Page 68 of The Prime-Time Experiment

If allowing him to touch her hadn’t triggered the response she had expected, then she needed to know whether that was an anomaly or whether the entire system had changed.

So she had stepped forward and closed the distance herself. Even now, remembering it caused her breathing to shift slightly.

Because she knew what she expected to happen next, she had expected the memories to return. Instead, the opposite happened. For as long as she could remember, every pathway that led toward intimacy eventually intersected with her father. Every understanding she possessed had been forced to navigate around that reality.

But when she tried to recall the kiss now, it was not her father’s mouth she remembered. It was Declan’s.

And for the first time in her life, she found herself wondering whether the assumptions she built around herself had never been immutable truths at all, but simply conclusions she reached with incomplete information.

“Okay.” Dee’s voice cut through Riley’s thoughts before they could disappear down another path entirely. “You’ve been standing there staring at the coffee machine for so long that I’m starting to think it offended you.”

Riley blinked and looked up. Dee was leaning against the doorway, already dressed for work, her attention fixed entirely on her. “What happened?”

Riley hesitated. There was no gradual way into this conversation, no version that felt less absurd simply because she delayed saying it. “I kissed Declan.”

For a moment, Dee just stared at her. “You... what?”

“I kissed Declan.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Yes.”

A disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Wow.”

She pushed herself away from the doorway and crossed the kitchen, stopping on the other side of the counter. The initial shock lingered on her face for another second before something more thoughtful settled in its place.

“Okay,” she said, drawing the word out slowly. “That is definitely not what I expected to hear this morning.”

Neither had Riley. The silence stretched briefly before Dee tilted her head. “How did it go?”

The question caught Riley off guard. Not what happened, not why. Just how did it go? She looked down at the counter, tracing the edge of it with her fingertips. “That is the issue.”

Immediately, Dee’s expression changed. “Ri.” Concern replaced curiosity so quickly it was almost visible. “What happened?”

Riley shook her head. “No, nothing like that.” The words were difficult to organise because she was still trying to understand them herself. “I expected the usual response.”

Understanding crossed Dee’s face almost instantly, wiping away whatever humour remained. “Oh.”

Riley nodded. Allowing Declan to touch her already felt unusual enough, but add on top the lack of reaction? This was new territory she really had no processing skills for. “He wasn’t there,” she said quietly.

Dee frowned. “Who?”

“My father.”

The room seemed to still around them. For a second, Dee simply looked at her. “What?”

Even now, she wasn’t entirely sure how to explain what that meant. “Usually when someone gets too close, or when physical contact reaches a certain point, the association happens automatically.” Her fingers tightened slightly against the counter-top. “I don’t choose it. It just... happens.” Except not this time. “When he touched me, I kept waiting for it,” she admitted. “I expected it to happen eventually.”

“And it didn’t?”

Riley shook her head. “No.” The answer came immediately. “I was aware of him, I was aware of the contact, but I wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

Dee stared at her. “Ri...”

Riley looked away. “And then I kissed him.” This time Dee didn’t interrupt. “I think I did it because I was confused,” Riley furrowed her brow. “I thought maybe it would happen then. I thought maybe that level of proximity would trigger the response if the previous one hadn’t.” She let out a slow breath. “But it didn’t.”

The admission settled heavily between them. “When he kissed me back for the second before I pulled away, I wasn’t thinking about my father. I wasn’t thinking about anything that had happened before.” Her throat tightened unexpectedly. “I was only thinking about Declan.”