“Shawn and I are kind of like that.” Finally, a topic I’m comfortable with. The muscles in my shoulders immediately loosen, and I forgive Shawn for all of the stupid “Peach” comments he made yesterday.
“Yeah, I can tell you two have been friends for a long time. What about the other guys?”
“Shawn and I have been friends with Mike since middle school, and friends with Joel since high school when he moved to town. Cody is his stepdad’s brother’s cousin-in-law’s son or some shit like that. He joined when we started getting big. Before that, it was just the four of us.”
I nod and dig into Adam’s blueberry French toast, which is pure amazingness. “He’s kinda quiet.”
“It’s better that way. When he’s not, he’s usually saying something stupid.”
I chuckle, remembering how Cody asked me how it felt to be the “only girl to turn Adam down.” God, that had been awkward.
Adam adds, “He’s cool for the most part though.”
Really, they all are. Even the roadies seem great, especially Driver—even though his extracurricular activities leave something to be desired. Our server pops back in to ask if we need anything else, but so far, breakfast has been perfect. When she leaves, Adam slides from his booth seat to mine, pulling his plate over. I swallow hard and watch him. He’s so freaking close. “Yes?”
He slides the textbook and notebook over without taking his eyes off mine. He looks far too amused. “We need to get back to work.”
Oh, right. I flip to the page we were on and get back to it. By the time we’re both finished with our meals, we’ve pounded through two whole chapters. We order more coffee and stay until we’ve gotten most of the way through the third, but I’m distracted. There is now a group of girls our age sitting two tables down, and they’ve been stealing glances at Adam for the past twenty minutes. Every time they look our way, I find myself glaring. If we weren’t sitting on the same side of the table—looking utterly couple-ish—I don’t doubt they would have come over to get his number, his home address, and his dick size for future convenience-store shopping purposes. I don’t know if they keep staring because they recognize him or because of the whole sexy bad-boy vibe he gives off, but either way, it’s getting under my skin.
When Adam shifts toward me in the seat, resting his knee between us, I’m distracted from my scowling. I give him my attention, and he brushes a loose strand of hair away from my face.
“What are you doing?” I ask, not stopping him.
He smiles warmly at me, but there’s mischief in his eyes. “Don’t you want to make them jealous?”
More than anything. “Why would I want to make them jealous?”
Adam snickers. “All girls want to make other girls jealous.”
No arguing there. I let him play with my hair until he starts to lean in, and my eyes get wide. He doesn’t go for my mouth though—he whispers in my ear. “Relax. I’m not going to kiss you. Just play along.”
Adam kisses a spot next to my ear tenderly, and I don’t know how he classifies this as not kissing—because I am definitely feeling thoroughly kissed. He marks a two-kiss trail along my jaw and then looks into my eyes as he comes in close. His lips are warm against my skin when he presses them against the outermost corner of my mouth in an agonizingly soft and teasing kiss.
My eyes close because I’m helpless to stop what happens to my body. My breathing stops, my heart stops. Every ounce of energy I have is poured into not turning into the kiss. Because God, I really want to. I want to so bad it almost hurts. I should. I should just—
When Adam slowly pulls away, I open my eyes to find him smirking, and I feel self-conscious as hell. I try to control the breath I’ve been holding so that it doesn’t come out in a humiliating sigh.
“Look,” he says quietly, referring to the girls.
I peel my eyes away from Adam and look over to their table to find them frozen like statues, all four of them gawking at us. One literally has her mouth hanging open. They look away in a hurry, and I immediately start giggling. “Wow.” I don’t know if I’m referring to the effect we had on them or the kiss itself. My blood is still lava, struggling to pump oxygen to my brain.
Adam is serious when he says, “We could make them more jealous if you want . . .”
I chuckle nervously because yes, I do want to make them more jealous. I want to make them more jealous . . . in the privacy of a bedroom . . . where they aren’t even present to witness how jealous we’re making them.
I flip to the next page of the textbook and try to say in an even voice, “Time to move on to irregular verbs.” I try to get my mind off of that non-kiss as Adam and I work our way through the third chapter, but I think it may have been the hottest kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life. Is that even possible?