Kiss Me Not (Kiss Me 1)

The cavalry had arrived.

I could have sworn that Reagan and Ava had jobs.

I tugged the door open just enough that my face fit through the gap. “Who let you in?”

“Mrs. Hennington on the second floor,” Ava answered.

“I buzzed her and told her you’d been a fuckboy, and she let us in. After she’d had an explanation over what a fuckboy is,” Reagan continued.

“Miscommunication does not equal a fuckboy,” I shot back. “Why are you both here?”

“We’re here to help you.” My sister retied the scarf that held her long hair back from her face. “Believe it or not, we actually believe that you and Halley have what it takes to go the distance, but we aren’t happy with you right now.”

“It was a miscommunication!”

Ava shoved at the door. “Lesson one: never joke about what she cares about the most.”

“Thanks, Sherlock. I hadn’t figured that out.”

“Are you sassing me?” She stalked across my living room and snapped her fingers. “I didn’t think so!”

“Settle down.” Reagan wandered into my kitchen and opened my fridge, peering inside. “If this is going to work, we need to be on the same page. Preston, where are you?”

“In my apartment,” I said dryly. “Being assaulted with two wannabe cupids who can’t let nature take its course.”

“You’ll fuck up nature.” Reagan shut the fridge and pulled herself up onto the counter. “I have not dedicated this much time to getting your sorry asses together for you to falter at the first hurdle.”

“You’ve done nothing.”

Ava coughed. “Actually, we’re like spies. We work behind the scenes. Which makes it even worse that I have to say this: Do not attack the raccoons!”

I stared at her. “Call Sherlock. He appears to have lost his Watson.”

“Preston!”

“It was a joke!” I snapped, turning on them both. “Why don’t you ask Halley why she was so hurt by what I said? Humor doesn’t translate well over text. That’s not my fault.”

“Because I know!” Reagan shouted. She froze, rubbing her hand over her mouth before she sagged. “You hurt her, Preston, and the reason why is irrelevant. She doesn’t need to justify her feelings to you. You know she loves animals—your text was misconstrued, but it matters to her. We don’t always need to give someone a reason for why their words hurt us.”

Ava rested her hand on Reagan’s shoulder. “Sometimes, words hurt because they came from someone we never expected would hurt us.”

Reagan glanced at her, then me. “And sometimes, it’s because it comes from someone we always thought would hurt us.”

“Are you saying Halley thinks I’d deliberately hurt her?” My voice cracked halfway through. “That’s bullshit!”

“Not to her.” Ava came and sat on other end of the sofa. “She’s such a gentle soul, Preston. She’s so easily hurt. Her mom cares more about her marriages than her, and she has so many years of pain tied up in her identity. Her dad loves her more than anything, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hurt.”

“What do you mean?”

Reagan swallowed. “We’re the only people she trusts. She doesn’t believe she’s good enough for anyone. It’s not her fault—it’s simply that her mom’s half-assed attempt at parenting has told her as much. If you tell someone something enough times, they’ll believe it.”

“She doesn’t show it.” I ran my hand through my hair and sank down on the sofa. “Jesus, I don’t know what to do about this. She’s so… confident.”

“Well, she’s not. She might appear it, but that’s because everyone expects it of her. Everyone expects her to be this outgoing, confident person, so she becomes that to hide the fact that she has the self-confidence of a bag of oranges.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know that?”

“You’re not,” Ava said brightly, a smile spread across her face. “You’re supposed to wing it like everyone else.”

“Then why am I the bad guy here?”

“Because you hurt her feelings.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Reagan slid off the counter and joined us in by the sofa. “Of course you didn’t. Nobody is saying that you did, you absolute oaf. You still have to fix it.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Jesus, Lord, give me strength!” Ava looked to the ceiling. “You apologize!”

I raised an eyebrow. “That never crossed my mind.”

“Have you done it yet?”

“No. I wanted to say it in person. Texting her caused this situation.” I leaned back on the sofa. “You can’t tell me that was a bad idea.”

They both opened their mouths to presumably argue with me, but quickly changed their mind and answered with a shake of their heads.

“No. It makes sense.” Reagan sighed, as if it’d been hard for her to actually admit that. “Did your date go well until that point?”

“You mean you haven’t already spoken on the phone for two hours, dissecting every second of the entire evening so you can psycho-analyze every word I said and every single thing I did?”