Truth or Dare: A Sweet Romantic Comedy Collection by Laura Burton (free ebook reader for ipad txt) 📗

Holly to suffer from stage fright. In fact, she’s the brightest, breeziest person I know. At school, she’d be the one to deliver the pep talk before a show. She’d be bouncing with excitement before the curtain rolled back. And she’s played spin the bottle before.

I can’t work out what’s got into her today. So what if our friends are watching? It’s just a simple dare.

Holly avoids looking at me for the rest of the evening and our challenge becomes the elephant in the room. It’s 3am before the music is finally switched off and the last of the guests––the lip lockers, Debbie and Mark––leave.

They had no problem making out in front of us. It was funny at first, but now it’s getting old. I don’t know why those two even bother coming to the party. They just end up in a corner of the room, speaking to nobody and practicing mouth to mouth all night long.

Funny how they had us all fooled that they hated each other. Turns out the line between hate and love is fine. Very fine indeed.

The door closes and for the first time in hours, Holly looks at me. Her hair is frizzing at the ends and her dress is wrinkled from being curled up on the couch all night. But she still looks adorable.

“Great party,” I lie. There wasn’t anything great about it. Not for me, anyway. Katia and Michelle scrolled on their phones and took selfies, while Jonah and Ryder swapped fan theories on some zombie TV show I’ve never even heard of. Debbie and Mark kept to themselves. So that left Holly and me on the couch. Which would have been cool if we had been bantering like we usually do. Tonight, she wouldn’t even look at me.

So I pretended to be highly interested in the chick flick on the big screen and knocked back root beers until my blood started to fizz.

“I’ll grab you some blankets,” Holly says, offering me a familiar smile. Her eyes sparkle and she turns to leave. Now alone in the living room, my chest grows heavy. It’s as if Holly took all of the air with her, leaving me to suffocate.

“Back,” Holly says. Her voice is muffled, and her face is obscured by a giant cushion. A waft of her perfume washes over me as I take the bedding and my fingertips brush her smooth arms. The moment sends a shiver through me and I hear her breath hitch.

What’s got into us?

Has the idea of a fake makeout session really turned us into a couple of kids? I grin. She giggles. This is not normal.

Usually, I’d pull her in for a hug and peck her cheek to say goodnight. No hesitation. Tonight, I take my time making up my bed on the couch and chew the inside of my cheek.

Ideas are dangerous.

Just the very thought of kissing my best friend has planted a seed in my mind. A seed that is growing like a weed, eating away all logical thought and taking over.

I want to kiss her.

It’s wrong. This is Holly, for crying out loud! But I want to grab her and kiss her like a dying man in the desert longs for a drink of water.

The urge is an ache in the deep part of my stomach, and as I finally turn to face her again, I can’t take my eyes off her round, full lips.

“Do you think we should practice this kiss, then?” her lips ask me. I find myself nodding as I swallow. That pretty mouth could have asked me anything and I would have said yes.

Do you think the sky is brown? Yes.

Do you want to clean the toilet with your bare hands? Sure.

Do you want to eat a cricket? Why not?

It just so happens she wants to practice the very act I can’t stop thinking about. I’m pretty sure there is a little green Leprechaun doing an Irish jig in my brain right now, but I keep my expression casual and relaxed.

“Now?” I ask. I'm trying my best to sound politely interested, and not like a little boy who has just been offered ice-cream for dinner.

Holly crosses the room in a playful bounce and settles on my makeshift bed. She pats the space next to her and looks up at me with bright eyes.

“We’ve been friends forever, let’s just have a quick practice so it’s not awkward when we do it on camera,” she says, playing with her hair.

I join her on the couch and can’t stop grinning.

“Excuse me, do what on camera?” I tease. Her cheeks grow crimson and she throws a pillow at me.

“You know I didn’t mean that.”

She laughs and I sit back to enjoy the moment. Seeing Holly laugh, with her shoulders shaking and pearly whites on show, settles my nerves. That’s the Holly I know. I pick up her hand.

“So, how long do you think we need to kiss for it to count as a makeout session?” I ask. Holly stops laughing and stares at me for a second, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know.”

I squeeze her hand and tug on it, pulling her close.

“Well, come on then,” I say. Holly giggles nervously, then she moves forward. The two of us linger a hair’s width apart. Holly’s blue eyes fill up all of my vision, like a summer’s sky, and I just gaze into them for a few moments. I had no idea her eyes are so blue. And they have a navy ring around the iris. On closer inspection, she even has a few specks of green in there as well. I spend so much time studying her eyes, that I forget what we’re supposed to be doing, but then Holly grasps a fistful of my shirt and the memory comes tumbling back at the exact moment her mouth closes on mine.

Kissing Holly is not what I expected it to be. Granted, before tonight the thought never even crossed my mind. But in the last few hours, I imagined something passionate. Tantalizing. A heart-thumping, spine-tingling moment to happily replay