“Uh, well, if you want to end this date in the ER, then I can try to find something,” I offered, and my lips stretched into a wide smile when he looked at me in confusion. “Liam, I’m allergic to seafood.”

“Bullshit.”

I shook my head. “Not bullshit. I’m allergic to anything that comes from water, and if it’s something from the bottom of the ocean, it’s bye bye, Kennedy.”

His face fell, and a soft laugh bubbled past my lips. “Why didn’t you say anything when you saw where I was taking you?”

“I didn’t know! I wasn’t paying attention when we walked in. When I smelled it, I was hoping there would be something else I could eat. Coming from Tampa, there are obviously a ton of restaurants with seafood, but more often than not, there are other things on the menu as well.”

His eyes widened, and he leaned over the table. “Don’t touch anything! We’ll get out of here, just try not to touch anything!”

I laughed at his panicked expression, but did as he said as I slid out of the booth. Our waiter was walking up as we got out, and after a short explanation from Liam, we were walking out of the restaurant.

“Strike two?”

Liam didn’t seem to find this funny; he was looking at me like he was waiting for something drastic to happen. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Liam, really, I’m fine. My allergy’s not so bad that I can’t be in a restaurant that serves fish. If my hands touch something that has had any kind of contact with anything I’m allergic to, then my hands swell up and start itching. If I actually touch a food I’m allergic to, then I’ll be sucking down Benadryl like it’s water. But if I were to eat it, then it would be really bad.” Lifting my hands for him to inspect, I wiggled my fingers for a second. “All I touched was the menu. I’m fine.”

He sighed heavily and wrapped an arm around my waist to lead me back toward the parking lot. “I swear to God, this night is already a fucking disaster.”

“You still have one strike left, don’t write off the night yet,” I teased.

Liam was mumbling about flat tires and trying to kill me when we got to the car and he abruptly stopped walking. Releasing my waist, he searched his pockets quickly before uttering a curse and trying the passenger side door. It was locked. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he groaned.

I laughed loudly and leaned forward to look into the car. When I saw the keys in the ignition, I started giggling so hard that I snorted, which made me laugh harder and hold myself up against his car so I wouldn’t fall. “How—how did—oh my God, I’m sorry. I can’t,” I forced out between hysterics. “How is it locked?”

Liam was looking straight ahead with an expression that had me laughing even harder, and doing everything not to pee myself. “If the car is turned off, the doors automatically lock after a few minutes.”

I was laughing so hard that no sound was coming out, and all I could do was hold up three fingers, indicating strike three.

After calling someone to come open the car, we waited for forty-five minutes in the parking lot until Liam sucked in air and whispered harshly, “Fucking son of a bitch.”

“What?” I asked in alarm, and looked around us.

“Don’t,” he warned as he left my side and went to the driver’s-side door. “Don’t say a damn word.” With his frustrated stare fixed on me, he pressed his fingers to the very edge of the driver’s-side door, and his door unlocked.

My brow furrowed before my eyes and mouth widened, and immediately I began laughing all over again. “Fingerprint sensors?”

“I’ve never used it before, I forgot about it.”

As soon as I heard my door unlock, I pulled it open and got inside. I wasn’t laughing anymore, but I couldn’t stop smiling—and that smile got even wider when I saw his face.

“This has been—” He started, but I cut him off by leaning over, grabbing his face, and pressing my lips to his.

“Tonight has been beyond perfect.”

“Perfect,” he said, his voice and face blank.

“I don’t think it could have gone better for us. Two people who don’t date can’t just have a perfect date their first time. It’s like when you buy a new car. As soon as you get it home, you kick it.”

“Kick it,” he stated, once again with no emotion.

“Yes! Because it’s all shiny and new, and if you don’t kick it yourself, you’ll always be worried about the first time anything happens to it—because eventually something will happen to it. So, we just kicked our first date. Now we don’t have to be scared for when something bad will happen on any of our dates after this. Like I said, perfect.”

Grabbing the back of my neck, Liam pulled me in for another kiss. This one was longer, and slower, and like tonight—it was perfect.

“I’m taking you home so nothing else can happen tonight. Three strikes are more than enough.”

“Or instead of that, I vote we go get ice cream. You can never go wrong with ice cream. Unless, wait, are you allergic?”

He huffed, but his mouth curved up into a smile. “I’m never living down this night.”

“Nope,” I agreed. “You’re definitely not.”

June 27

Liam

“SO YOU DON’T date, because you don’t like the ‘title’ of dating?” I asked a little over thirty minutes later.

Kennedy nodded and took another bite of her ice cream. “Pretty much.”

I looked at her with my brow furrowed for a minute. I could understand that to an extent. I didn’t date the girls I was hooking up with, but that’s because I didn’t want relationships with them, and I knew dates would lead them to think something would happen between us. But I also knew that once I found a girl worth pursuing—like Kennedy—that would all change. “But eventually you’ll find a guy you know you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “There’s no chance of that happening.”

“No chance of what? Marrying someone, or finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

“The whole thing,” she answered, and waved her spoon in the air. “I won’t get married, and the other is just basically the same, without the husband and wife part of it.”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with either of those things.”

Kennedy sighed, but paired with her expression, I knew it was because she was trying to figure out how to explain herself. “Both of those things are something people do because they think they’re in love with whoever they’re with. They like the idea of love and being with only one person, and that’s just not practical.”

“Being with only one person for the rest of your life isn’t practical?” I asked blandly.

“No. It’s a lie. It’s saying you want to be with someone so much that they’re the only person you will ever be with again. People only do that because that’s what they think love is—sharing your life with someone. And love doesn’t exist.”

I shook my head. No matter how much I wanted to laugh, I couldn’t figure out how to because Kennedy looked completely serious. “What about your parents? Your grandparents? Eli and Paisley? They’re all still together, aren’t they?”