Kiss Me Not (Kiss Me 1)

Ava nodded solemnly. “She’s right. It shows your kind side. You know, the one that sometimes gets overshadowed by your sass.”

“I do not sass.”

“You sass all the time.”

It was Reagan’s turn to nod.

“Yeah, well, you two are hardly the poster girls for a sarcasm-free life.”

“Eh.” Reagan shrugged one shoulder. “Life would be boring without sarcasm.”

She was not wrong.

“It’s just not in the cards, okay? We’re only getting along because we don’t have a choice. Otherwise, we don’t. We aren’t suddenly going to become friends.”

“Why don’t you get along?” Ava sat forward and paused to slurp the rest of her margarita up through her straw. “I don’t know if I’ve ever actually asked that. Jesus, fifteen years of friendship, and I never cared.”

“There is no reason.” Reagan’s tone was dry, but her lips were quirking up in a way that was so like her brother’s. “They’re civil, but they aren’t friends.”

“But why?”

“Because they have a raging fucking crush on each other and have never bothered to say anything.”

I spat my drink over my lap.

“It makes it super awkward because they ignore it, so it has the effect of them appearing to hate each other when it isn’t true. They want to jump each other’s bones, but since neither of them wants to admit it, they jump down each other’s throats instead.”

“They should try putting tongues down each other’s throats instead.”

“Ooooookay!” I waved my arms in front of me in a ‘quit it’ motion, a bit like a referee finishing a boxing match. “That’s enough of that. There will be no putting tongue’s anywhere, at least until you two are done licking each other’s asses about this.”

Reagan made a face like a thirteen-year-old who’d just been grounded for a week for breaking curfew. Nose scrunched up, lips pursed into an asshole-like pucker, and narrowed eyes.

I grinned, cupping my glass. “See? It’s not nice.”

“Whatever. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like your lack of a love life?”

“Yours isn’t thrilling if you’re kissing the guy you like on the cheek.”

“We all have shit love lives,” Ava said before we could descend further into bickering. “Reagan, you have no discernible love life whatsoever, Halley is too shy to ever admit to Preston how she really feels, and me and Butler are over for good—”

Reagan’s lips tugged to the side. “And that’s before you even think about the fact you have feelings for Ethan.”

Ava’s expression soured at the mention of her older brother’s best friend. “We are not discussing Ethan.”

“Let’s not discuss this at all,” I said, leaning forward to refill my drink. “All we’re going to do is hash over stuff that’ll make us feel like crap, so we’ll drink until we’re giggling at cat videos on the internet, pass out squished in my bed, and be monstrously hungover tomorrow.” I adjusted my glasses. “And none of us need that. God only knows that I don’t need to be hungover while kissing other people.”

“I have a wedding bouquet spread to finalize tomorrow,” Reagan said. “Plus a meeting with the bride in the afternoon. I definitely cannot be hungover.”

Ava looked between us. “I’ll get drunk. It’s my day off.”

I laughed. “By yourself?”

“What do you think I’d be doing if I was at home?”

“Your laundry?” Reagan asked.

“Nope. I’d be getting hammered, eating my weight in pizza, and probably watching a rom-com on Netflix so I can yell at the people getting happily ever afters. It’s like therapy, but it only costs ten bucks a month instead of a hundred an hour.”

Actually, that sounded like fun.

Reagan looked at me. “I’ll order the pizza.”

CHAPTER TEN – HALLEY

The Queen of Bad Decisions

I regretted the final pitcher of margaritas the second I woke up.

My head spun like the teacup ride on crack. I was pretty sure my tongue had swollen to three times its usual size overnight, and my mouth felt like a tornado had swept over the beach and dumped all the sand in my mouth.

Rolling over, I squinted at my nightstand. Two little white pills sat next to a bottle of water, and I silently thanked yesterday’s Halley for putting that there before we made the final pitcher.

The only problem was the fact there was a body in the way.

Thankfully, the body was Reagan.

“Don’t mind me,” I muttered, leaning right over her to grab my glass and the aspirin.

She groaned as I sat up and tossed the pills into my mouth and quickly washed them down. I finished up the glass of water in a few gulps and leaned over again to set it back down.

Well, at least my mouth didn’t feel like the bottom of a flip-flop anymore.

Silver linings and all that.

I somehow managed to clamber out of bed without kneeing either of my best friends in the face or the stomach. It was a lot harder than it sounded since Ava was a raging bed hog.