“Are you kidding? I’ve thought about nothing else and wish we were kissing still.” It’s out of my mouth before I can swallow it and boil the truth in acid.

Wesley’s expression transforms, glowing brighter, sharper. He steps forward. Dangerous, dangerous.

And I am weak. My spine was manufactured by Charmin. I want to be commanding, stern, intimidating, but I am raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. My resolve is dandelion fluff. When he looks at me like that, my inner vocabulary bursts apart like a piñata of candy conversation hearts. What was all that I was saying before about Maybell Parrishes being the last bulwark against zombies in the apocalypse? What a bald-faced lie. I’d be the first to bow submissively and declare my zombie allegiance.

“Is that so?” he asks with lethal softness.

I stare at him with Oh no eyes, hoping he’ll become grotesque if I stare long enough, but the worst thing possible has happened: he’s wandered into a pool of golden light under a wall sconce and looks more like an archangel than ever.

“Yes,” I admit, swallowing. “That is so, but it would be a bad idea. I think . . . I think spending time together right now is a bad idea.”

He stops inches away, hands in pockets. His chin lowers, dark gaze boring holes through mine. He drops a quiet but severe word like a pin, echoing in the stillness.

“Why.”

I fight the impulse to cover my face. If I can’t see him, maybe I’ll be strong. Well, if I can’t see him and can’t smell him. Or hear him. I need a sensory-deprivation helmet.

Finally, I admit, “Because I’m attracted to you.” It comes out in a whoosh.

“That’s—ah—well.” He revolves in a circle, examining the ceiling. “That’s good? Yes. That’s very good.” Oh heavens, he is blushing fiercely. “Because I am also.” He clears his throat. “I am also . . . I am attracted to you.” He takes his hands out of his pockets, blinks at his palms, and slides them back into his pockets again. He still cannot look at me.

It is the most painfully articulated “Same” ever uttered by a human being. I am seized by the mad desire to get down on my knee and propose.

He deflates. “I don’t know how to be smooth.”

“Wesley, you don’t need to be smooth. It’s a good thing you aren’t, actually. I wouldn’t survive it. You’re already too wonderful for your own good.”

He looks like he doesn’t know whether to be happy or suspicious. Suspicious wins. “I’m trying to figure out the problem here.”

“It’s complicated.”

His forehead wrinkles. “Is it the Jack thing?”

“No.” I couldn’t give two tosses about the Jack thing. Jack was a cardboard cutout of a person, and Wesley is—well, Wesley is Wesley. There’s no comparison. That part of my life has quite rightfully faded into hazy irrelevance.

He looks down at himself, appraising his lower half uncertainly. “It’s the pants. They’re too much.”

“I promise you, the pants are excellent. I have the highest respect for your pants.”

He quirks a brow. It is the deadliest eyebrow I have ever seen. I scan his person for the invisible scissors he must be using to snip at my moral fibers. I only have one or two of them still intact.

“During an argument that we had,” he tells me, pitch low, “you called me beautiful. And an insufferable ass. But beautiful. I haven’t gotten over it.”

His stare is unwavering in the golden light, cutthroat and holy, compassionate yet demanding. Even though he is tall and straight as a statue, there is still movement in him somehow. An undercurrent of unease he’s fighting off with every shred of will he possesses. “I should have told you. I wanted to.” His eyes are molten, transparent with feeling. “I think you are beautiful, too, Maybell. I think that you walked into my life and absolutely ruined it with how beautiful you are. I haven’t gotten a single decent night’s rest since we met.”

My traitorous thoughts try to flee but he shuts the windows on them all, locking every door. I collapse.

Into the couch, a complete goner. My bones have simply stopped working. “You’re killing me,” I rasp.

Wesley bends over my deceased frame, brows knitted in their everlasting concern, but his mouth—his mouth, oh, it’s the eighth deadly sin—twitching with gentle amusement. “I’m sorry.”

He is not.

“Fmmphhhhff.”

“Hm?” He cups a hand behind his ear.

“I said that I take back what I said about you not being smooth. You’ve been holding back.”

He helps me upright, then ruffles my hair with a serene smile. “Do you really not want to do the last wish together, then?”

I hear my doom and gloom when I reply, “I see no way around it.”

“Don’t sound so eager.”

I use his arm to pull myself up off the couch. He makes himself immovable, a boulder in tossing seas, to support me. “Sir, I will happily make donuts with you. I will even watch a movie with you. But I refuse to be glad about it. And I refuse to do any more kissing, even though kissing you was the most magical, time-stopping phenomenon I’ve ever experienced and I will perish before I let another man’s lips near me.”

A choking sound escapes him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I think? I’d rather you told me why you don’t want to kiss again if it was so phenomenal, but for as long as you feel that way, I won’t dare try.” There is no woe-is-me in his voice, no bitterness.

“Is it too much to ask that you be less nice?” I bemoan.

He gives me a once-over. “I don’t understand that thing you’re wearing. Your top is attached to your shorts. How do you go to the bathroom?”