Page 43 of Broken Romeo
There was something so damn hot about being a girl’s first. But to be her first kiss? It would brand her as mine forever—I’d be sealed in her memory.
Fuck. This was bad. Bad, bad, bad.
She groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, God. It’s all coming back to me. The Benadryl.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? I was worried I maybe should have taken you to the hospital.”
“Oh, my God, no. I’m fine,” she said. “A little groggy and a lot embarrassed. But fine.”
She glanced down at her phone in my palm and angled her head. Confusion creased her brow. “What are you doing with my phone?”
I turned it over, examining the spider web of cracks on the screen. With a wince, I handed it back to her. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay to fix it.”
She took the phone from me, stunned and silent, sitting upright in my bed. With my blankets tangled around her body. And my sheets now smelling like roses.
“Why were you looking at my phone?” Her voice was harder, more serious.
“I was trying to text your friend Jill to let her know you were okay. But I didn’t see anything. I swear.”
Her eyes narrowed. Yep, she was onto me. “Well, that means you definitely did see something, didn’t you? How did you even get past the lock screen?”
“I had to use your fingerprint and hold it up to your face to get it to unlock. Your phone’s locked tighter than the Pentagon.”
“Apparently not, if you were able to get in that easily.” There was a hint of accusation in her voice.
“I’m sorry I broke into your phone, okay? But I was just trying to help. I was just trying to get a message to your friend that you were okay. She’s kind of freaking out.”
She sighed and relaxed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. My parents are just really protective. Which is why it’s a good thing you didn’t take me to the hospital. They would have yanked me out of college so fast and dragged me kicking and screaming back to Indiana.”
Indiana. She seemed like an Indiana girl. Somehow, it suited her. “I get that. I grew up an hour outside of Boston, and I think my parents would react the same way if I’d needed my stomach pumped one week into my freshman year.”
I didn’t mention the fact that my dad would have been more concerned about his ratings in the polls than my actual well-being. But still. The results would have been similar.
“Poor Jill,” she said, unlocking her phone. “She’s probably a mess—”
Her voice shifted the moment she saw the text thread from Jill, turning squeaky. “Were you able to pull up Jill’s texts?”
Lie, a little voice in the back of my head whispered. “I was, um, trying to, but I dropped the phone before I got there.”
Huh. I was actually pretty good at the whole lying thing. Maybe I had a better chance at acing this acting class than I’d thought.
“Really?” She slowly spun the phone around so that I could see the screen, despite the cracks. “Then why is there a message started in the text box that says: This is Ho...”
There were about half a dozen’ ho’ jokes I could have made at that moment, but I was certain neither of us would laugh.
I exhaled and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to see… that.”
Kate lifted her brows, seemingly unimpressed by my apology. “I doubt it’s news to a guy like you that a freshman thinks you’re hot.”
“No. But it’s a fucking front page headline that a girl like you has never been kissed.”
What was I doing? Why did I say that? My throat went dry at the sound of her gasp.
“Is that so?” she asked and sat up higher on her knees. The blanket slipped from around her torso, revealing her pebbled nipples pushing against the cotton of her v-neck shirt. My eyes shifted to follow the svelte line of her throat as she swallowed.
“So do it,” she challenged, her voice a hoarse whisper.
My gaze locked with hers. “What?”