Page 54 of Crossing the Line

48

Claire

Hearing Aiden say he thought about kissing me that night soothes an old wound. That night, I felt truly seen by him, and when he didn’t speak to me again, the rejection cut deep. It’s one thing if someone who barely knows you brushes you off, but after our talk, it felt like we knew each other better than we knew most people. He probably knew more about me than most of my friends at school, and the fact that he wanted nothing to do with me messed with my head more than I’m proud to admit.

“I’m sorry.” Aiden’s voice brings me back to the present.

Shaking my head, I say, “Don’t be. You had a lot going on.” It was selfish and immature of me to want him to kiss me after revealing what he went through with this dad. That should have been the last thing on my mind, but I was sixteen.

Leaning back against the kitchen cabinet, he says, “And you have a lot going on now.” His voice is low as he says it, and I have a feeling we’re both thinking the same thing.

Timing sucks.

“Yeah.” I practically sigh out the word. I haven’t even told my best friend about what happened with Garret. She’ll expect me home tomorrow, so I know I’ll need to call her at some point today.

Because I’m not ready to go home.

“Claire,” Aiden says, pushing off from the cabinet. Once he’s in front of me, the closeness makes it harder for me to think straight. “I should have kissed you that night.”

“Really, it doesn’t matter. That was so long ago,” I say with a shake of my head, but even as the words leave my lips I can feel my cheeks warming. “It’s not a big deal.”

He scratches the side of his head, looking unsure of himself. It amazes me how much younger he seems when he’s less guarded. “I never knew how to act around you. I could barely talk to you when we sat next to each other in class because I thought you were so pretty.”

I can’t contain my laugh of disbelief. “That’s why you didn’t talk to me?”

Aiden’s eyebrows furrow. “Why else would I have not been able to talk to you?”

“I just thought you didn’t like me.” My back leans against the kitchen counter, and I hope I look more casual than I feel. It’s hard being in this room with him. All I can think about is yesterday and what it felt like to have him lift me onto the countertop.

And what it felt like to have his hand grazing up my leg.

And how much further I wish we would have taken things.

Shifting my weight, I clench my thighs at the thought and hope he doesn’t notice.

With a breath of laughter, Aiden shakes his head. Catching me off guard, he asks, “Who was your first kiss?”

Trying to get my bearings, I blurt out, “Gabe Evanston,” I answered too quickly. It’s easy to remember your first kiss when you haven’t kissed many people. My total is up to five—and two of them happened yesterday.

Aiden grimaces. “The guy from Montana?”

Sliding away from the counter and away from him, I start putting away some clean dishes to clear my head. Everything he said about how I make him feel makes me want to kiss him way more than I did yesterday. “What?” I can’t fight my smile. “He was a perfect gentleman.”

He scoffs. “I’m sure he was.” After a second, Aiden looks at me more closely. “Wait, didn’t he only go to our school senior year?”

I try to stay busy, but I’m running out of dishes to put away. This is the part that gets embarrassing. I was hoping he wouldn’t do the math.

Aiden gapes at me, and I brace myself for him to start cracking jokes about how I didn’t kiss anyone until my senior year of high school.

“So, I could have been your first kiss that night?”

I’m still reaching up to put a dish in the cabinet when I look over my shoulder at him. Not the direction I thought this would go, but still sort of embarrassing. “Uh, yeah. I guess you could have.” Keeping myself busy, I grab a couple of spoons I had washed and put them back in the drawer, but I can feel his eyes on me.

“Is it weird that I want to give you that kiss?”

“What?” I ask with a laugh. He’s being absurd, but when I look up at him, his face is serious.

His blue eyes pin me in place as he says, “I want to give you the first kiss I should have given you back then.”