The Three Kiss Clause by Christopher Harlan

Author:Christopher Harlan [Harlan, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Christopher Harlan
Published: 2020-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

Cormac

SHE NEVER HAD her drink.

“Here,” I say, sliding the glass over to her. She smelled amazing when I leaned into her just now, and the smell of her is still in my nose. “Before the ice melts and makes it gross.”

“Thanks.” She takes it from me hesitantly and just looks at it for a few seconds, like she’s not sure if she should have it.

“You don’t have to,” I tell her.

“No. It’s totally fine.” About five seconds later that glass is half empty. She went from not looking like she wanted it to doing a Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas impersonation. “Go easy,” I caution, leaning in. “I’m not that bad to be around that you need to get so messed up.”

“I’m fine,” she tells me. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

I do my best Daniel Day Lewis impersonation and fully commit to my role of loving boyfriend. Maxwell is a Chatty, so he jumps in with about a million questions that I know she’s not ready for. Not only didn’t we rehearse any sort of origin story for our ‘relationship’, but she’s looking, sounding, and yes—smelling—a little north of tipsy right now. I’m worried she won’t know what to say. That doesn’t stop Max from asking the question we’ve both been dreading.

“So, Tori, how did you and my boy here meet? Cormac was telling me how amazing you are on the car ride over here, but he didn’t tell me much about how you two got together.”

“That’s my Cormac,” she says. “Always forgetting the little details.”

“He’s always been like that. So you tell me instead.”

We did not prepare for this at all, and now that it’s actually happening I feel really stupid for not discussing it. Part of me wants to jump in and make up a story for Maxwell, but the other part of me—the part that’s going to win out—wants to see how Tori navigates the bullshit river she currently has us paddling down with both hands. She wanted this, so it’s on her to make it as realistic as possible. I’ll jump in if she needs me, but I really want to see how she handles this.

She looks at me with glassy eyes for a second before turning away and smiling. Even though I’ve got no skin in this game, I get nervous when I see she’s about to open her mouth and make up a story. Here we go.

“We met at a conference.”

Her lie doesn’t miss a beat. It flows right off of her. . . damn, have her lips always been that red? I know she’s had a few, but she’s looking really beautiful right now. I don’t know if it’s that she’s finally relaxing or what, but I can’t stop staring at her mouth.

“A conference?” Maxwell asks.

I see where Tori’s going with this, and I jump in to help her but she keeps going before I can. “Like a publishing conference. Cormac goes to them all the time—they have them all over the country.

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