She frowned. “They’re not?”
He shook his head. “Definitely not. Nothing to look forward to, really.”
“What about after the first kiss,” she countered. “Those are better, right?”
He looked away and shuffled his feet. Nodded.
“Well then,” she said, crossing her arms smugly. “How can I possibly get to those kisses, until I get the first one out of the way?”
His gaze came back to hers, eyes narrowed with something. “Mighty eager to get to kissing, Luce.”
She tried to keep her smugness in place but it slipped. “I just want to know what’s so wrong with me. What about me screams bad kisser?”
He frowned and took a step forward. “Hey. Stop that. Nothing is wrong with you. You’re just pretty and confident. Guys are intimidated.”
She snorted to hide the fact that her eyes were welling with tears. It was all so embarrassing.
“He likes Paige better,” she said, hating the wobble in her voice.
“Idiot,” he said firmly. “Forget him. Find someone better for your first kiss.”
“But you said first kisses suck. Why would I want to inflict something crappy on someone good?”
He laughed and threw up his hands in exasperation. “You’re impossible to talk to. What do you want me to say here?”
“Nothing,” she said, pushing her hands into her hair and tugging at her ponytail in frustration. “I’m sorry I’m in a bad mood.”
His eyes softened just a little as he studied her. “Once you get the first kiss over with, you’ll stop being weird?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Sure. Until I start obsessing over the second one.”
Reece rolled his eyes then took a step toward her. “Don’t tell your brother, okay?”
She frowned. “Tell him what?”
He swallowed and then put both big hands on her shoulders, moving even closer. “And definitely don’t tell your parents.”
Then he dipped his head, and before she could register what was happening, before she could absorb the fact that Reece Sullivan was about to kiss her, his lips pressed against hers.
He didn’t linger, but neither did he pull back right away. His mouth stayed on hers just long enough for her to register the kiss, and then he stepped back, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
She stared at him in mute shock, and he looked everywhere in her room before finally meeting her eyes with an almost defiant look in his. “Okay? Now will you come down to dinner?”
Lucy nodded even though she was pretty positive that she wouldn’t be able to eat a single thing.
Reece had been wrong.
First kisses were absolutely what they were cracked up to be.
Chapter 5
Lucy
“You’re being weird.”
I shove at the suitcase I’d just loaded, but it doesn’t budge far enough for me to close the trunk. “You’ve been saying that all morning,” I mutter.
“Because you’ve been weird all morning,” my sister says, joining me in trying to move my suitcase. Only she weighs all of, like, a hundred pounds, and the thing doesn’t budge. Not with the other suitcases, moving boxes, and general amount of crap I have already stuffed in there.