He stopped himself. “I know there could not be a more inappropriate time for me to say this.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And when he joined in, I knew it was going to be okay between us.
I leaned in, ready to kiss him.
He leaned back.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked. The porch light flickered, mirroring my anxiety.
He shook his head. “When you kiss me, I want it to be about us.”
“Well,” I said, “we’ll be kissing in front of the whole world on Monday when the studio is back up and running.”
“No we won’t,” he countered firmly.
“Wait, did Michael tell you he’s firing me?”
“He’s not going to fire you—everyone loves you. The audience loves you. And I . . . I just meant that we aren’t having our first kiss in front of the whole world. Rhiannon and Wolfe are.”
“Oh,” I said. Had Reid just come close to saying he loved me?
“One day, if I’m lucky, I hope we have our first kiss,” he said, squeezing my hand gently.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
On Monday after a long weekend, Rhiannon and Wolfe filmed their kissing scene six more times. Reid was right—it didn’t feel like a real kiss should feel. It felt like work, but I was glad I got to do it with a friend anyway.
When the cameras weren’t rolling, Reid and I got to know each other as our real selves, girl and boy, witch and vampire . . . But Reid was right, it took time to adjust to my new light.
Reid and I didn’t have our first kiss until three months later, after the season ended. We spontaneously met for coffee and talked and then walked down to the pier. It was something we’d done a hundred times. It wasn’t planned. But it was good. It was sweet and funny and awkward.
It was my real first kiss.
And it felt like magic.
THE CURSE OF LOVE
By Ashley Woodfolk
Aunt Gigi always told me that for women in our family, red lipstick was a weapon.
“Don’t wear it unless you ready for the attention that comes along with them lips, Bree,” she says as she steps into the bathroom behind me. I lean closer to the mirror and smooth the crimson-tipped wand across my lips again, defiantly applying a second coat. Aunt Gigi raises her eyebrows and peels her sheer mahogany pantyhose away from her thick brown legs inch by inch.
I purse my scarlet-stained lips and turn to face her. “Yeah, I know. With great power comes great responsibility, or whatever.”
Aunt Gigi finishes undressing and twists the knob to run her bath, standing in her bra. With her hairless arms crossed over her big boobs, she watches me as I finish getting ready, the way she always does. I brush my fringe of black lashes with even blacker mascara, just the way Gigi taught me. I twist my thick braids into a messy bun, the way Gigi used to do for me when I was small.
Gigi looks proud, smug, or maybe a little bit of both. I wink at her reflection in the mirror.
“You liable to drive them boys crazy,” Gigi says with a smirk, and I know her words are as much a joke as they are a warning.
“They can look but they can’t touch,” I reply. Aunt Gigi’s own rose-tinted lips slip into a wide grin. She’s stunning when she smiles, even to me.
“That’s my girl,” she whispers just before dipping a red toenail into steaming, lavender-laced bathwater.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Giselle was usually just getting home when Aubrey was heading out for school, and that morning was no different. Aubrey didn’t know where her aunt spent most nights, but the gorgeous woman and beautiful girl regularly collided like stars in the single bathroom of the one-story bungalow they shared.
Despite her aunt’s warnings, Aubrey often made light of the darkness that lurked in the prettiness of her face, but the absence of the other Dunn women in their too-empty house was a haunting they both tried, and failed, to ignore.
That day, Aubrey walked quickly past the portraits of her other aunts: Claudette and Madeline, Elizabeth and Abigail. She’d studied the paintings for hours when she was younger, taking in the women’s bushy, black hair and dark, flawless skin, their pouty lips and luminous eyes.
It was the last portrait she always avoided—the one of her own mother, Josephine. But that day, for the first time in nearly a year, she looked right at it.
The whole town told stories about the Dunn women. And Giselle had told Aubrey the truth as soon as she was old enough to understand.
Aubrey used to wonder how they could give up their beauty—something that was so tangible, so . . . powerful. But she was starting to realize that it wasn’t that simple. They forfeited their youth, too, and eventually their very lives.
She stared at the portrait of Josephine, remembering what her mother had said the day before everything changed.
He’s worth everything, Bree.
“How did you know?” Aubrey whispered, looking for answers in her mother’s flatly painted eyes.
“How did you know?”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Get in, loser,” Talia yells in my direction the second I push open my front door. I skip over to her car, which is idling at the curb, and Talia smirks as I climb inside.
“Hey, jerk-face,” I say, unzipping the front pocket of my backpack and dropping my house keys inside. I reach for her radio and turn up the song that’s playing. I bounce a little in my seat.
“About time things got back to normal,” Talia says as she shifts the car into gear. It’s the first time I’ve ridden to school with her in weeks.
I’d been avoiding her for more reasons than one. But I called her last night, and things are good now. Though it’s difficult for people to be angry with anyone in my family for long, Talia seems to have a special talent for it, at least when it comes to me.
It’s why I love her so much—I know her anger (and her affection) is real.
“Sorry, boo,” I say. I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Love ya, mean it.”
That’s when it happens—the familiar rush of warmth. The prickle along the back of my neck that can only mean one thing:
He’s close.
I had no idea he was in the car before I climbed inside, because Talia has darkly tinted windows. But I can feel him.
He’s one of the many reasons I’ve been keeping my distance the last few weeks, and he’s sitting in Talia’s back seat.