Page 62 of A Summer of Stars

“I am not jealous,” I snapped. Jesus, why was this tie sotight? Shoving my fingers into the loop of the material, I pulled it loose.

She came closer, crossing the hallway. I stepped away, my back hitting the molding. I—I couldn’tstandto be this close to her irritating, vexing, enigmatic face.

“Then why do you care?” she urged,pleaded, just below my chin. Her face tilted up toward mine, our chests rising and falling, as if preparing for battle.

“God forbid I try to help.”

As she opened her mouth, a few blurred figures at the end of the hallway came into view. We were being watched. A spectacle to seize and share for later, tracking our body language and each of our words.

“I don’t need your help. You’re not my—”

“Can you be quiet?”

“Now you want me to bequiet?”

“Fine, be loud, butleave, then.”

Her eyes lit with a roaring fire. “I don’t know why I ever thought that this fake re—”

I cut her off and suppressed the words that were about to obliterate ourentireplan—this month of grueling proximity and feuds and shared car rides and tense touches—by pressing my lips against hers.

Kissing her was against all of my preconceived notions. The epitome of the golden rule. The one thing I could fall back on whenever I was confused or distraught or lost. Theone thingI knew about myself.

That I hated Luna Aldridge.

Or, at least, Ihad.

To act like she was a friend was to break my belief system. So to kiss her was… was to lose the entire infrastructure. I was steppingthrough broken floorboards, walking through unknown shadows, running against the ocean’s tide.

I had expected the floorboards to cut through bone. For the shadows to haunt me. For the ocean to at least fight back. To devour me with its waves and drown me. But they… they froze for a moment. Everything froze.

Aldridge stiffened, unresponsive.

Every millisecond that passed urged me to pull away out of embarrassment and horror.

But then she parted her lips slowly and leaned in, her frame relaxing against my chest. And like some type of ancient curse, I instantly became dazed by the scent of coconut, along with the overwhelming feeling of her soft lips consuming mine.

She dragged her bottom lip over mine, and a shiver traced the outline of my spine. It was soft and pure and calm andbaffling. Until she trailed her hand up my chest to the back of my neck and into my hair. It tortured me for its entire journey.

Any sense of logic or control I had disintegrated. Hesitancy was gone. Certainty, conviction, and craving crawled over my body and dragged me down into hell where everything was upside down as she pulled on my tie.

I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her in closer, crushing my lips against hers. Waves crashed against waves in a battle for more.

I needed more, I wantedmore, I’d die without more.

More of the material of her dress under my fingers. More of the controlling grip she had on my neck and in my hair. More of the sound of her breath against my lips.

Luna, Luna, Luna.

Touches and whispers that belonged to me were no longer mine;I had no control. She was more addicting than a summer night in the ocean. I was ready to succumb to the waves if it meant I didn’t have to leave.

“You’re breathtaking,” I heard myself mumble against her lips.

She pulled away, and my hands slipped from her waist, a sense of vacancy flooding my body. A light that had been switched on in my chest was twisted off, the bulb shattering into darkness.

The golden light from the lamppost outside flooded the side of her face. Her lips were swollen, and her eyes were wide open. The questions behind her eyes mirrored the ones in mine.

Her lips, her hands, her skin, her body,her her her.