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“It’strue,” she said a second time. “I filmed your kiss with Noel. So if you put out the video with my name attached, it isn’t astory. It’s just what happened. I don’t know what happens after we do that, and I haven’t even talked about this with my people, but Ididn’t talk to them about filming a Wil-You-or-Won’t-You video, and I should’ve. Not because of me. Because of you. Because you made something incredible and huge and emotional and sexy and real, and I wanted to and loved being a part of it, and I should’ve told my team about theopportunityI had to do it. So now, I am going to tell the world how lucky I was to get to capture those sixty seconds. In the caption, credit me as the director and cinematographer.”
When Katie pulled her hair over her shoulder again, Wil saw that she was flushed along her collarbone. Wil remembered what it was like to have that skin against her mouth. What it was like to feel Katie hot against her thigh.
“Do you want me to tag you?” Even to herself, she sounded far away.
“Tag the fuck out of it.” Katie stepped closer, until their noses were inches apart. Too close for the closeness to be for any other reason than the impulse to slide their hands into each other’s hair and bite whatever part of them presented itself first to the other.
“I do have a question, though.” Wil’s voice was a faint rasp.
“What is your question?” Katie whispered this to the corner of Wil’s mouth, her eyes closed.
Wil did not have a question. She didn’t have a single thought in her head, but she needed to do something to defuse the tension and keep herself from kissing Katie, or Katie from kissing her. Wil had enough experience with kissing to know how close it was to happening. In fact, she’d been in this place with Katie many times more than she would have ever thought, so she was particularly experienced in what it was like toalmostkiss Katie.
Wil’s desire to kiss Katie Price was becoming an all-consuming problem. Kissing Noel had been an exercise in figuring out how to be present enough to kiss Noel when mostly what Wil wanted to do was kiss Katie.
She would post the TikTok, but Wil didn’t have anyone lined up for Wednesday. She didn’t have anyone lined up, ever, at all.
It was time for the next thing. She hoped Katie would be a part of it, but if she wasn’t, Wil was starting to believe she could do the next thing no matter what.
But they definitely weren’t supposed to be kissing. Kissing was part of Wil’s plan, but they hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
Okay. There was the question. “What do you think is our next move with the mystery of Mr. Cook?”
Katie blinked. “I think we’re operating with too many unspoken constraints.” She sounded like she had that first day at Diana’s party, when she was trying to out-flirt Wil. “I love constraints, don’t get me wrong, but limiting ourselves to detection that can be accomplished in the Bronco means our progress is slow. Do you have any ideas?”
“We could ask someone who might know the score.” Wil said this to Katie’s lower lip. Her mouth was slightly open. It was killing Wil.
“Like who?”
“I mean, we’ve never talked to anyone about this, so, anyone? Like, literally any adult in our circle of acquaintance, for a starting place? But I have someone in mind.”
“Hmm. Is that cheating?”
“The better question is if it’s cheating to use a bet to give ourselves what we want if we could give each other what we want without it.”
Katie leaned her head back and laughed at the ceiling. “You mean that we want to kiss each other. And our bet has been smashed apart by circumstance, reality, and the fact that it was a thinly veiled excuse to see each other as many times as we wanted to while I was here.”
“Yes.”
“Our real problem, then,” Katie said, “is everything that our mothers are worried about.” Her teeth dragged over that spot on her lip again. Worry. Worry, worry.
Watching Katie worry released Wil the rest of the way from the kissing spell she’d nearly fallen into, because Katie’s worry meant there was something going on there that she didn’tfullyunderstand and that wasn’t part of her plan.
Wil had been slightly behind Katie and Noel when they stepped out onto the porch and the photographer called Katie’s name. It had meant that when Katie turned around—her face shielded from the flashing lights and the sudden tumult on Wil’s normally peaceful street—Wil had seen, clearly, Katie’s unschooled expression.
Devastated. That was how Katie had looked. Utterly devastated.
And even though she’d pasted a new expression on immediately, tossing a practiced smile at Wil, keeping her tone breezy as she walked Noel through an explanation of who she was and what he was witnessing, something about her had changed.
Or maybe what Wil was seeing was how Katie always was. How she had to be when she wasn’tWil’sKatie.
“If our real problem is our mothers,” Wil said, “then it will only freak them out a very unsurprising amount more when we tell them I’m going with you to Los Angeles.”
“That’s really what you want?” Katie’s perfect eyebrows drew together.
“I wouldn’t have—”
Katie put her hand over Wil’s mouth. “I just realized I don’t care as much as I should if you’re sure. Because yes, God. Please come with me. Post the video, and we can hole up in my house together and hide from the aftermath.”