how to shoot a bow and arrow one summer at the lake. He’d walked on her brother’s left side while she’d walked on his right between classes Dillon’s senior year when the bullying was at its absolute worst and she had actual nightmares her brother would be the next Matthew Shepard. But Dillon had made it through that awful time and gone off to college in New York. Meanwhile Chris had gone to work and she hadn’t given him much thought since then.
“I wish we hadn’t lost touch after school,” she said against his lips.