Kissing the Player - Maggie Dallen Page 0,65

much fun that had been, I turned to see that Rose had fled from the spot she’d been standing and I didn’t know where she was.

“You did great, Jax,” Simone said with a big smile as she met me offstage.

“Yeah?” I scratched the back of my head. “Rose didn’t seem to think so.”

Simone patted my shoulders. “She looked like she was in shock. Give her some time.” She nodded toward the kissing booth behind us. “Besides, you’re not done for the day just yet. Get moving, hot stuff.”

I gave a humorless laugh as she pushed me toward the kissing booth where the buddies I ate lunch with every day were already lined up beneath the giant sign that Rose had Simone paint to say “Kiss the Players!”

There was already a line and people were whispering and laughing as Simone rushed ahead of me to affix the other signs we’d worked on the day before.

“Dude, is this really necessary?” Ryan asked when I took a seat beside him and the sign in front of him that read. “World Class A-Hole.”

“Yes,” I said. “We acted like jerks and we need to apologize.”

Ryan grumbled but didn’t protest. The other signs were slightly less specific and were mainly different ways of saying “I’m sorry.”

Mine, of course, was even more specific than Ryan’s and way more personal. “I love you, Rose Parson.”

Yup. Nothing like a sign declaring one’s love to make a guy want to vomit. How had I thought this was a good idea? Why had I believed this would work? I was setting myself up for the humiliation of a lifetime here.

“This…may have been a mistake,” I said to Simone as she finished placing the sign in front of me for all the school to see.

Simone fixed me with a no-nonsense look. “Dude, you tried to get the girl you like to fall for you so you could break her heart so you could buy a new amp.”

I flinched. “Well, when you put it like that…”

She arched her brows. “It was either this or replace the kissing booth with a public flogging.”

I nodded slowly. “Public humiliation for the win.”

She grinned. “Exactly.”

“But what if Rose ran away?” I said, sounding far too much like a whiney kid for anyone’s liking. “What if she doesn’t even see?”

It was at that moment that the atmosphere around us changed. The giggling ceased, the voices fell silent, and an anticipatory stillness settled over the crowd. I didn’t even need to see Simone’s eyes widen as she looked over my shoulder to know…

She was here.

Rose was here.

I turned slowly and saw her staring…again.

With that same incredulous look that was impossible to make sense of. I mean, she was shocked, yes. That was obvious. Her gaze flittered over the other guys, her eyes reading their signs before finding me again. Before reading my sign that I’d painted myself so the script wasn’t nearly as neat and curlycue cute as Simone’s.

Was her shock the good kind or the bad?

Was she horrified or elated?

It was impossible to tell.

After what felt like an eternity of standing in the spotlight, under the unwavering stares of the curious crowd, I thought I might break if she didn’t respond.

That was when she gave her head a little shake, straightened her shoulders, and held her head up high. She was walking toward me. Sashaying actually. She couldn’t seem to help herself.

Sexy as sin and the object of everyone’s fascination even as she dealt with what had to be the shock of a lifetime.

She reached the booth and set her hands on it. Her gaze met mine as she licked her lips. Everything about her was poised and cool and perfect…except her eyes.

Her eyes gave her away and I knew she wasn’t even trying to hide what she was feeling from me.

Love.

Happiness.

My heart squeezed painfully in relief.

“I thought you weren’t a fan of drama,” she said. “I thought you didn’t like to make a scene.”

My lips quirked up. “I was wrong.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I was wrong about a lot of things,” I said.

Her eyes grew soft and they shimmered with unshed tears. “So was I.”

Anxiety filled my gut as I tried to figure out what she meant by that, and what was up with those tears? Were they happy tears? Or was she trying to think of another way to tell me to get lost, or—

“I was wrong about this kissing booth idea.” That soft vulnerable quality had been replaced with a practical tone that had me even more on