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I didn’t sleep well thatnight. Probably because after Reggie texted me in the middle of the night, I’d felt so giddy it took me over an hour to fall back to sleep.
Yawning, I rolled over and grabbed my phone from my nightstand. I’d missed several texts from Mom shortly after I got home from Aunt Sue’s dinner. I’d been so carried away I hadn’t even thought to check my notifications.
MOM:So nice meeting Reginald last night.
MOM:He seems like a lovely young man.
MOM:And so individualistic! A rare thing these days.
MOM:Dad and I thought it would be nice to have the two of you over for dinner.
MOM:Just so we could get to know him better.
My heart gave a hard knock against my rib cage.
Dinner with my family wasnotgoing to happen.
It was only six-thirty in the morning and Mom probably wasn’t up yet. Which made this the perfect time to reply to her. When she woke up and saw my texts, I’d be at work and unable to have the long conversation about Reggie that she probably wanted to have and that I definitely did not.
I decided to reply to the first of Mom’s texts and ignore thepart where she wanted to have him over for dinner. He couldn’t possibly want to come, anyway.
AMELIA:I’m glad you like Reggie, Mom
AMELIA:He enjoyed meeting you, too
That felt like the right thing to say, though I didn’t know if it was true. He hadn’t said he disliked my family; it was just that after that kiss, we didn’t talk about them very much.
We didn’t talk about them much before the kiss, either.
For most of the party, we sat in folding chairs at the very back of the living room apart from the others, with Reggie doing his utmost to make me laugh.
He was good at making me laugh.
Really good.
In fact, I laughed harder at Aunt Sue’s party than I had in god only knew how long. Ironic, given how much I’d been dreading going in the first place.
After texting Mom, I made my way into the bathroom. I peered at myself in the mirror, hands braced on either side of the sink.
I looked every bit as rumpled and distracted as I felt.
Thatkisslast night…
It had been years since I’d been kissed so thoroughly and well. And it hadn’t even been real. Just an act, for an audience.
What would kissing Reggie be like if we were all alone? Would he be more inhibited without people watching us—or less?
I closed my eyes, and before I could tell myself not to think about it, my mind started supplying images all on its own. His hands, capable and strong, cradling my face as he urged me upagainst a wall. His tongue, delving deep inside my mouth, leaving me no quarter as he crowded out everything that wasn’t him.
My eyes flew open.
I shouldnotbe thinking about this.
“No,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed, my heart racing as hard as it had last night when he’d molded his lips to mine. “We are not doing this.”
It was just an act, I told myself as I turned on the water to the shower.It meant nothing.
Reggie had given me no sign that he viewed our arrangement as anything but transactional.
