“
For a few sleepy minutes, they were silent, nested in the pillows, and then Noah said, “I heard about how you won’t kiss Adam.”
She turned her face into the pillow, cheeks hot.
“Well, I don’t care,” Noah said. With quiet delight, he guessed, “He smells, right?”
She turned back to him. “He does not smell. Ever since I was little, every psychic I know has told me that if I kiss my true love, he’ll die.”
Noah’s brow furrowed, or at least the half of it that wasn’t buried in pillow. His nose was more crooked than she’d ever noticed. “Adam’s your true love?”
“No,” Blue said. She was startled by how quickly she had answered. She couldn’t stop seeing the dented side of the box he’d kicked. “I mean, I don’t know. I just don’t kiss anybody, just to be on the safe side.”
Being dead made Noah more open-minded than most, so he didn’t bother with doubt. “Is it when or if?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, if you kiss your true love, he’ll die,” he said, “or is it when you kiss your true love, he’ll die?”
“I don’t get what the difference is.”
He rubbed the side of his face on the pillow. “Mmmmsoft,” he remarked, then added, “One’s your fault. The other one, you just happen to be there when it happens. Like, when you kiss him, POW, he gets hit by a bear. Totally not your fault. You shouldn’t feel bad about that. It’s not your bear.
”
”