I missed his embarrassment at the compliment in the midst of my self-indulgent whine.
“Guys don’t kiss eyes! They kiss mouths.” I waved at my teeth covered in braces. “And this hideous mouth isn’t ever getting kissed.”
“You’re wrong.”
I moved to brush past him, but before I got even a step, Beckett grabbed my arm and hauled me to him. The next thing I knew, he’d placed his perfectly formed, cupid-bow lips on mine. His mouth was warm and insistent, the pressure gentle and yet firm. Shock held me still, and then my body went limp.
Beckett was kissing me.
Beckett.
My Beckett.
He’d given me my first kiss.
And it felt so right. Sweet and gentle and perfect.
The world spun around me just as it had when I’d been on the tire swing, everything beyond us a blurry mirage. It was as if we were in a bubble where nothing could touch us. Where nothing mattered but this—the two of us, at twelve and fourteen, somehow finding our other half.
I couldn’t help the smile that started to replace the frown I’d been wearing since coming home from my appointment. But it was the smile that ruined everything because it allowed my braces to connect with his soft skin.
I felt him flinch.
Felt him try not to jerk back.
But I did it for him, wrenching myself free. My face flamed, and my insides rolled when I saw the blood that appeared on his beautiful lips. Lips I’d stared at for far too many hours in the last year as we’d taken turns reading aloud to each other.
He pushed a knuckle against the cut while his eyes remained locked on mine. I couldn’t read his expression. But I wasn’t sure I needed to.
Disgust. I was disgusted enough for both of us.
He’d done something nice and paid the price. More tears welled. The embarrassment would keep me in my room this summer more than even thestupid mask.
“Maisey, Mom is going to have a coronary if you don’t come in and put on your headgear,” Chelsea said, stepping out onto the small wooden deck at the back of our house.
The last thing I wanted was for Chelsea to find out about this embarrassing situation.
My overprotective big sister would flip out. She already thought my friendship with Beckett was weird.
I fled, whirling around and running up the trio of steps onto the deck, pushing past my beautiful sister with her wavy auburn hair and green eyes and perfect jaw and perfect figure. I ran through the galley kitchen to my bedroom just beyond it. I slammed the door and locked it but didn’t flip on the light.
My heart beat wildly again. Those heavenly few seconds with Beckett’s lips pressed against mine disappeared in a sea of humiliation.
Through my open window, my sister’s voice easily carried to me.
“What happened to make Cornlette take off like she’d seen a ghost?” She sounded mad. Like she always did when defending me.
“Nothing,” Beckett said.
“You’re bleeding.”
Silence.
“Did you kiss my sister?” she demanded, and when he still didn’t respond, she continued, “She’s a sixth grader, for heaven’s sake.”
It was the same baffled tone she used when he’d started reading with me when I was eight. Up until then, reading had been yet another thing Chelsea had done with ease that I’d struggled with. I wasn’t stupid, but my grades made it seem like I was.
Everything had changed the day I’d seen Beckett reading a book about horses. When I’d asked him about it, he’d started reading it to me, and then, he’d had me take a turn. He’d been patient with my mistakes and never once given up the way everyone else in my life did after a few bumbling sentences. Ever since then, reading had seemed fun, not only because of the books Beckett chose, but because it meant I had more time with him.