I lost myself in her. I drowned in her sweet softness. The slight floral scent of her perfume mixed with the evergreen, that now-familiar hint of the candy cane that made her taste sweet and nostalgic, like she single-handedly embodied everything good about Christmas.
She kissed me back, her lips tentative, her tongue hesitant as she mirrored my movements.
The moment was tender and perfect. It could have lasted an hour or seconds. My brain lost its ability to process silly things like time and space. Everything in the universe seemed to come down to this moment. This meeting of bodies, of lips, of minds, of hearts.
I was lost.
I was so far gone, it took me a moment to realize she was drawing back, pulling away. I lifted my head and met her gaze.
“Eleanor,” she said, her eyes glazed over with the same heady emotion I was feeling.
I stared at her, the name not registering, reality not quite clicking into place.
Lola licked her lips and that didn’t help matters. “Eleanor,” she said again, this time taking a full step back, her gaze flickering past me toward the door. “She’s gone now.”
I looked back toward an empty doorway.
Eleanor had been there?
“I should, uh…” Lola backed away from me. “I should go.” She turned as if to leave without me.
“Wait, hold up,” I said, chasing after her.
“No, I’d really better go.” She was scooping up her little purse from where she’d dropped it and scurried toward the door.
I felt like a lech and a predator and the big bad wolf chasing after Little Red Riding Hood by the way she was hurrying to get as far from me as possible.
Guilt flickered inside me but it was nothing compared to the confusion. The utter and complete chaos of emotions that were stirred up as a result of that kiss.
Not just the kiss itself—though that had been life-altering. It was the way she’d looked at me. The way I’d been drawn to her. The way I’d wanted to kiss her, and not because Eleanor was nearby—I hadn’t even known she’d been in this wing of the house.
I’d kissed her because I’d wanted to.
And I wanted to do it again.
“Wait, please,” I said.
I’m guessing it was the please that did it. I didn’t exactly have a reputation for begging.
She stopped and turned to face me, her eyes unbearably wide. For all her snark and all her sass, the girl struck me now as an innocent.
Like Blake earlier, I was temporarily speechless in the face of her sincerity.
I mean, Eleanor was sweet as could be, but she’d always known the score. She lived in the real world and knew how to play the game.
But Lola? She lived in a world of her own, one that didn’t even brush against the realm of real world high school, let alone casual hookups on Christmas Eve.
“I should really get home,” she said again, fidgeting with her purse.
I cleared my throat. “I know, I, uh…” I gestured vaguely toward the outside. “You need me to drive you.”
She blinked. “Oh. Right.”
Chapter Eight
Lola
The drive home was about as awkward as anyone could imagine. Silence reigned. My foot twitched. I scrambled to think of something to say. Something…not awkward.
The problem was, every thought flitting through my skull was related to that kiss.
I was officially obsessed. But there was no way talking about that kiss would make things any less awkward in the car.
Lucas might’ve been totally cool with kissing me like that. Like that. Like, like…like the world was about to end and he just had to have a taste of me. Like I was the most amazing, cherished, treasured human being on the face of the planet. Like I was—oh I didn’t know how to put it except that he’d kissed me like I was beautiful.
And yeah, maybe he kissed every girl like that, but I’d never been kissed like that. Not ever. So excuse me for having to take a moment, mister. That’s what I thought as I glanced over at his stoic profile. He faced the road—thank goodness, since he was the one driving. But I got the sense that he was avoiding looking at me.
Either I was being paranoid or he felt weird about that kiss too.
I was probably being paranoid. He kissed girls all the time. Presumably he’d kissed Eleanor on a regular basis.
Eleanor.
The girl who I’d caught sight of in the doorway just before he’d kissed me.
He’d kissed me so well that I’d forgotten about her instantly. For a second there I’d actually thought…I’d actually let myself believe…oh Lord, I was an idiot.
An idiot who had to get out of this car, and out of this dress, and take out the contacts, and wipe off the makeup. If I could, I would crawl out of my own skin. Because this wasn’t me. None of this was me.
Who was it then? a voice taunted.
I didn’t know, I just knew it wasn’t me.
His voice broke the silence and it startled me so badly I jerked like a spazz.
“Thank you.” His voice was gruff and he cleared his throat, flicking a glance in my direction that was too fleeting to read. “For tonight,” he added.
When I didn’t say anything, he cast another look my way. “You were perfect.”
Perfect. The word seemed to hang in the air. No, I wasn’t perfect. Eleanor was perfect. He was perfect.
In the classic sense, I mean. In the sense of what’s important to people like him, to people like them. He was quintessentially perfect—the star quarterback with the incredible good looks and the admiration and adoration of our entire class.
He was perfect, I was…not.
I lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, weirdly deflated by his compliment. “I told you, I know how to play the part.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and when I looked over I saw him clenching his jaw. “Right,” he finally said. “I guess for a minute there I’d forgotten you were acting.”
I stared at his profile, trying to read his tone. Was he…sad?
But before I could even give that thought a second of credence, he glanced in my direction with a smile I recognized from the hallways of Briarwood. It was his charming, dashing, star quarterback smile. The one that dazzled every girl in sight.
Except me. I hated that smile. It was fake and insincere, and not at all like the guy I’d been starting to know.
“You played the part so well, I almost forgot you were faking it,” he said, that smile making my stomach sink further.
“Yeah well…” I didn’t know what to say to that so I let my voice trail off. What could I say? I’d forgotten too?
That would be giving too much away. I’d been an idiot to forget for one second that none of this was real. It was for the best that he was dropping me off.
I needed space, I needed perspective, I needed—
“So when’s this swing dance thing?” he asked.
I stifled a sigh at the reminder. I needed a dance partner. But now I was honestly wondering if having a dance partner would be worth it.
Worth what? So you got confused for a minute. So you enjoyed a kiss. This was hardly the end of the world. I just had to make sure I kept the reality of this situation front of mind.
Besides… I glanced over at my faux boyfriend. It’s not like I really liked the guy. My emotions were just in a whirlwind because of those stupid kisses.
I was a kissing novice. A make-out virgin. Of course I was overreacting. My emotions would have gone berserk over anyone who’d kissed me. It was a novelty, a rarity.
I just had to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“New rule,” I said, shifting so I could face him. My stomach rebelled at what I was about to do, but it needed to be done. My sanity demanded it.
He glanced over with arched brows.
“No more kissing,” I said.
He blinked and then looked back at the road. He didn’t speak until we pulled into my driveway a moment later. “Yeah,
sure.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.
Because for him, it wasn’t.
I let out a long breath. “Okay. Good.”
“Great.” He flashed me a weird smile—not the dazzling charmer smile but not a smug smirk either. It was rueful, maybe even self-deprecating.
“Okay, well then…” I struggled to shift the other way and open the other door. The long skirt of my dress kept tangling between my legs, trying its darndest to trip me.
Before I could say another awkward word, Lucas was out and moving around the front of the car. Honest to God, it took me a full thirty seconds to realize that he was opening the car door for me. Like a proper gentleman.
Like a legit date.
He even reached in to take my hand, helping me out. Most likely so I wouldn’t sprawl face-first on the driveway as my feet got caught up in the dress. But still, it was oddly chivalrous.
Nicely so.
I tugged my hand out of his once we were standing by the car facing one another. He rocked on his feet. “Thanks again,” he said. “For everything.”
I peered up at him. Did he mean ‘thanks for letting me kiss you in front of my ex’ or was he just being polite?
I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “No problem, it was actually—” Fun. I bit my tongue before I could admit it. It hadn’t been terrible, I’d admit that much. Aside from the weirdness of pretending, and the rudeness that was Blake, I’d found myself genuinely enjoying myself more often than not. Particularly when it had just been Lucas and me.
Especially when it had involved Lucas kissing me.
I took a step back, never actually finishing my thought. “Alrighty then,” I said a little too loudly. “I’d better go inside. My little brothers will be bouncing off the walls with excitement over Christmas morning, and it’s sort of tradition that we stay up together and drink hot chocolate and sing carols and—”
I gulped down the rest of that sentence because I was babbling. The only way to stop babbling was to just stop, cold turkey. I inched past Lucas, sidling a bit as though I was wary he’d reach out for me.
Or maybe I was worried he wouldn’t.
I shook off that thought. “Okay, well, goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he said.
I finally turned and scurried toward the front door, just as fast as my heels would take me.
“Lola?”
I swung around so quickly the whipping of my skirt nearly toppled me over. “Yes?”
Good Lord, why did I sound so breathless?
He smiled. It was like no smile I’d seen from him before. It was genuine and it was pure and it was…perfect. “Merry Christmas.”
I swallowed convulsively, willing my voice to work. “Merry Christmas,” I managed.
Then I turned and fled.
I didn’t look back as I let myself into the safe, cozy warmth of my house, where my family would be waiting for me.
I didn’t let myself think about him again as I changed out of my clothes and into my comfy pajamas. I didn’t think about Lucas or his smile or his kiss as we sang and ate and got ready for bed.
And I definitely didn’t think about him as I fell asleep much later that night.
* * *
Space was what I’d needed, and space was what I’d gotten. One full week of space, in fact. Lucas had left me alone for the most part, aside from the occasional burst of texts. I knew from those texts that he was off with his family on another ski trip.
His family was really into sporty stuff, whereas mine took the winter break to be an excuse to indulge in overeating and binge watching Netflix. It was a sport…of a sort. The texting followed a pattern. One of us would start it to work out some logistics or another. He’d had a question about what to wear swing dancing, and I’d had to inform him about the date change for the next event. Then logistics turned to teasing, and mocking one another turned into a sort of battle to make the other laugh.
He was ridiculously good at making me laugh, and if his LOL’s were legit, I was holding my own in our little text war.
By the time the week came to an end, I was no longer so on edge about that kiss. I mean, the texting had been fun, and funny, and highly entertaining, but most certainly not flirty.
We were back in neutral territory and I was once again in control of my emotions and clear on where Lucas and I stood with one another. We were two relative strangers with a mutual dislike who tolerated one another for the sake of a mutually beneficial relationship.
Nothing to get all worked up about.
After one week without him in my face, my life had gone back to status quo. I was the happy loner, friendless and cool with my singular status.
It was New Year’s Eve and I was alone. Even my shift at the hospital reminded me of how alone I was. The wing was mostly deserted and the few kids that were there either had visitors or were asleep, so I found myself wandering the halls to kill time.
My grandfather had come home from the hospital just before Christmas. His absence at the hospital—while awesome, in general—made my volunteer work seem far more tedious. It just wasn’t the same without a friend there to chat with me.
Or a smug jock there to torture me.
Okay, so maybe Lucas was still on my mind, even if not in my face. I just wanted to go one full day without thinking about him, but apparently that was too much to ask. I blamed it on the texting, and on the fact that we’d met at the hospital. I couldn’t get through a single shift without thinking about him or that kiss or both.
Thoughts of him were persistent and irritating, and I couldn’t seem to shake them. I stopped to take down a couple Christmas decorations that had been left behind. The thoughts weren’t good and they weren’t bad, they were just…nagging. Persistent. I kept finding myself trying to figure out what he’d been thinking. What he was currently thinking. What he would think if he got to know me.
It was stupid. All of it. It was just a side effect of my first kiss with an admittedly handsome guy. Anyone would be flustered.
Flustered? Try obsessed.
I jammed a thumbtack right back into the decoration because I’d totally lost track of what I was supposed to be doing.
“You know Christmas is over, don’t you, Candy Cane?”
I stared at the corkboard in front of me, and for one crazy moment I was certain I’d imagined his voice. I’d been thinking about him so much this past week, it wouldn’t have surprised me if my fantasies had gone to the next level of vividness.
After a heartbeat, I spun around to face him.
He was there, looking hot as hell in a dark gray pullover sweater and jeans. Not even the sling messed with the perfect good looks. His short dark hair was mussed, but in that way that looked good. People would pay money to have their hair look that artfully tousled. And his eyes, those piercing blue eyes—they were just as bright and bold as I’d remembered.
I hadn’t been imagining that, just like I hadn’t been hearing voices.
Thank God. I might have been eccentric, but I still liked to believe I was sane.
Though it was hard to remember that fact when he was standing so close. “What are you…” I looked around. “What are you doing here?”
My gaze fell to his shoulder. Oh, duh. He’d probably had a checkup or something.
“I was looking for you.”
My eyes shot up to see if he was making fun of me. He was not. He looked totally serious.
“You were?” I asked. “Why?”
His lips twitched upward and I tried to will my heart into submission. This was not a flirty moment, this was just a jerk who needed something.
“I went to your house and your grandfather said you’d be here,” he said.
I frowned. “You went to my house? Why?”
He shrugged the uninjured shoulder. “I wanted to see you.”
I blinked. And then I blinked again.
It was official. I was hallucinating.
“It’s New Year’s
Eve,” he said after my silence entered the realm of awkward.
I blinked once more. “And?”
His lips did that funny twitching thing like he didn’t know if he wanted to smile or not.
Honestly, I didn’t know if I wanted him to smile or not. My heart was pounding like I’d just run a marathon, I wasn’t sure it could take a smile right now. I might go into cardiac arrest.
“And,” he said slowly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I thought it might look kind of weird if we didn’t spend New Year’s together.”
I stared at him blankly, his words filtering through my racing pulse and my frazzled brain and settling into the pit of my stomach.
“You know,” he added. “Since we’re supposed to be a couple.”
Right. Of course. I nodded. “Yeah, I suppose.”
He watched me closely and I hoped my face gave nothing away. I’d die before I’d let him see my disappointment. Because really, what had I expected? That the hottest, most popular guy in school would want to spend time with me just because?
I was a freak, a weirdo, a loser, a loner—and that’s the way I liked it. I straightened a bit. “What did you have in mind?”
He arched his brows as if surprised by my easy acquiescence. But whatever, I’d signed up for this, and I was a big girl. I’d see through my commitments, and I’d make sure that he lived up to his end of the bargain.
“Blake’s parents are out of town so she and Trevor are hosting a party,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
He started to smile.
“But you need to start making good on your part of this bargain.”
He widened his eyes in surprise, and then he was giving me a familiar smirk. That disdainful twist of his lips put me back on even footing. For a moment I could breathe again. This wasn’t the hottie who’d given me my first kiss…and my second. He was the arrogant jock who’d made fun of me for being different the very first time I’d met him.
“I need you to learn how to dance.”
He backed up a step like I’d just started to attack him with a machete. “Whoa, whoa. I know how to dance.”
The Candy Cane Kiss: Briarwood High Series Page 9