Chapter 165
Summer's POV
The world disappeared. There was no street, no convenience store, no distant sound of traffic. Just the warmth of his hand on my face, the cool night air on my skin, the whisper of his breath getting closer, closer, until I could almost feel his lips against mine, could almost taste the mint and the frosting and the promise of something I'd been dreaming about for longer than I wanted to admit, something I'd thought about in my first life and in this one, something that had lived in the space between us since that first day in the physics competition room.
My own lips parted slightly, tilting up toward his, drawn by some invisible force I couldn't name and didn't want to resist. The space between us was nothing, was barely there, was just a heartbeat away from closing completely. I could feel the heat radiating from his skin, could sense the moment of decision, the instant before everything changed—
My phone exploded into sound, the ringtone blaring through the quiet night like a fire alarm, like a siren, like the universe itself intervening to stop what was about to happen. We jerked apart so fast I nearly fell off the curb, Kieran's hand dropping from my face like he'd been burned, both of us breathing hard and staring at each other with wide eyes.
My mother's name flashed on the screen, along with a notification showing twelve missed calls in angry red numbers.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
I answered with shaking hands, pressing the phone to my ear, my heart still racing from the almost-kiss, from the interrupted moment that hung in the air between us like smoke. "Mom, I—"
"Summer Hayes." Her voice was ice and fire, fury barely contained beneath a veneer of maternal concern, each word clipped and precise in that way that meant she was absolutely livid. "You better have a damn good explanation for why you haven't answered your phone all night. Do you have any idea how worried I've been? Do you have any concept of what it's like to call your daughter twelve times and get no answer? I've been imagining every possible disaster—"
I looked at Kieran, at the way he was looking at me like I'd just pulled the ground out from under his feet, like he couldn't quite process what had almost just happened between us. My face was burning, my lips still tingling from the almost-kiss, from the ghost of his touch, and I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except stare at him while my mother's voice drilled into my ear, demanding explanations I couldn't give.
"I'm sorry," I managed to say, though I wasn't sure if I was talking to her or to him, wasn't sure which apology was more urgent. "I'm so sorry. I'll explain everything when I get home. I promise."
"Mom, I'm at a karaoke place with Mia," I said quickly, the lie tumbling out with practiced ease even as my heart hammered against my ribs, even as I felt Kieran's eyes on me in the darkness. "We lost track of time, I swear. I'll be home in twenty minutes. I'm really sorry."
There was a long, dangerous pause on the other end, the kind of silence that meant my mother was deciding whether to believe me or to ground me until graduation, whether to accept my explanation or to demand I explain exactly what I'd been doing that was so important I'd ignored twelve phone calls. "Twenty minutes, Summer. Not twenty-one. And we're having a conversation when you get home about responsibility and answering your phone."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm leaving right now."
I hung up before she could say anything else, before she could hear the tremor in my voice or the way my breath was still coming too fast, before she could somehow sense through the phone that I'd just been seconds away from kissing a boy in front of a convenience store at ten o'clock on a school night, that I'd been lost in a moment so perfect and terrifying that I'd forgotten the entire world existed.
The silence that followed felt thick enough to touch, heavy with everything we'd almost done, everything we hadn't said. My face was burning so hot I was surprised the air around me wasn't shimmering, and when I finally worked up the courage to look at Kieran, I found his cheeks flushed too, a deep red that was visible even in the dim light from the store, his eyes wide and dark and fixed on mine like he was trying to memorize this moment, trying to understand what had just happened between us.
"I better go," I said softly, though every part of me was screaming to stay, to finish what we'd started, to close that impossible distance between us and damn the consequences.
"Yeah." He cleared his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets in that way he did when he was nervous, when he didn't know what to do with them. "I should head back too. Lily and my mom are waiting for me."
But neither of us moved. We just stood there on the sidewalk, staring at each other like teenagers who'd just discovered what wanting someone really meant, like we were both afraid that if we left this moment, if we stepped away from this spot, we'd wake up and find it had all been a dream.
That's when his gaze dropped to my hand, to the butterfly ring still gleaming on my finger, catching the light from the convenience store window. "You're still wearing it," he said, and there was something in his voice that made my chest ache, something soft and wondering and impossibly tender.
"Of course I am." The words came out without thinking, honest and immediate and maybe a little too revealing. "It's my favorite gift I've ever gotten. I don't even take it off when I shower."
The moment the word "shower" left my mouth, I wanted to die. Just spontaneously combust right there on the sidewalk and save myself from the mortification of having said something so intimate, so unnecessary, so completely ridiculous. My face, which I'd thought couldn't possibly get any redder, proved me spectacularly wrong.
But Kieran just laughed, this low, warm sound that made my stomach flip, and reached out to touch my burning cheek with fingers that were cool and gentle and made me want to lean into his palm and never move again. "You're so cute," he murmured, and the way he said it made it sound like a revelation, like he'd just discovered something precious and couldn't quite believe his luck.
"You—" I swallowed hard, trying to find words that didn't sound completely insane, trying to express everything I felt without scaring him away or making him think I was some kind of stalker who'd been obsessed with him across two lifetimes. "You're really handsome too. I mean, you're the most handsome guy I've ever seen. Those girls at school are completely blind. But maybe that's good, actually. Means nobody's competing with me for your attention."
His smile turned into something different, something with an edge to it that made my pulse skip. "How do you know nobody is?"
My heart stopped. Just completely stopped beating for a solid three seconds while my brain tried to process what he'd just said, while panic and jealousy and disbelief crashed through me in equal measure. "Wait, what? Someone confessed to you? Who?"