He’s going to kiss me.
Nash is going to kiss me.
I want him to kiss me.
“I’m sorry about Molly,” he says.
I blink, confused. “I mean, I think it worked out okay.”
“Yeah, but what she did wasn’t cool. I forget sometimes how controlling she can be.” Nash pauses. “I just—”
Something has shifted, again. And not in the Hey, let’s kiss each other’s faces under a romantic sunrise kind of direction. Nash chews on his lower lip and runs a hand through his hair, smile gone.
What did I say? He’s the one who brought up Molly, not me.
“It’s Kels.”
My heart plummets.
“I’m sorry,” Nash says. “It’s just—I feel. I don’t know how to say this in a way that makes sense.”
I lean back in the seat and stare straight ahead, straight through the windshield. I can’t look at him. I can’t. I need to know what he’s going to say next. What he’s trying to say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, lead you on or anything,” Nash says.
“We’re watching the sunrise.”
“Right,” Nash says. “I can’t believe—look, I like you. I really do. That’s why I’m so pissed at Moll right now. Because it’s not you, it’s just … there’s someone else.”
“Kels,” I say.
Me, I don’t say.
“I just—I can’t explain it, okay?” Nash says. “I am so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I say. It comes off sharper than I intend it to.
“I think I might love her. Maybe,” Nash says.
“You don’t even know her,” I say.
If you did, Nash, you’d know she’s me.
Nash shrugs. “I don’t expect you to get it. No one does.”
I want to scream that I’m the only one who would get it. The whole stupid truth, but it’s too late. The magic of the sunrise has faded into the typical morning sky. Reality punches me in the stomach. He doesn’t like me, Halle. Not like Kels. I was right this whole time.
“Can you just take me home?” I ask.
“Halle—”
“Don’t.”
We drive back toward Middleton through the morning haze, the sunrise in the rearview.
Nash’s fingers fumble through the radio stations, unable to settle on a song.
I close my eyes because I can feel it coming, the panic that starts in my stomach and rises up through me. I hear Ollie’s voice in my head telling me to breathe, imagine the pressure of his hand. You will not cry in front of Nash right now. You will not cry in front of Nash. He thinks I’m embarrassed or hurt or whatever because he rejected me. But really, I feel so stupid. Stupid for thinking I could split myself like this. Stupid for romanticizing sunrises. Stupid for thinking anyone would like me as much as they like Kels.
Stupid for thinking that I, Halle, could just be Nash’s friend.
Kels’s Inbox
Tori DiVitto
LILAH ROSE LIVED HERE: a twisted psychological thrill …
Dec 12
McBride, Alissa
Sadie Thompson Interview Confirmation
Dec 12
BookSparks
12 Winter Romances for Perfect Fireside Reading
Dec 12
Maria Trapp
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US cupcake cover reveal pitch
Dec 12
Nash Stevens
REXXXXXXXXX
Dec 12
Becca Holloway
Re: BookCon Bloggers IRL Panel Application!
Dec 12
[1-50 of 1,044]
FIFTEEN
I hear Michael Scott’s voice the moment I enter Gramps’s house.
Ollie only watches The Office when he needs to shut off his brain. He has every episode memorized, I swear.
I find him stretched out on the couch, eating a bowl of Rice Krispies in neon orange sweats and his Voldemort T-shirt. He has something to tell me.
“You look terrible,” he says.
“You too,” I say on my way upstairs to change.
I put on leggings and my THE BOOK WAS BETTER T-shirt. Wash all the makeup and residual mascara away. Brush out my knotted curls and twist my hair into messy bun. Remove my contacts and put on my plastic frames. I feel infinitely better.
I still look pretty rough when I catch my reflection in the mirror, but at least I’m comfortable. I’m not planning on leaving the house today. Being friends with my boss’s son has its perks—Sawyer got us the day off. Bless him.
Scout pokes her head out from Gramps’s cracked door.
“Morning, girl,” I whisper. “Come on.”
She follows me downstairs.
Ollie hasn’t moved, and he’s not laughing at any of the jokes.
“Okay. What’s up?” I sit on Gramps’s leather recliner chair, legs crossed, and reach for the remote to pause the TV. Scout jumps onto my lap and curls herself into a tiny ball of floof. “Something is definitely up.”
Ollie sits up. “You’re not the only one who had a date last night.”
“What?”
Ollie goes to every school-sponsored social event ever created, but he never goes with anyone. He prefers to fly solo—it’s more fun with friends, he usually says.
Ollie shrugs. “Everyone paired off, and Talia asked me if I’d go with her. As friends.”
“Whoa,” I say. “I just thought—”
Ollie cuts me off. “Yeah. I know. You kind of just think a lot lately.”
I flinch. “Ollie.”
He scrolls through his phone. “So, is Nash a good kisser?”
It’s so Ollie to make a passive-aggressive quip and then segue, leaving me feeling like trash. Ollie needs to know that I want to hear all about his friend date with Talia. But I’m also dying to talk about Nash, to let all my confusing feelings spill out of me all over the living room floor.
So I take the bait.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say.
Ollie looks up at me. “Wait. Is he mad?”
“No kissing ensued—and I didn’t tell him.”
“But … you were out all night. What happened?”
“There’s someone else,” I say. “Kels.”
Ollie uggggghhhhs into his pillow—the only appropriate response, honestly. I tell him what happened, every detail. The music, the chai, the stories. Falling asleep in the car and waking up to the sunrise. The moment I wanted to tell him—and all the reasons why I didn’t.
“I … don’t understand. A sunrise?”
“Ollie.”
“He’s so into you!”
I shake my head no. “He’s into Kels.”
“Exactly. You are Kels—or did you forget that?” Ollie says. “I’m sorry, but you officially make zero sense.”
“I’m not Kels.”
“Whatever, Hal. You’re literally both sides of this love triangle. You win. But you’re determined to sabotage yourself.”
He un-pauses Netflix and now I want to scream into a pillow. Ollie doesn’t get it because a) he’s a hopeless romantic; and b) he’s totally jaded. He’s barely even on social media—his universe revolves around baseball stats and his multiple, simultaneous crushes. He doesn’t understand the nuances of building a brand. He doesn’t understand I’m Kels online, for One True Pastry—to build a reputation in the industry separate from Grams. But I’m not Kels.