Sunkissed Serendipity

Chapter 2

Julian

I hadn't even gotten to see anything before the contact of the warm lips made my eyes immediately shut to a close. My entire body went rigid at the fact that a person was kissing me. I had kissed two other girls in my life, and yet none of them were as unpredictable as this one.

Her hands make their way to my face, gripping me in place, which I don't get why because I can hardly think right now, let alone move out of it. Her lips soften against mine, and she comes closer to me, but it's hard for her to get into a nice position. My hands move on their own, and in a second, they find themselves on her shoulder. I keep her close to me, but I let her lips guide the kiss.

As soon as I feel my body unfreeze at the unfamiliarity of the kiss, she moves her head back. I'm scared to open my eyes to see who was the bravest person to just come up and kiss me.

"Thank you," I hear a feminine voice say, and my eyes flutter open. But I have to be mistaken; my ears could've heard wrong, and there is no doubt that I was making up an image that wasn't there. The person who kissed me was someone I've never spoken to in my life, but I knew exactly who she was.

Isla Nova.

Everyone knew who she was. She had made herself known to the entire school, and almost every family knew of her in our small hometown.

Why would she kiss me?

The question makes me stare at her idly, and she bites her bottom lip, a glint in her eyes. Then she wipes off something on my chest—a touch that makes my insides tighten—and says, "Well, I need to go."

I open my mouth to say something to her—anything that would get me a step closer to figuring out what just happened right now. She gives me a grin and then pulls herself off her knees and into a standing position. She turns her body around, and my eyes wander from her hair to the way she walks back to her spot. The white, flowy dress she is wearing makes her look as though I'm imagining her.

Just before she takes a step further into rejoining her friend group, she spins around on her heels. She is closer to me than I thought, and my body warms up at her gaze. She reaches down to her side, carrying the signature camera she has with her everywhere she goes. Her photographs are plastered all over the school of athletes and afterschool clubs. She raises it in front of her and asks, "Mind if I take a picture?"

I don't know how to reply to that. Never has she ever asked me for a picture, but then again, she has never kissed me either, so I don't know how to reply to that. The shutter of her camera forces me to relax my features, and as the flash comes up, I pray that the picture is a good one. She gives me a smile and then walks right back to her seat.

I stare after her for a long moment before realizing that she has gone back to talking to her friends, and I'm being weird. "What the heck?" I whisper to myself before making my way out of the room. I pass by her on the couch, but she doesn't look up at me, and I wondered what the deal was.

Who goes around kissing guys they have never spoken to?

It's a mystery that I plan on figuring out.

•

When I wake up the next morning, the house is eerily quiet, which isn't a shock, but my mind is sharper this morning. My mind strays back to last night, to the fingers on my neck, the lips on mine, and the hands on my face. It all feels like it was a faraway dream, but I know it happened.