Page 32 of Once Upon a Beast
“Yes or no answers, please.”
“Yes.”
“Did you like kissing her?”
“Def- Yes.” I said.
“Do you want to kiss her again?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to date Layla?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t think you would answer that last one. Okay, then. You need to go and talk to her. You need to make things right and see what she wants.”
“And if she doesn't want to have anything to do with me?”
Steve’s answer was to wave the paper in my face again.
“Okay, point taken.”
“Go! Right now. Before she gets too far into her head and you can’t fix this.”
I looked down at my watch. I wanted to talk to her, I hoped that Steve was right and it explained Layla’s reaction to me. I had been so wrapped up in what I had done and how it wasn’t what Layla wanted, I hadn’t stopped or allowed myself to think that it was exactly what she asked for.
She must have been so hurt and confused, no wonder she slammed the door on me last night. I needed to see if she even felt half of what I felt for her. I hadn’t thought I could have a chance with her but if I did, I owed it to us to find out.
“I have a meeting in ten minutes.”
Steve looked at his phone and said, “Damn it. I hate when work interferes with your social life.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile. “For once, I agree with you,” I said.
Chapter 18
Layla
“It didn’t mean anything. It was only a kiss,” I said to Ella and Ara.
I was sitting in the break room near my office at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the main building of the New York Public Library. It was the day after the event and the office was pretty quiet. Though it was still considered a work day, most people, including the higher ups, didn’t come in. I could have stayed home but I hadn’t been able to sleep. I thought going to work would help get my mind off Nic, it hadn’t.
It didn’t help that Ara and Ella had insisted on a group video chat with me around lunch time. I had avoided looking on any social media sites on the internet all morning, but apparently my friends didn’t have the same self-control.
“There is a kiss and then there is a kiss,” Ara said. “What you and Nic did was kiss! That was a kiss that belongs on the cover of a romance novel. No wonder it’s on every post about the night.”
“It is not,” I said horrified.
“Not every site, but a lot of them,” Ella reassured me.
“I was just taking Ara’s advice and it went horribly wrong.” I put my hand over my face.
“Oh, wait, you can’t blame me for this. I will only take credit when things go well. When I left, you were trying to figure out how you felt about Nic. I guess you figured it out and kissed him. How was this a bad thing?” Ara asked.