Page 19 of The Executioners Three

The extent of Freddie’s love life could fill twelve journal pages. She knew this because she’d done it. Eight pages had gone to boyfriend number one, and four pages had gone to boyfriend number two.

Boyfriend number one (of the whopping eight pages) had been Freddie’s next-door neighbor throughout grade school.

His name was Andy, and one day, when he had been twelve and Freddie eleven, he had asked her if she would be his girlfriend.

She had flushed and said, Yes, and for the next six weeks, they had been Very Serious Indeed.

Sometimes they’d held hands. Sometimes he had come over for dinner, and twice, they had kissed.

Okay, so the first kiss had only been on the cheek, because Freddie had panicked at the last minute and turned sideways. The other, though, she had faced with determination. It had started as a peck, then quickly escalated into something slobbery that Freddie hadn’t liked at all.

Until Andy’s family moved away, and as devastated as Freddie had been, she’d forgotten about him three weeks later when a girl named Divya Srivastava had walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to join her book club. Who needed boys when Freddie could have a best friend?

Freddie’s second boyfriend, who had been awarded only four pages in her journal, was named Carl. It had really only been a summer fling, almost worthy of a Grease musical number, except that John Travolta was much more interesting than Carl could ever hope to be.

Carl had been fifteen; Freddie too. And when he hadn’t been wearing his Fortin Prep Math Camp polo, he’d worn T-shirts that said things like Never Trust an Atom, They Make Up Everything or This Shirt Is Blue If You Run Fast Enough.

He’d also worn a hoodie that said The Truth Is Out There on the back, and that was what had first caught Freddie’s eye. A funny guy who also liked The X-Files .

With Carl, Freddie had had her first real kiss (many of them, actually).

Including the kind with tongue. She had seen PG-13s at this point, and unfortunately, she’d learned that the movies made kissing look way more exciting than it actually was.

When the summer had eventually come to a close and Carl had been getting ready to leave, he’d asked Freddie if she would still be his girlfriend when he went away.

She had answered with a polite “No, thank you.” (This had not gone over well, as one might imagine.)

After that summer, Freddie had decided that kissing wasn’t very interesting—and certainly wasn’t for her. Clearly other people enjoyed it, and that was great for them, but she had better things to do with her time. And for two years, she had stuck by this assessment.

Until today.

Until right now, when she was kissing Theo Porter.

Of course, she hadn’t gone into this kiss planning to Kiss Him for Real. It was just going to be a pop kiss on the lips—a way to show Fortin Prep that she, Freddie Gellar, was in charge.

Except that wasn’t what was happening at all.

When Freddie had stretched onto her toes and brought her face to Theo’s, he had stiffened. Surprised, certainly, which she would have expected. But when he had leaned in, and when his lips had brushed against hers…

Well, that she hadn’t expected.

She also hadn’t expected her own body to react like it was—as if time were standing still and she’d forgotten how to breathe.

For several long seconds, they just stood there. Her cold lips on his warmer ones, their eyes wide open.

Then Theo gave the softest sigh, and Freddie felt her entire stomach explode.

Like a thousand sparklers going off. And when Theo closed his eyes and deepened the kiss, she found herself doing the same.

She didn’t hear the audience cheering. She didn’t hear Mr. Binder shouting at them or her mom squealing.

It was just Theo. And her.

And god, he knew where to put his tongue. And his teeth. Why, it turned out the PG-13s hadn’t lied to Freddie at all, and if this was what kissing was supposed to be like, then she’d been missing out for two years.

It wasn’t until something smacked Freddie’s arm that she finally pulled away. She blinked, completely dazed, and found Mr. Binder standing there with a rolled-up script.

Behind him, the Fortin Prep kids were going wild. Standing ovations, wild applause, and a few cheers of “Woodchucks, Woodchucks!”

“That is quite enough.” Mr. Binder flung a pointed finger to the backstage area. “Get off my stage, and please for the love of god, don’t kiss like that in the show.”

Heat erupted on Freddie’s face. Her chest too.

And neck. Basically every organ inside her was awash with shame.

Yet just because the kiss hadn’t gone according to plan (and just because her whole body was trembling and her lips were, for some inexplicable reason, craving more) didn’t mean she couldn’t salvage the situation.

She stepped away from Theo, resolutely avoiding his gaze, and with the cheekiest grin she could muster, she swooped a bow.

The Fortin students loved it. Oh, she might have gotten them arrested, but it would seem history could be forgotten in favor of some good old-fashioned hormones.

Her performance complete, Freddie fled the stage. Her mom was waiting for her beside the schoolhouse. “Who are you?” Mom asked, eyes bulging with delight. “And what did you do with my daughter?”

“Not now, Mom.” Freddie threw up a hand and marched toward a patch of maples, beyond which was the water mill. She needed silence. She needed solitude. She needed not to think about Theo Porter and the way he’d tasted.

Which had been like honey, and that made no sense at all. How could a boy possibly taste like honey? The PG-13s hadn’t said anything about that.

Freddie groaned, stomping past three scarecrows who all seemed to be laughing at her. She would not think about Theo. She would not think about that little sound he had made before deepening the kiss. She would not think about the sounds that she now wanted to make remembering it all.

Freddie reached the stream that fed both the forge and the mill. It was even colder here than on stage, with burbling water to add a bone-deep chill. She scarcely noticed. She was boiling inside her skin.

Freddie reached the mill’s sign. But rather than veer toward the entrance of Le Moulin à Eau, she circled around to the back. To where the paddles would spin when the sluice gate was lifted.

It was calm here, the little tributary a mere trickle and the wind more like a gentle breeze. Partially stripped trees towered before her, their fallen leaves now a carpet of amber and gold, while the remaining leaves made a fluttering array of jazz hands Mr. Binder would appreciate.

Freddie’s heart thundered in her ears. Her lungs couldn’t seem to fill up, no matter how deeply she inhaled.

What the hell had just happened? What had Theo Porter done to her? Surely this wasn’t a normal reaction to kissing. Surely having one’s fingers grip white-knuckled to one’s pants legs wasn’t normal .

Theo Porter was the enemy. Period. She had kissed him to prove a point. Now the point had been made, and she could stop thinking about him. After all, their gangs were sworn enemies of Verona Beach.

She heard footsteps crunch on gravel. She didn’t have to turn to guess who was coming.

“Freddie,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know why he was apologizing. He hadn’t done anything wrong. She had been the one to kiss him.

“It wasn’t right for them to egg you on… egg us on. I should have stopped them.”

Slowly, Freddie twisted to face him. Except this was a mistake because her common sense shut down at the sight of him. He was talking to her. His lips were moving, and there were words coming out, but he might as well have been speaking in Klingon for all she understood.

And in that moment, she realized that this was why she had avoided meeting Theo’s eyes on stage: it had been simple self-preservation. As if her body had known that if she looked at him directly, Very Bad Choices would ensue.

Theo Porter was absolutely, undeniably gorgeous.

With his hair all wild—and made wild by her fingers. With his face flushed from cold and kissing, with his lips red and his jacket askew, with his slightly panicked expression and restless, weight-shifting energy…

In two long steps, Freddie reached Theo. He shut up, his breath catching in a way that made Freddie’s gut tighten. Then, in a voice she was certain could not belong to her —it was so composed, so matter-of-fact!—she said, “I would very much like to kiss you again. Do you think that would be okay?”

“God, yes,” he replied.

And that was all it took. Then his mouth was back on hers, and the sparklers were going off again.

This time, though, Freddie was the one who made the sound. A soft moan that just slid out from her chest and that she couldn’t seem to stop. But Theo must have liked it because he made one to match it, and now he was digging his fingers into her back and pulling her more tightly to him.

It wasn’t tightly enough, though, so she gripped him too. And the next thing she knew, she was walking backward. She couldn’t tell if he was pushing her or if she was pulling him or if maybe it was a mixture of both.

Her back hit the mill. His mouth left her lips. Cold air washed in, and for half a second, she thought he must have come to his senses. He was going to leave now, and this moment between them—whatever it was—would end.

But then his lips moved to her neck, and she realized in a hot, skittering flash of thought that he was not leaving. And also, she realized she had not , in fact, reached self-actualization on Friday morning.

Now, however, she could most definitely say she had.

Her whole body was covered in chill bumps. She gripped Theo’s head again—god, his hair was so soft—and tugged his face back to hers. His lips were swollen. His pupils completely dilated.

But before their mouths could resume what they’d begun, a shout sliced through the air: “Porter? You over here, man? I got it!”

Freddie gulped in a breath, trying to process what those words might mean. They had come from the other side of the mill, near the stream.

“Porter?” he called again. “Come on, man. I’ve got the key.”

“It would seem,” Freddie said, her voice shockingly rough, “that someone needs you.”

Theo nodded. He wasn’t looking toward the Village, though. Just at Freddie. From her lips to her eyes. Then back to her lips.

It made her want to kiss him all over again.

“You’re here for a prank,” she forced out. A reminder to herself that they were enemies. Alike in dignity perhaps, but enemies all the same. She hated him, and ten minutes ago (or maybe it had been longer—really, where had the sun gone?) she had wanted to murder him.

Again, Theo nodded. “We aren’t pranking the pageant.” His voice was even rougher than hers. “We just needed… something of Mr. Binder’s.”

“A key?”

“Yeah, a school key. But we aren’t damaging anything with it. I promise.”

She swallowed. “You… probably shouldn’t share all of your prank secrets. I’m the enemy after all.”

“I know. I just…” He wet his lips. “I just don’t want you to think I’m a Very Bad Human Indeed. Proper nouns and all.”

Ah, it was too much. Having him quote her—having him care. Freddie kissed him again. He growled and pressed into it. Deepened it immediately, kissing her so hard. A clash of tongue and teeth.

But then he was pulling away. Backing away three steps, and freezing, miserable air rushed between them. Even the wood of the mill seemed to creak in frustration.

“You’re dangerous.” Theo ran a hand through his hair. A tiny frown knit his brow. “So dangerous, Freddie Gellar.”

She wasn’t sure why, but she liked that he called her that. And she liked the way he looked at her too, hungry and helpless at the same time.

Freddie leaned against the mill. “You need to go.”

“I know.” Theo didn’t move.

“If they found out we were…” She couldn’t bring herself to say kissing . She wasn’t sure why. It just felt so… personal. Instead, she waved between them and finished, “That probably wouldn’t be good.”

“No.” He swung his gaze toward the Village Square, and he finally, finally seemed to collect himself. He stood taller. Smoothed at his sweater and jacket. Brushed at his hair. And then pinned Freddie with a final blue-eyed stare. “Enemies, yeah?”

“Enemies.” She nodded decisively. “In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

“Sure.” He smiled, a crooked thing.

“I still have to get that prank book back,” she reminded him. Or maybe she was reminding herself. Everything had gone so muddy behind her eyeballs.

“Not a chance in hell, Gellar.” Theo stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “See you later?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, watching him leave. “See you later.”