Just One Kiss novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: The Fourth Name
"I lied," Ansel said.
The sky behind him had gone from pink to a deep, dusty orange.
Beyond the shed, a hundred and fifty people were eating perch and talking about Colt Rydell, and none of them could see us.
"About what?"
"Last winter."
I waited.
He had his hands jammed in his back pockets, and he was looking at the gravel.
"There was no girl," he said. "There was no regatta. There's nobody. I made it up on Friday, on the dock, before I could think."
"You made it up."
"Yes."
"You said you'd done it before."
"I said that."
"You said you knew what to look for."
"I don't," he said. "I've never. With anyone. You were the first person I ever kissed, Lottie. In the truck. Last Friday."
The world tilted a little.
I put my hand flat against the shed to stay up.
I thought of his hands at ten and two, white at the knuckles.
His hands shaking.
His voice, saying, I know how to, that's different from.
"Why?" I said.
"Because you told me you'd made a list."
"That's not a reason."
"It is, though." He finally looked at me. His face was red, and his eyes were bright. "You said you were going to choose somebody. And I thought, if it's not me, I'll lose my mind, and if it's me, you'll never ask. So I stayed safe. So you'd let me come to every single one of them, and sit on the deck with a root beer, and watch."
"And ruin them."
"I didn't ruin Perry. Perry's great. I just stood nearby."
"You wrote Colt's name down as a no."
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