I laughed. It came out tight and broken. “There I go making Stats even more awkward. Fantastic job, Jason.”
His lips parted slightly more, but no sound left him. Now that I looked, not even the foggy breath came from his mouth or nose.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hands lifting as if I meant to fix something in the air. “I didn’t mean to do that. Who wants that? I mean, I did, but not really. I don’t know what I mean. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He still said nothing. His expression held surprise so sharp it sliced straight through me.
I swallowed hard. My words rushed out faster. “It was a silly mistake. I got caught up. I don’t know. Blame the fresh air or the dice or whatever. I’m not trying to make anything weird.”
His brow furrowed, and the confusion there hit mesquare in the face. I kept talking, trying to fill the silence. “I just. I kissed you. That’s all. A stupid impulse. Nothing to panic about. Never gonna happen again. Alright?”
He blinked once. “Alright.” The smallest movement and the quietest whisper. It felt like a door slamming somewhere between us.
“I should go,” I muttered.
He nodded slowly, still caught between shock and something I couldn’t decode. It couldn’t be disgust. Could it?
I stepped back. My chest felt tight enough to crack open. “Good night.”
He whispered it back, so faint I barely heard it.
He turned and walked toward his door, steps too careful, as if the ground had turned uneven beneath him. He slipped inside without looking back. The porch light framed him for one second before the door closed.
I stood alone in the cold with my heart beating too fast and the taste of that brief, clumsy kiss lingering like a dying flame on my lips.
And nothing about it felt like a silly mistake except the way I pulled back with fear.
CHAPTER EIGHT
bennet
I shutthe door and leaned against it, releasing a breath of air I’d been holding since I turned my back to Jason.
What the hell had just happened? I wanted to cross the floor to the gaming table and check if he’d been lacing his orange juice with vodka. I wanted to, but I couldn’t seem to move my feet.
My heart hammered so hard it felt like it might shatter through my rib cage. The house was quiet in the way it only ever was after a long session. The fireplace had burned down to embers. Dice and character sheets still lay scattered across the table like evidence of a life I’d been living before everything tilted on its axis.
Jason had kissed me.
The words didn’t settle into my mind in any sensible order. They rattled around like loose screws, clanging against everything I thought I knew about theworld. Jason, the football star. The barely clothed menace to public decency. My statistics problem. My unexpected movie date. My walking disaster.
He had leaned in. He had been warm and solid and close enough that my breath caught before my brain could follow. And then his lips had touched mine, clumsy and brief and completely unplanned, and my entire body had lit up like I’d been plugged into a live wire.
I pressed the back of my head against the door and stared at the ceiling. My mouth still tingled. It wasn’t some gentle, forgettable brush. It had weight. It had heat. It had a startling softness that didn’t belong to someone who tackled people as a career path.
I lifted my hand and covered my mouth, as if the kiss might still be there if I checked.
It had felt good. Too damn good.
And then Jason had pulled back and talked. And talked. And talked.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
There I go making Stats even more awkward.
Don’t know what got into me.
A silly mistake.