Kiss Cam [Teaser/Published October 2016]

CHAPTER NINE | HOT AND BOTHERED

THE BLANK LOOK in his eyes vanishes with a flutter of his eyelashes, and his puffy kiss-swollen lips slowly form a smile. It's as though the fogginess, the sweet oblivion of the moment, has been lifted, and he turns to Lenny and the camera quickly.

"Wow," he says hoarsely, and runs his fingers through his chaotic hair. "I wasn't expecting that."

It's an obvious statement made in the early moments of a daze. I can tell he's being careful by the way his voice holds back its normal amount of dramatic flair. Even his eyes stay far too concentrated on the lens of the camera.

Lenny's eyebrows are raised high on his forehead, almost disappearing into his hairline, and he looks over the video camera to meet my gaze. I can tell he senses the shift in mood too, a certain kind of controlled tension.

There's a moment of silence between us all. Jasper's hands dropped from my neck to my shoulders before and now completely fall away from me. Then he clears his throat and sits down on his bed. For a moment he looks between Lenny and me and then finally says something.

"Aren't we going to finish the questions?"

His voice sounds normal again and is laced with the kind of humor that suggests Lenny and I are acting odd.

With a final glance at Lenny and a shrug Jasper pretends not to notice, I wipe my mouth and sit down on Jasper's right side again. Lenny grins at us and mentally shakes off the awkward before marching forward and putting the camera back on the tripod. Then he takes his place on Jasper's left.

Jasper's got his laptop back on his thighs and scrolls down to the next question. When he looks back up at the camera he smiles largely. "Next question: Do you sing in the shower?"

After we finish recording the remainder of the questions video, Lenny takes the footage and goes home to edit. He doesn't leave in a hurry this time, though. He keeps looking at me curiously, scrunching his eyebrows and glancing between Jasper and me. He wants to know what happened during that kiss—which wasn't supposed to be as long and frantic as it turned out to be. I almost want to tell him to throw the segment out entirely, but for Jasper's sake and my own, I decide not to say anything. All I can do is shrug.

When he leaves, however, I begin to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Lenny leaves Jasper and me sitting on the couch in Jasper's living room, watching the evening news on low volume and twiddling our thumbs.

"So," I say after a few minutes of inattentive television watching. He turns his head a little toward me.

"Yes?" he asks with curious humor.

I let out a breath, ready to explain and defend everything that happened earlier, because the kiss wasn't supposed to get that heated. "That Kiss Cam wasn't my idea. It was a request we got awhile back—"

"I even read that request," Jasper interrupts with a quiet laugh and a shake of his head. "I didn't think you had the guts to ever do it."

I snort and turn my body to his, tucking my leg underneath so that we're the same height. "What about you?"

He gasps and blinks a few times. "I would've gotten slapped!"

My eyes narrow as I think over the possibility. Finally, my lips purse and I slouch back. "Fine," I agree.

It returns back to silence, a kind of guilty one this time, and Jasper's fingers tap against his lap as though he's thinking. He wants to say something, I can feel it. So I sink further into the cushions and wait several more minutes.

"It was a good kiss," he says suddenly, eyes trained on the television and body rigid like he's afraid of what I'll say. "A really good kiss," he repeats thoughtfully with furrowed eyebrows—this time more toward himself.