Page 14 of Olivia’s Only Pretending (Sweet River #3)

“That kiss …” I licked my lips, searching for the right words. “Was about a lot of things. It was about me . And you. And, yeah, he’d been gasoline on the fire. But, in the moment, I wasn’t really thinking. He’d belittled you, and I think wanted to make him eat his words … and then …”

“And then it was a really good kiss,” Victor said.

I nodded. “I got a little caught up in the, uh …” Words escaped me. I had barely talked about this with myself.

“In the chemistry?” Victor breathed, his voice low.

“Yeah. But the whole little charade I was putting on when you came back into the office was an impulsive move,” I said.

One of those rare moments I acted without thinking.

Yet, it’d been with one of my safest people, so it hadn’t felt like a dangerous move.

“But you saw, I even started second-guessing it right before the … kiss.”

As Victor pinned me with his gaze, I had to admit how reckless it was. I’d been playing with fire.

“Do you think it was a big deal? It kind of felt like a big deal to me. You seem to have brushed past it. I’ve had trouble getting a read on what you think,” he said.

I almost laughed. If the man could hear how fast my heart started beating every time I thought about the kiss, the way my mind had been playing the memory on a loop, he wouldn’t be asking.

“It wasn’t a small deal,” I said quietly. “By any means.”

His shoulders eased. “Okay, okay,” he said, then paused, before way too casually asking, “Do you think it’ll happen again?”

I turned my face toward him in surprise. “Happen again?” I whispered.

His eyes dropped to my lips. My stomach turned syrupy, my mind fuzzy.

It’d be so easy to bring our lips together right now. I’d barely have to lean. And we’d be right back where the lines between us turned soft and blurry.

The night was quiet, just the sound of the two of us breathing. My breathing grew rapid in my chest. A part of me ached to be closer, just a little bit closer.

I wanted Victor in more parts of my life, I’d thought earlier … but really, I just wanted more Victor.

A siren blared below us, making us jump, jolting us from the moment.

Victor stood up and peered over the side of the roof. “Security,” he said with a low laugh, as if this was hilarious.

My eyes widened. They had sirens? I started scrambling toward the edge of the roof farthest from the security guards on my hands and knees.

“Woah, woah, slow down, Dr. Rhodes. You look like you’re about to topple off the roof!” Victor jogged over, with his annoyingly perfect balance, to meet me. He leaped to the ground, landing on his feet in a squat.

“Please, get down from the roof,” the security team was saying into their speaker. “Students are not allowed on the roof. This is against camp?—”

“Hey, you’re not a student,” Victor offered up.

I was still panicking. I kicked my feet over the edge and began to shimmy down, when his two big hands wrapped around my waist and gently pulled me down to the ground, to safety.

Footsteps on the concrete shuffled closer to us. “You are not allowed—” a deep voice was saying as he stepped toward where we’d been scrambling off the roof.

I took off, weaving behind the campus buildings toward the parking lot. After years, I knew the shortcuts. Victor was close behind me, jogging to keep up.

“Dang, for such small legs, you’re fast,” he said, breathless.

I’d run track all through high school. I was a sprinter.

It wasn’t until we made it, panting and sweaty, to Victor’s truck that I realized my feet were still bare. My black slingbacks were tossed in the grass behind the theater.

I hit my palm to my forehead. “My shoes.”

“I’ll go back.” Victor spun on his heels.

I grabbed his arm and pointed toward security, riding toward us on their golf cart.

“There’s no time. We’ve got to go.” I tried opening the front door, but it was locked. “Come on, Victor. I’ll check lost and found later.”

His brows furrowed as if he didn’t completely agree with me as he clicked his truck unlocked. I nearly threw myself inside as he slid calmly into the driver’s side.

As we cruised out of the parking lot, I kept glancing out the back windshield.

“Liv, do you really think the campus security would be chasing us through the parking lot?” Victor asked through a half-compressed chuckle.

I settled into my seat. “Maybe.”

Victor shook his head amusedly as he turned onto the main street. “You always made it home a good fifteen minutes before curfew in high school, didn’t you?”

“Well, no reason to make my mom worry,” I said defensively. I tightened my seatbelt.

“And you always tiptoed around during the dorm quiet hours,” he mused.

“I was considerate, yes.”

“Never snuck candy into the theater?—”

“Okay, okay. I get it. You think I was a Goody Two-Shoes.” I crossed my arms.

Victor laughed. “I know you’re a Goody Two-Shoes.

You’re scary strict about following every code and rule for your historical house.

I also have to show up to things nearly fifteen minutes early when we go together.

We always stop to read every instruction a couple of times through when we’re playing a game. ”

“Some of those are just normal things, Victor.” I turned on the truck’s heaters even though it was only in the sixties outside. “Let me guess, you were one of those students who had a secret pet in their dorm.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Well, it wasn’t my pet. It was the whole dorm floor’s hamster. How do you know that story?”

“Your mom. She said it was a crazy fine you guys paid when the RA found the hamster.”

“Poor Rufus.” Victor sighed sadly.

“So, that wasn’t your first time being chased by campus security?” I twisted in my seat, so I was facing him.

“We weren’t being chased.” He hit the blinker. “I think to you, Miss Rule Stickler, simply being corrected felt like being chased.”

“They had a siren!”

“That was barely a siren.”

“You’ve climbed roofs before then?” I felt a little sad that this new, risky experience we’d shared was maybe old news to him. A bubble burst in my chest.

“Nah, that was the first time I’d climbed onto a roof, actually.” He grinned at me, eyes studying me briefly before looking back at the road.

“Same.”

“But not the first time I’ve been called out over a speaker,” he said with a gleam in his eyes. “I can say, I’ve never seen someone nearly fling themselves off a roof to avoid a security guard in a golf cart.”

“I was about to fling myself off that roof, wasn’t I?”

We both burst out laughing. Tears pooled in my eyes, I was laughing so hard.

Victor was shaking. “ You abandoned your favorite shoes, Liv.”