Page 53 of The Overtime Persuasive

Except the man I kissed is her brother. Not only her brother. Her twin.

I stare at the empty message box beneath Lucy’s name.

“Oh no,” I whisper. “Am I starting to make this creepy?”

Mitch jumps onto the kitchen counter as I set my phone down and pull my water bottle from the cabinet. “I think, due to unpopular demand, and my own awkwardness with this situation, I’m going to have to talk to you about Liam for a while.”

Mitch plops himself down near the sink, curling his tail around my half-empty fruit bowl and narrowing his eyes.

“I know Lucy was in favor of me spending time with him. She practically pushed me in front of him.” I unscrew the bottle and hold it beneath the faucet. “But there is a significant difference between being pro-Liam-helping-me-with-manual-labor and being pro-her-brother-having-his-hands-all-over-me-in-a-doorway.”

A shiver races through me at the memory of his hands at my waist. His mouth moving from my lips to my jaw. The sound of⁠—

My grip slips on the water bottle, sending a stream over my fingers.

I turn off the faucet and sigh. “I forgot how good this feels.”

Not only the kissing, although the kissing was—sweet heavens, it was good. It’s this innate lightness inside me. This delicious little fizz beneath my skin. Waking up excited because something happened that wasn’t about the store, had to do with money, or finding a problem I need to solve before it grows teeth and eats me alive.

I tighten the lid on my water bottle and look out the kitchen window. Morning sunlight spills across the brick buildings behind mine. The trees have exploded into bright orange, deep red, and flashes of gold, each leaf catching the light whenever the breeze moves through the branches. The whole street looks like it was dipped in autumn. It’s beautiful enough to take my breath away.

And all I can think about is how I spent last night with my back to a door and Liam Snyder’s mouth on mine.

I’d like to think any good-looking man with broad shoulders and basic knowledge of where to put his hands would have knocked the sense out of me. Except, I’ve met plenty of attractive men and none of them have made me grab the front of their coat in the rain.

That’s it. It was the setting. Rain falling around us. The darkened shop. The little awning barely keeping us dry while the rest of the city blurred behind him. A kiss in the rain is objectively romantic. You never know in a rainstorm, there could be lightning or thunder. A rainstorm has atmosphere, a soundtrack purely provided by nature.

Which still doesn’t explain how the sexiest kiss of my entire life happened with Liam.

My phone vibrates on the counter, and Liam’s name fills the screen.

Liam:

A laugh bursts out of me so loudly Mitch’s ears flatten.

“What?” I pick up the phone. “That is weirdly well-timed.”

Good morning to you too.

Liam

Thank you for coming with me last night. I’m really glad you did.

Before I can answer, another message arrives.

Liam

For several reasons.

Then another.

Liam

Having you on my arm was pretty great.

I bite my bottom lip.

Liam