Page 129 of The Lies We Play

Then, in the way only she can, she lifts her chin and changes the law.

“It’s midnight,” she says. “I am, technically, the first person you both are kissing in the New Year, by phone.”

Halston tilts his head. “Is that the rule?”

“I just made it the rule.”

“Convenient.”

“Efficient,” she corrects. “I learned from you. I told you. I’m a quick study.”

I laugh.

Halston’s mouth curves, and the sight of it beside me, directed at her, after his mouth has been on mine less than an hour ago, does something to me I don't have the language for yet.

It doesn't split the feeling.

It gathers it.

Liv lifts the screen toward her face and kisses the camera. The screen briefly fills with her mouth and a small, soft sound. Then she pulls back, laughing at herself.

My body reacts like she kissed me.

Which is ridiculous.

Which is true.

“Both of you,” she says. “On the record.”

“On the record,” I say.

“On the record,” Halston says.

She looks at us. Both of us. The phone is wide enough that she can see Halston in his sweater on the left and me in my jacket on the right, with a half-inch of fireplace between us in the background.

Her smile softens.

The humor leaves her face first.

Then the nerves.

What remains is the girl from the roof, the woman at the bar, the person who has somehow become the room both of us keep walking toward.

“I wish I was there,” she says.

The sentence is simple.

It hurts.

I lean forward. “You are.”

She rolls her eyes, but there is no force in it. “That is an athlete’s answer.”

“It’s as honest as it can get.”

Halston’s shoulder brushes mine.

This time, neither of us moves away.