“Ready to go?” Kieran asks me. I wonder if it would feel any less exciting if we didn’t have to hide. If we could just reach out for each other’s hand and walk through the mall that way, not caring who bears witness to our displays of affection.
I lead Kieran to the basement level where the bookstore is. We’re just about there when he pulls me into a hallway leading to the restrooms and kisses me. Whatever breath I had in me, he snatches right out of my lungs.
He thumbs at my cheeks, forehead pinned against mine. “I’ve been waiting all day to do that,” he says. I touch his elbow. I’m jittery with excitement and the fear that we’ll get caught.
“I missed you,” he murmurs, and then steals another kiss. “I wish we never had to sleep so we could just hang out all night.”