“Pretty sure it’s used in reality shows to earn misery points,” I add.

  “I’d be the first to surrender,” he says, and perhaps Axel has let go of whatever was bugging him moments ago.

  Good. I want to return to normal. Or find a new normal with him.

  I turn the thought over in my mind a few times. Yes, that’s what I’ve wanted lately with Axel—to find a path beyond our blow-up in the coffee shop, past our painful breakup. That’s what I’ve learned on this trip so far. My goal isn’t simply to survive him anymore.

  It’s for us to start over as friends.

  I try again to make the night a little easier for him. “So, you’ll share a bed with me? Don’t worry. I’m not a cuddler. You won’t wake up with me wrapped around you. I mean, that stuff only happens in books. Like accidental kisses,” I say, lightly. And I feel light for the first time since we discovered the booking agency married us.

  “Only in books,” he echoes, and he’s smiling the slightest bit. On that hopeful note, I glance out the window, enjoying the nighttime view.

  It’s dark. The train lights illuminate the path as we curve along a bend in the tracks. But neither one of us slams into the other.

  “See? We didn’t just fall and land in each other’s laps, lips pressed together, like we would have in a book.” Though, a lot of things that happen in my romance novels haven’t happened in my real sex life. Like, say, great sex. Maybe someday I’ll have what my heroines are having.

  “How does that even happen in stories? We never wrote an accidental kiss,” he says.

  “I haven’t in my solo books either,” I say.

  “I don’t understand how a kiss could be anything but intentional. Even if they’re in a cab, and the cabbie slams on the brakes and they wind up in each other’s arms, the thing that happens next is always intentional.”

  “Kisses are deliberate,” I say, relieved that finally we’re talking again—like yesterday. But also like we did once upon a time, before our blow-up.

  “And they should be,” he adds as the train swings around another curve.

  Faster than I expected.

  Before I’m even aware of what’s happening, I’m sliding closer to him, my hip slamming against his hip. He grabs my upper arm, holding me tight.

  I laugh briefly from the surprise, then look at the shaved distance between us. “See? We’re closer. But we’re still not accidentally kissing.”

  Even though I kind of want to be. Even though my heart is beating faster than it was before.

  When Axel looks at me, his eyes are darker than I’m used to. “Because someone always has to make the first move,” he says.

  “Even if there’s an accidental-on-purpose kiss,” I add.

  “Like in a book,” he says as he curls his hand a little tighter around my arm. I hope he doesn’t let me go.

  Since I’m letting go of reason, I let go of the past too. In this moment, I want an accidental-on-purpose kiss.

  “Sort of like this?” I ask, then lean in and give him a swift peck on the cheek. I catch the fading scent of the forest after it rains. I let out a tiny gasp.

  His breath catches.

  I pull back from his cheek, meet his eyes. They’re wild. Hungry. Then my gaze strays to his lips. They’re plush, pillowy soft.

  “Or maybe…” I lean in, and I don’t accidentally kiss him. I kiss him on purpose. A soft, barely-there sweep of my lips. “…like this.”

  “Like that,” he murmurs against my mouth.

  I linger in the kiss and then take a little more. Another brush of our lips. Another press of my mouth to his.

  Another hiss of breath from him.

  Then a hand on my face, fingers gliding over my jaw, a touch that sends delicious tremors over my skin.

  Axel Huxley can kiss. A tantalizing tease of a kiss like I’ve never felt before.

  This one radiates down to my bones, through my skin. I swear I can feel it in my eyelashes.

  And most of all, in the center of my chest where I’m melting.

  When the train straightens out seconds later, we break the kiss.

  “So,” he says, huskily, looking like he’s reorienting his reality, perhaps to this new one where we’ve kissed very un-accidentally.

  I’m adjusting to my new world order too—one where I want to kiss him on purpose again and again.

  But if I stay like this, hovering on the edge of want, I’ll climb onto his lap and kiss him so purposefully it could only lead to the bedroom.

  What would happen in the morning though? No idea, and I’m not sure I’m ready to face a morning after.

  Maybe he’s not either, since he nods toward the bedroom door, then rasps out, “You should get in bed first.”

  Whatever his reasons are, I vehemently agree. We need some separation.

  I head into the room, shutting the door to change into sleep shorts and a T-shirt, then opening it to invite him in. With my back to him, I hop under the covers, my stomach still fluttering, my body still craving.

  He comes in a minute later, turns off the light, and heads to his side of the bed. I look away, even though I want to stare at him.

  I want to read his reactions in his eyes. In his face. I want to study him to see if he’s still wondering what the hell just happened and why it felt so good.

  I hear him set his glasses on the nightstand, then he slides under the covers.

  We’re two stiff logs in a queen-size bed, hustling along the European coast after dark.

  I’m acutely aware of how near he is but how far apart we are too.

  And how completely deliberate that kiss was for both of us.

  “Good night,” I say, my voice full of unasked questions.

  “Good night,” he says, the same way.

  Neither one of us falls asleep for a long time.

  18

  GAME FOR ANYTHING

  Axel

  That list of regrets I keep on my laptop?

  The French Riviera is nowhere near it. In fact, I might need to start a list of un-regrets and this stunning view of the sea will be at the top of it.

  We’re in Parc de la Colline du château in Nice the next afternoon, after having trekked up a steep hill to this park. It overlooks the Baie des Anges in the sapphire-blue Mediterranean Sea. This is why people work their asses off all year for a vacation—I feel like I am living inside a travel brochure.

  As I stare out at the water, I try to focus on this moment, rather than on last night.

  That kiss has been playing on a goddamn loop in my mind, and I need to stop it.

  I try to commit to memory the blazing emerald colors of the park and the rusty red of the roofs below, along with the salty scent of the sea floating on the summer breeze. Maybe, just maybe, they can fill the space in my head that she’s taking up. Possibly, I can use them to block out the new item on my list of regrets.

  Kissing Hazel Valentine last night.

  But it’ll be like scaling a mountain to erase that kiss since she’s currently standing at the edge of the park, talking to the tour group about, what else, kissing.

  Fucking kissing.

  “Once I discovered this park on a European trip, I knew I had to include it in a book someday,” she tells them.

  I seethe.

  Bet she took that trip here with a guy. Was it Max? Or maybe it was Jacob, the musician she dated before him, another guy in a history of bad-news boys.

  Jacob was a jerk too, married to his guitar and his gigs rather than to her. The dude left her hanging far too many times, canceling, forgetting, then asking for forgiveness.

  What is wrong with men?

  Present company included.

  But what is wrong with Hazel for picking these awful men? Though, I’m the pot calling the kettle black. My track record in picking women is as bad as Hazel’s in choosing men.

  Still, I’m sure whatever guy got to take her to Nice, to kiss her, to have her, then to travel home with her, was a dude bro too.

  Jealousy claws through me, dragging its jagged nails over my skin.

  As she talks about her trip here, I look away, trying to tune her out. I should never have kissed her last night. I know better, yet when I was next to her on that awful couch, the hum of the train seducing us, that wildflower scent of her skin seducing me, I didn’t think.

  I felt.

  I felt an infuriating resurgence of all that pulsing, aching want I tried to vanquish when I went to Europe more than a year ago. To get away from her.

  So I gave in.

  Dumb fucking move, since now I can’t get her kiss out of my head.

  “And it’s the perfect spot for a kiss, isn’t it?” she asks the group in that charming, vibrant voice that makes her readers adore her.

  She’s so perfect for this genre, it kills me.

  She has an every-girl charm about her. She’s accessible and chatty. She’s the woman they want to be their bestie. She’s not afraid to show them her real self. When we climbed up the steps earlier, Hazel stumbled on the second to last step, but one of the Book Besties grabbed her elbow, stopping her from falling.

  “Guess I’m a clumsy heroine today,” Hazel had said to Maria, with a self-deprecating smile.

  “I’ll save you anytime, girl,” Maria had said.

  Now, they’re enrapt as Hazel brings them behind the scenes to the Nice chapters in one of her most popular books—Sweet Spot. But I can’t stomach hearing how she crafted that romance. Because I know—I just know—some other man inspired her. He kissed her here in this park, overlooking the Mediterranean, and I hate him.

  “And I thought, someday,” Hazel continues, all wistful, and hearts-a-fluttering, “I will write a first kiss scene here, and it’ll be epic.”

  “And the Sweet Spot kiss was so epic,” Jackie chimes in, bouncing on her pink Converse-clad toes. “It’s one of my favorite kisses of yours. But I also love the kiss in the alley in Old Nice, just past the market. When Bennett yanks her into a doorway—”

  “—and he growls at her, saying, You are maddeningly beautiful,” Alecia puts in, hand on her chest, ready to swoon. “And all I can think about is what your lips taste like.”

  “And she says, all sultry and needy, So find out,” Maria says, batting next with their performance of memorized lines from Hazel’s book.

  Damn. They’re something else.

  Hazel whistles in appreciation. “Wow. Impressive,” she says.

  The Book Besties high-five each other.

  “It’s one of our favorite kisses. It’s a top five Calgon Take Me Aways kiss,” Jackie says.

  “What’s your all-time favorite? Across the whole romance genre. Not just my books,” Hazel asks the whole group. As different people answer, mentioning Kennedy, and TJ, and plenty of others, Hazel listens attentively and once, or maybe twice, I swear she steals a glance my way.

  A furtive little stare.

  Is she checking me out?

  Regretting last night too?

  Obsessing over it?

  I don’t have a clue, so instead, I stare sullenly at the water, inventing character bios for all the people passing by down below. I do my best to keep my brain busy, so I won’t linger on that kiss I regret.

  I definitely regret it even more after knowing she came here with a guy.

  But I can’t tune her out since her voice grows louder, a closing note tone to it. “And that’s why I’m glad my mother took me on a trip to Nice years ago. When we visited here, I even told her someday I would write a kissing scene here,” she says.

  It’s like a smack upside the head.

  I was dead wrong. She came to Nice with her mom, not a lover. As she ushers the group out of the park, I straggle behind, delightedly corrected.

  Feeling like the most relieved idiot in the world.

  I grin privately as I head down the steps. I maybe even preen. Yeah, no one else kissed her.

  You jackass, you didn’t kiss her here either.

  You’re not sharing a sleeper car with her for real.

  You’re not having a relationship with the woman who has utterly captivated you for years.

  And so, I still regret last night.

  Because I’m still the jackass who wants another kiss. One that doesn’t end.

  As she finishes the tour, I stay quiet. I refuse to look at her. I live in my head. That’s easy for me. My imagination is rich and vivid, and I have so many stories to tell. Stories where the hero always gets the girl, no matter what.

  But when the tour ends, and the readers head off with a local guide for a late afternoon snack (translation—glass of wine), Amy tells us we have a free hour before the early evening bookstore signing.

  “I have some calls to make but if the two of you want to wander, we can meet up in an hour,” she suggests, checking the time on her phone.

  Hazel looks at me, her eyes saying yes before her mouth does. “I’d love to,” she says, and I’m not at all surprised. She loves kicking the tires.

  I just give a curt nod.

  “Perfect,” Amy says.

  “By the way, did you ever hear from the travel manager about the suite?” Hazel asks, sounding eager. Overeager maybe? It’s a kick in the gut, yet another reminder that a kiss can’t happen again.

  She doesn’t even want to share a suite with me. And, really, do I want to share one with her? Well, not like we did last night, playing crime-scene-tape-down-the-middle-of-the-bed.

  Amy waggles her phone. “Working on it. I’ll have an answer soon,” she says, then picks a spot for us to meet in an hour.

  Once she heads off, Hazel looks me dead in the eyes. “Are you mad at me? Because the only thing you’ve said all day is same here.”

  That’s the real smack upside the head.

  I am so see-through.

  Better add another regret to my digital Post-it—how I’ve handled every single irritating emotion I’ve ever felt for her, then and now.

  But I can only move forward, and I won’t ice her out again. That means I need to try to act like last night didn’t devastate my heart. I’ll have to find a way through with something I didn’t do when I took off—be honest. Be…kind.

  “No. I’m not mad,” I say, but that’s not quite right. “I was sort of lost in my head today,” I add, since that’s true enough to give her something, but safe enough to protect me.

  She takes the answer and nods crisply. “Fair enough. I’ve been there.”

  She gets it. She gets me. “But I would love to check out the alley where that maddening kiss took place,” I say, since I’m not going to turn down a free hour in Nice. Especially with her.

  She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  “No, I mean it,” I say, free of sarcasm or acid. I want her to know I truly would like to kick around town. We’ve only ever hung out in New York, exploring that city together. Never another. This is a brand-new activity for us, for me. Maybe it’ll be what I need today to clear my head and my heart.

  Her right eyebrow reaches above the sky. “You do?”

  I suppose she’s right to doubt me. So there’s one surefire way to let her know I’m where I want to be right now. “Brooks will definitely have to hunt for treasure here as he evades bad guys,” I say with a smile that says I’m ready to plot, and she damn well better come along for the ride. “Want to help?”

  “Sure,” she says brightly. She’s game for plotting anytime, as she’s always been.

  That’s promising. It’s a return to what once worked between us. And if we return, perhaps last night can truly be behind us now.

  Where it should be.

  19

  THE PLOTTING GAME

  Axel

  As she traipses down a cobbled alley, Hazel smacks a weathered yellow building with her palm. “This is where Brooks will chase Nefarious Ned,” she declares, upbeat, excited. “He’ll slam his shoulder against the brick, taking the corner at full speed. On foot.”

  “Of course he’s on foot. He’s a badass. But he’ll keep going,” I improvise, as I assess the damage the four-story building will do to my hero. “It’s only a bruise after all.”

  “Can it draw blood, please?”

  “Damn, you want to make it hurt, don’t you?”

  “I really do.” She mimes grabbing a knife and carving up Brooks’s insides. I only know that’s what this gesture means since it’s a Hazel thing. She does it while plotting, always saying our job is to make it hurt, like a knife through the stomach.

  She’s vicious. It’s the best.

  “Fine. I’ll make him bleed,” I say, like I’m acquiescing, as though I like to torture imaginary people too.

  She pumps a fist as we walk past apartment buildings with white shutters and flower planters. “But then Brooks will lose the chase in the rubble.”

  “I’ll be sure to let Brooks know you want him to lose,” I say.

  “Of course. Because he has to lose before he wins,” she says. “That’s how books work.”

  “I know, Hazel, I know,” I say dryly, but I’m glad, too, that we said yes to this hour. We’re resetting to something like friendship by plotting a book. And as we plot, I don’t have to face the aftermath of that kiss. Hell, we don’t have to talk any more about how quiet I was earlier today. We’ve tackled it. We’re done.

  If I’m lucky, I’ll get my fountain of books’ wish—I won’t have to excavate any feelings for her on this trip.

  Maybe we can skip over that day and just return to something I can handle—book talk. I’ve fucking missed it. “Did I tell you Brooks meets his heroine at a nightclub in Vienna? He’s very smooth when he picks her up.”

  She shoots me a mischievous look. “Of course he is. I’d expect nothing less.” Then she doubles down on the twinkle in her eyes. “And I fully expect him to break a toe or something while he’s banging her over the bathroom sink in their luxury hotel room.”

  That’s a thing in my books. My heroes always get it on with their ladies, but nothing goes perfectly. Someone usually stubs a toe, or hurts his back, or winds up with rug burn.