At one point, he leaned in and asked, “The bathroom here is unisex, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I brought a Sharpie. Gonna take care of that little issue of my number being posted on the stall. Care to join me?”
The thought of escaping to the privacy of the bathroom with him right now thrilled me.
Standing up from my seat, I said, “Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.”
Silas followed close behind me as we walked to the restroom together. The heat of his body felt scorching at my back.
Inside the small bathroom, there was only one stall and a sink. He opened the door to the stall and got a look at the famous graffiti.
“Son of a bitch.” He laughed, scratching his chin as he stared at his phone number. “But honestly, right about now I wish I could kiss whoever did this shit.”
His words made me feel all tingly inside. Our eyes locked, and within seconds the number wasn’t the only thing plastered against the stall. My back hit the metal of the door as Silas wrapped his large hands around my cheeks and took my mouth into his. Our kiss grew more frenzied by the second, my hands threading through his thick, beautiful hair. The hunger for him that had been building had finally been satisfied. And let me tell you, Silas tasted as good as he smelled.
The stubble on his chin prickled against my skin as he groaned over my mouth, “I’ve dreamed about these lips.”
My panties were drenched. I could feel his erection growing against my stomach. Something told me my long drought might be ending tonight.
When we finally came up for breath, I teased, “Is that a Sharpie in your pocket, or are you just excited to see me?”
“That is no Sharpie, my friend.”
“Oh, I know,” I said, pressing my body into his.
He reached into his back pocket and took out an actual black Sharpie. He opened the cap before moving the marker tip back and forth over the inscription on the stall. The entire message and phone number were now inked over.
I thought he was finished, until he drew a heart above it and wrote something on the inside: Lola + Silas.
BY VI KEELAND & PENELOPE WARD
Park Avenue Player
Stuck-Up Suit
Cocky Bastard
Playboy Pilot
Mister Moneybags
British Bedmate
Rebel Heir
Rebel Heart
Hate Notes
Dirty Letters
My Favorite Souvenir
BY PENELOPE WARD
Just One Year
The Day He Came Back
When August Ends
Love Online
Gentleman Nine
Drunk Dial
Mack Daddy
RoomHate
Stepbrother Dearest
Neighbor Dearest
Jaded and Tyed (A novelette)
Sins of Sevin
Jake Undone (Jake #1)
Jake Understood (Jake #2)
My Skylar
Gemini
BY VI KEELAND
Inappropriate
All Grown Up
We Shouldn’t
The Naked Truth
Sex, Not Love
Beautiful Mistake
Egomaniac
Bossman
The Baller
Left Behind (A Young Adult Novel)
Beat
Throb
Worth the Fight
Worth the Chance
Worth Forgiving
Belong to You
Made for You
First Thing I See
WE WERE WATCHING Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in my living room when I realized I was stupidly, madly, tragically in love with Adam Mackay, my older brother Val’s best friend since preschool.
‘We’ meaning Val and his girlfriend Camilla, Adam’s flavor of the week Maya, and yours truly.
I was sixteen, and they were all a few months shy of eighteen. It wasn’t my first rodeo hanging out with my brother’s friends. By then, I’d crafted the art of both being invisible and quiet enough that they didn’t mind my presence, but also useful, as I was on kitchen duty if someone wanted soda or another bag of Sour Patch Kids.
The soft blue light of the TV danced across our faces in our darkened living room. Val and Camilla shared a bucket of popcorn and a Diet Coke. She was perched on his lap, alternating between devouring the salty snack and my brother’s face. Adam and Maya were tucked under a quilt on the couch opposite to where I sat.
The movie was good, but watching Adam’s face uninterrupted trumped any work of art. He had that old Hollywood look that made women’s knees turn to Jell-O. Chiseled jaw, pouty lips, a strong nose, and a jaw so square you could play a board game on it. He had chocolate hair, hazel eyes, and smooth tan skin. A mixture of Scottish, Italian, and Vietnamese, Adam’s bedroom eyes were hooded, and his bone structure was so sharp, he looked like a statue of himself. His physique could give Michelangelo’s David a run for his money.
And win.
Easily.
I realized it was love and not just hormonal adolescent infatuation at the least romantic time, when Maya couldn’t stop whining about the movie.
“We should’ve chosen a rom-com.”
“This movie is, like, a thousand years old.”
“What the hell, Jim Carrey is not even funny in it!”
After a few groans from me and some shushing from Val and Camilla, my brother finally snapped at Adam.
“Yo, would you shut your girl up? I’m ready to hurl her ass back to Duncan Hill.”
Duncan Hill was a preppy neighborhood in the sleepy New England town we lived in. Everybody thought it was rad that Maya was an American princess whose daddy made a fortune as the owner of a department store, while the rest of us swam in the middle-class mediocracy of hand-me-down Camrys and soul-crushing summer jobs.
“She’s not my girl,” Adam pointed out, his gaze cutting to mine. I averted my eyes, feeling my cheeks flaring with heat.
“She’s here because of you, and—no offense, Maya—but her mouth is relentless,” Val growled.
“Tell me about it.” Adam grinned. In my periphery, I could still feel his eyes on the side of my face.
Camilla groaned. “Yuck.”
“Hey, I’m right here, you know,” Maya pouted.
Weirdly, this exchanged helped, and Maya stopped her blabbing. I was actually starting to breathe again, recalculating what it
