Page 95 of The Hunting Moon

“No.” He tips his head to one side, still grinning. “It could be, though.”

“Ah,” she replies, and her heart punches into overdrive. “So… if I kissed you right now, you would like that?”

Another laugh, and a nod. “Yes.” He bites his lip. “I think I would like that.”

And just like that, Jay changes before Winnie’s eyes. He is no longer the hunted version of himself, as she has grown so used to. Nor is he the hunter, ready to let loose wherever the bow is aimed. It’s as if he has spent days, weeks, years running and now the game is up. It’s time to turn himself in and submit to the sweet relief of finally,finallyletting go.

Winnie knows the truth of him. He knows the truth of her.

Jay closes the space between them, but where she thinks Jay will lean in and kiss her—where shewantshim to do that, because she’s afraid her heart might pummel out of her rib cage if she has to wait any longer—he instead reaches up and slides off her glasses. He’s careful not to snag them on her ears or in her hair. And he’s careful as he folds them into the pocket of his hoodie.

While Winnie appreciates that he is being respectful and cautious and possibly even a little bit romantic, she is way too impatient to put up with this. Four years was more than enough time to be kept waiting, thank you, and Jay is so close now. All she can smell is bergamot and lime. All she canseeare those eyes of forever gray.

Yes, I will agree to make out with you, but then I will take my sweet time actually doing it.

Winnie hooks a finger into Jay’s hoodie and yanks him against her. Then she rolls onto her toes and brings her lips to his.

It’s both exactly like she remembers from when he kissed her in the snow four years ago… and alsonothinglike that at all. The same explosion rocks in her stomach, in her chest, in her brain, but now she is older. Jay is older. They are adult bodies flush against each other, and the kiss isn’t ending after a singleMississippisurrounded by snow.

Instead, Jay is sliding his hands behind Winnie’s back and she is sliding hers behind his, wheregod,she can feel every line of him. All those planes and grooves she saw three nights ago—now she gets to touch them. To pull and tug at his hoodie while his lips pull and tug at her.

For a brief fraction of a moment, while her teeth collide with Jay’s, she is angry. Because yes, heshouldhave told her the truth four years ago so then they could have been doing this all that time instead of secretly wanting each other from afar.

But her anger fades as quickly as it arrived, replaced by an inability to breathe and an uncertainty she actuallyneedsto breathe. Jay tastes liketoothpaste, and he feels like a Lead Hunter with a nightmare curse throbbing inside his veins.

Which apparently Winnie is very into.

Best of all, though, he feels like the friend she has loved since the day she met him eleven years ago, on a carpool ride to the Sunday estate.

Why don’t you ever lock your front door?he used to ask.

And she used to answer:Why do you always lock yours? No one is going to break into the Friday estate.

You don’t know that. There are bad people, even in the Luminaries.

Yes,Winnie thinks,but there are also good ones.She presses harder against Jay. Fresh wind rustles over them.

A crow caws above the forest.