Page 62 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls

Skye buckled to laugh, her double-charmed necklace sparkling. Celene touched her own pendant and watched, hurt that their time together had been docked.

“You made my day.” Skye hugged the quilt to her chest. Unintentionally cute. “Are you leaving right after this?”

“Pretty much. I’ll say goodbye to the girls and give Don and Briana a key and a rundown on the security system, but I’d started packing already.”

“When will I see you again?”

“In a few weeks, I’m not sure.” Celene placed a hand on Skye’s forearm, hoping she sounded as real as possible. “You’ll need to do some girlfriending for my family. We’ll text so it’s not a complete disaster.”

“I’d like that.” Skye fit a hand on top of hers, soft and stroking. It sped up Celene’s heart much like when she’d whispered, ‘you’re so beautiful,’ flecked with sunlight.

“I’ll take the quilt, you cuties.”

They turned to Thalia, who’d materialized at the entrance like a phantom goth. A sly smile branded her face as she scooped up the quilt. And then, bizarrely, she huffed into it, nose smooshed. “This smells like pine.”

While sitting between Fiona and Isolde immersed in their tablets yesterday afternoon, Celene went down a google rabbit hole of interesting facts about Yielding. In addition to the whole bread thing, the town was also known for its prevalent hippie communes back in the day. She wished her dad had done a better job at telling the family about this area besides his standard “Affordable properties, yadda yadda, ownership.”

The Florentines and Thalias of Yielding kept that legacy alive to this day. While weeks ago, this would have been a point of annoyance, Celene simply nodded. “We had a picnic on a tree.”

Thalia moaned in startling bliss. “The elements work, ladies.”

Then, Thalia blurred in a fast spin around. “Go ahead,” she told them over her shoulder. “Kiss goodbye. I won’t watch.”

Skye’s head went into robin movements, aiming at the ceiling, the floor, Thalia, then to Celene. “We don’t have to.”

How could Celene not tease her? Their lunch togetherhadbeen romantic. The most romance she’d ever experienced outdoors. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

Expression stretched like,‘Really?’, Skye let her arms droop. It was a lousy performance, since her eyes glossed over in inarguable desire when they shared each other’s breath earlier.

Celene’s inclinations erred on taking the lead. She could drum up at least ten different ways to press Skye onto the glass outer wall of Luce’s and let the whole floor see Celene claim her lips. Hot from that hypothetical alone, she smoothed a hand behind her own neck, running fingers beneath her hair. Several degrees hotter as Skye treaded close, their chests barely grazing.

Skye’s soft breath hinted of apple and beet juice, just on-the-nose for the nemophilist who’d wrapped Celene into her woodsy world. Barely distinct in the symphony of shoppers’ rubber soles on the floor, reggae trilling from the store, and Celene’s rather loud heartbeat, Skye offered a final means of withdrawal. “You sure?”

Grasping at Skye’s side did its job. Though Celene flitted her eyes closed, too. Too much. Skye was too hypnotic; it was agony to edge this closely twice within an hour.

Celene didn’t hesitate, leaning into the kiss she’d been craving since June had first cornered her in Gertrude’s van. But this wasn’t tentative like she’d imagined. Their lips grazed and parted with the confidence of a woman their age,who could trick anyone into thinking her inexperienced. Warm, succulent, and much, much,muchtoo quick. Celene pushed to kiss back and was met with air.

Blinking pure shock, Celene caught Skye’s subtle, unmistakable smile.

The upper hand. Skye stole the upper hand and saw Celene reaching for more, getting nothing.

“Drive safely,” Skye said at a volume more for Thalia to hear. “Text me when you’re back in New York.”

What the fuck happened?

Minutes past, Celene sat stock-still behind her steering wheel, infuriated and simultaneously riveted. Becausewhat? Did that even qualify as a kiss if she couldn’t reciprocate?

That was a monumentally deficient kiss.

That was a monumentally deficient, subpar kiss.

In the distance, the Poconos Mountains cut through the horizon in serrated lines, and Celene contemplated climbing one and screaming until she lost her voice. Because Skye Florentine kissed her, and it pissed her off.

Because of that monumentally deficient, subpar, derisive, teasing, sexy, second-long fucking kiss.

Celene swiped through her hair, outraged without an audience or anyone to complain to. The nerve, leaving her flushed and unsatisfied, a coil unfurled to its limit, straining to spring back. God, she should rush back up there, burst through their counter of trinkets, and grant Skye a deep, hungry, satisfactory kiss.

That’d been unfair. It’d beenmean.