“I don’t want to wait for an excuse to kiss you only when there’s a literal crisis going on and when half our school is standing around to watch. I don’t want our whole relationship to be built around a lie. And I know that’s asking for a lot, because you have your readers and their expectations and there’s already enough scrutiny but … I just want—” He sucks in a breath, and he might have once claimed to never beg anyone for anything, but his voice is painfully close to pleading when he says, “I want this to be real.”
