Official No-Kiss Blogfest!!! Woo hoo!!!

It's here, it's here! Glad you could stop by to read what I have for you today. Frankie over at Frankie Writes came up with the idea to post a scene that has an 'almost kiss'.
They're always terrible in that amazingly good way. When you just know that it's the perfect moment for one, but maybe the events surrounding aren't quite so ideal, so it doesn't happen. When it's just interrupted, or reality hits...any way it goes, the almost-kiss is always a great guilty pleasure of mine!

I didn't have a decent almost kiss to give you guys, so I had to come up with this at the last second. Like, an hour ago. So forgive the rough draft form and it's wordiness.
This scene comes from one of my WIPs, a story about a girl whose parents die and then she finds out she was adopted. So she goes on a cross country trip with her best friend to find her biological parents and where she actually came from. When we meet Paige and Brian right now, Paige has just discovered that they came all this way only to find out that her real parents are also dead.

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Paige didn’t bother with her jacket. The heat of the cramped diner was suddenly too much to bear, the weight of those words pressing on her chest like lead.

The icy winter air provided instant relief, filling her lungs with sharp pricks of oxygen. She breathed deeply, forced herself to close her eyes and count to ten.

All those people must have thought she was nuts, driving across the country on a whim only to find out that the one thing she had been searching for no longer even existed. Then to race outside in the middle of the revelation…

She shuffled to the side of the building where she wouldn’t have to feel the eyes of the entire town on her as she broke down alone. The dirty snow crunched under her feet, throwing her off-balance as she struggled to find a hiding spot in a place where your every secret seemed to be stamped on your forehead.

Footsteps came from around the corner, pausing as the pursuer tried to locate her. Paige pressed her cheek against the cold red brick of the diner and faced away from whoever it was.

“Paige…” Brian. Of course. Always the rock.

Brian came up behind her and slid her coat over her shoulders. “Look at me?” He stamped his feet and wondered why he always ended up out in the cold when it came to her. His breath came in white puffs and already, his nose was running.

Paige pressed her lips together and closed her eyes as she slowly turned to face him. She was embarrassed. He didn’t need to be here, and yet here he stood, freezing, in a town thousands of miles away from his home on Christmas Eve.

Brian tried to read her face, but it was dark and her eyes were squeezed shut. He reached out and brushed his fingers over her cheek. They were wet with cold tears, her bottom lip trembling. Without a word, he pulled her against his body.

Paige fought to keep herself from sobbing. She buried her face in his soft blue sweater, breathed in the scent of coffee and maple syrup from the diner. She wrapped her arms around his waist and felt him grip her tighter. He slid his arms inside her jacket and rubbed his hands up and down her arms.

She wondered if the goosebumps that appeared were from the cold or from his touch, and her cheeks flushed from the idea. Brian had been her best friend for longer than she could remember and there had never been feelings beyond that between them. But he’d been there for her from the word ‘go’, driving when she was too tired, running into the convenience stores for coffee when the ice storms hit and she didn’t want to move from the warmth of the car, footing the bill for the dingy motel rooms, tracking down this small town that didn’t even exist on the maps.

He never complained, never argued. And here he was again, her shoulder when her world was crashing down around her. She felt his heartbeat quicken against her cheek and she raised her head to look into concerned blue pools.

Brian shivered, the weight of her hands on his back the only thing he
felt. They gripped him in need, ten fingertips desperately clinging to something real. Her eyes, like melted chocolate, were intense and full of sorrow and confusion.

He hated to see her this way, hated that she had to go through this. He’d give his life to be able to reverse time, go back to the way things were when she was happy. Before he’d fallen in love with her.

He lowered his head and pressed his forehead against hers.

Paige’s breath caught, her fingers dug. She molded against him, their hearts banging together.

Brian shifted his weight, felt his nose brush against hers. So close. He felt her breath mix with his, hers thick with the scent of hot chocolate, a bit of peppermint, his syrupy sweet.

A little closer…

He’d been waiting forever to feel her lips on his, to know what it would be like to taste her, to nestle in lips like soft pillows. A kiss would fix everything right now. Escape the world and all the bad news that came along with it.

Or it could yank them apart, create a catastrophic disaster in her already broken world. A moment of desperate emotion leading to a lifetime of regret.

Brian pulled his arms out from under her coat and wrapped them around her shivering body. A bear hug was something he could do, as her friend. And right now, nothing more.

Against him, Paige sighed, her tears dampening his skin.

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::Sigh::

I hope you enjoyed! Check out Frankie's blog to read all of the other entries! They are all swoon-worthy. :)