Childhood best friends to enemies to lovers.
Alina wants nothing to do with the rebellious bad boy, Liam Somner.
Which is difficult, because he goes to her school. And lives on her street. And keeps showing up at her apartment, and sitting in her ki...
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"I just really didn't expect this to happen," I admit, when we're lying together on his bed, wrapped in each others' arms.
Kissing Liam was like coming home, and everything about it felt exactly right. In the moment. Lying in his arms right now, it's easy to believe that nothing could ever touch this.
"I was really worried it wasn't going to happen," Liam says.
"So you wanted it to happen?"
"Yes, Cook, I wanted it to happen."
"But what about..."
"What about what?" he asks.
I sigh. "What about our families? What if they don't accept this? Or what if they do accept it, but then we realise it's not right? What if this is the thing that finally tears our families apart? What if this is a mistake and we regret it for the rest of our lives?"
"I don't regret this, Alina. You have to be willing to take some risks in life, right? You can't just avoid everything. And I'd rather do something that I want and face the consequences, then regret not doing something. Life's too short."
"We have a very different attitude to life," I admit.
"Maybe if you.. you know... watch your best friend die, you'll come to understand that you can't just wait to do the things you want to do."
I lean over him and look down into his eyes. "You're my best friend, though. And what if I fall in love with you, and then watch you throw your life away?"
He lifts his head and plants a gentle kiss on my lips. "I'm not throwing anything away."
I kiss him back, harder now. I don't know how it comes so naturally, but kissing him feels like second nature. It feels easy. It feels like something I can do, without feeling anxious.
He rolls me onto my side, and then he's on top of me, kissing me, but I can feel the smile in his lips with my own lips, and then we're grinning, and then I can't help but laugh.
"It's just... I didn't expect this to happen," I laugh, nuzzling into his neck to hide my face from him, because I can feel the blush on my cheeks.
"But you wanted it to happen, right?" he says, pulling me against him. "We know those text messages were fake, but they were... well, the reason they worked is because we thought they could be true. We hoped they could be true."
"I didn't even allow myself to hope," I admit.
He smiles. "Honestly, when I saw that message... it made me realise exactly what I wanted. What I've kind of always wanted. The thing I kind of always hoped would happen. Even when I was in Germany, I knew that one day I'd return to New York, and I'd be returning to you."
"You're very cheesy, sometimes, you know?" I ask.
"It's because I have this bad reputation," Liam says. "I try to subvert it."
