Page 52 of Prime Time Romance

“Are you and Fletch…” He leaves it there. It takes a full breath before I realize that he’s asking if Fletch and I are together.

“No. Absolutely not.”

He lets out a relieved breath. “Good. I thought I noticed something between you last night, and when I saw you two together today…well, I wanted to make sure.”

“We’re just…” Friends? Roommates? Co-victims in Sheldon’s deranged plot? “We’re not like that.”

His eyes soften at my answer. “Well, I’m relieved to hear that.” He drops his head, and a lock of blond hair falls across his forehead. I reach out, on instinct, to brush it away. He looks up, catching my hand in his.

He tugs me toward him. And somehow, I know exactly what’s about to happen. I’ve seen that look in his eyes before. Watched it on repeat when my own life was falling apart. “That’s very good. Because if you were, I couldn’t do this.”

I brace for stars. Firecrackers. The feeling that I’m falling. That I’m coming home.

His lips press hard into mine, clanking our teeth together.

His tongue parts my lips.

It’s wet. And swirling. And tastes like kombucha.

And still swirling.

My stomach doesn’t bottom out. My head doesn’t swoon. If anything, I’m acutely aware of the rough texture of his sandpaper tongue.

And then it’s done.

He pulls away. “Wow, Sloan. That was…”

Bad.

Really, really bad.

I want to tell him that it must have been a fluke. That we weren’t yet properly calibrated. We were too long apart. We weren’t quite back in the Sloan-and-Spencer groove.

He reaches out and grabs my hand. “That was incredible.”

I stare back at him, dumbfounded, searching his face for something to explain why the kiss I just experienced and the kiss he just described do not match. But his eyes are all big and blue and absolutely sincere.

“I hate to say this, but we should probably head back.” He holds out his hand to help me to my feet. “It’s getting really late.”

I help him pack up the picnic, dissecting the kiss in my head.

Is he lying?

Or is he too polite to admit the kiss was terrible?

Because it was terrible.

It definitely wasn’t the epic culmination of five long seasons of sexual tension.

So what was the problem?

Was it him? It can’t be him. He’s Spencer Woods.

It must be me and the fact that I am not Sloan.

Or worse, that underneath it all, I’m no longer capable of a toe-curling kiss.

I’ve suspected, long before arriving in Carson’s Cove, that my relationship with my ex broke me more than I thought. That maybe there’s something wrong with me. That all of my failed dates were my doing and this bitter taste in my mouth that I can never seem to swallow is because I am no longer capable of feeling that spark. That I had my shot at love and I blew it and this is just how I exist now, stuck in that sad place where I know what love feels like, but it’s on top of a big hill, and my pedaling legs no longer have the stamina to reach it.