“What?” Collins asked. “It’s perfect. You don’t know him, he doesn’t know you. So get to it.” He raised his eyebrows at us. “Chop-chop.”

“Collins,” Frank said, keeping his eyes on me, “if Emily doesn’t want to do it—”

“Do what?” Dawn asked, crunching down on another chip, looking baffled but entertained, like this was a movie she’d walked into late.

“Kiss him,” Collins said. Dawn looked surprised, but then she gave the guy a not-so-subtle once-over and shot me an approving thumbs-up. “It’s on the list Emily’s friend sent, the first one is ‘Kiss a stranger,’ so—”

“No,” I said quickly, holding up my hands. There was no need to keep discussing this, because it was not going to happen. Ever. “I’m sorry. Um, thanks for the effort, but I’m not just going to go around kissing random—”

“You know,” the guy said, setting down his water, starting to look annoyed, “my name’s—”

“Shh!” Collins and Dawn yelled at him.

“No,” I said again, shaking my head hard. “I don’t even know him, and—”

“But isn’t that the point?” It was Dawn who asked this. She turned to me, her eyebrows raised. “I mean, it wasn’t ‘Kiss someone you’ve already met,’ right?”

Collins raised an eyebrow. I opened my mouth and then closed it again when I didn’t have anything to say to this. It was true. It was also one of the main reasons I worried I’d never complete the list. And here a stranger was, being presented to me to kiss. I thought back to the night I hadn’t hugged Jamie Roarke, and how frustrated I’d been with myself, how I was still mad at myself for chickening out on horseback riding.  And I really did need to get moving on the list, if I ever wanted to figure out where Sloane was. Would I get a better opportunity than this to kiss a stranger?

“Fine,” I said, before I knew I’d made a decision. Frank looked over at me sharply, like he was surprised, but then looked back down at his water bottle, like he was suddenly very interested in where it had been sourced from.

“Cool,” the guy said with a shrug. He took a purposeful step over to me, and without meaning to, I crushed the chip in my hand with a loud crunch.

“Um,” I said, dropping the pieces onto the counter and brushing the crumbs off my hands. “Maybe we could go somewhere less . . . public?”

“There’s a pantry,” Collins said, nodding past the refrigerator, toward what looked like a narrow hallway.

“Okay,” I said, mostly just to try and talk myself into this. Was I really going to do this? Furthermore, had I volunteered to do this? “Let’s go.”

“You could go outside,” Frank called as I forced myself to cross the kitchen on legs that suddenly felt wobbly, pointedly avoiding looking at Dawn, who was shooting me an excited smile. “It’s kind of tight in there.”

“That’s a good thing, Porter,” I heard Collins say, but I just concentrated on looking straight ahead, suddenly worried about my breath.

Frank was right—the pantry was not particularly big. A light went on automatically when I opened the door, and I could see that down the two steps, there were shelves of food on all sides, and in the middle, just enough room for two people. But that was about it.

I made myself put one foot in front of the other, walking down the steps to stand in the center of the room, surrounded by spices I could smell faintly and boxes of pasta and bags of rice and flour and sugar.

The guy followed, closing the door behind him and coming to stand in front of me. In the open-plan kitchen, I hadn’t realized just how big he was. But now that we were in this tiny enclosed space together, it was very apparent. He had broad shoulders and big hands, and the already small space suddenly felt even more compressed. My heart was pounding, but I tried to make myself smile at the guy, like this was just normal, like I was always going around kissing people I didn’t know in pantries.

I looked up at him and my heart started beating harder than ever. I tried to tell myself that I could do this. It was almost like, after not kissing Frank only an hour before, I was getting a second chance to try and be brave. I tried to tell myself that this was also just like a stage kiss, only without an audience. Just another kiss that didn’t matter.

“Ready?” the guy asked. He didn’t seem stressed by this at all, and I tried to take comfort in that. If it was no big deal to him, maybe it shouldn’t have been such a big deal to me. I swallowed hard and licked my lips quickly and took a tiny step toward him—really, all I could take in a space that small.

He gave me a lazy smile and put his hand on my shoulder, and started to lean down to me, just as the lights went out.

I took an instinctual step back, bumped into the shelf behind me, and heard something crash to the ground. I hadn’t realized the lights were on a timer, but it made sense, since they’d gone on automatically. “Sorry,” I said. “Um . . .” It was dark in there, since there were no windows and no light coming in anywhere. I didn’t think I could see anything, not my own hand in front of my face, certainly not the guy.

“It’s all right,” he said, from somewhere in the darkness. I took a cautious step forward, and collided with something—him. I stretched my arm out and it hit his chest. Suddenly,  I realized it might be easier this way, not having to see him. “Okay?” he asked.

I nodded, then realized what an idiotic move this was in a pitch-black room and said, “Yes.” I took a quick breath and let it out just as his nose bonked mine. “Sorry,” I said, reaching up and touching his face, trying to get my bearings. “I—” But I didn’t get to say anything more, because a moment later, his lips were on mine.

We stayed that way for a few seconds, and I figured that Sloane’s criteria had been met when the guy took a step closer to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and started kissing me for real.

And under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been something I would have reciprocated. But it had been two months since I’d been kissed. And in the darkness of the pantry, it didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t know his name and wasn’t entirely sure he knew mine. It was like, because I couldn’t see him, or myself, those distinctions didn’t exist in the same way. It also didn’t hurt that he was a really good kisser, and soon I was kissing him back, my pulse racing and my breath catching in my throat, his hands twined in my hair. It was only when his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt, moving towards my sports bra, that I came out of the make-out trance, snapped suddenly back to reality.

I broke away from him and took a step back, pulling down my shirt and feeling my way toward the steps. “Okay then,” I said as I fumbled my way up the stairs in the darkness. I patted the wall until I found the light switch, and as it snapped on, we both flinched, the light seeming extra bright now. It was also disconcerting to suddenly see the guy, a whole person, not just lips and arms. I smoothed down my hair and opened the pantry door, the guy following behind me. “So,” I said, when we were both in the hallway, before we had to join everyone else. I didn’t feel embarrassed, exactly—it was more like I’d had an out-of-body experience in there and now was struggling to catch up. “Um. Thanks?”

“Sure,” the guy said, giving me a quick smile. “That was fun.”

I nodded and hurried back into the kitchen area. Frank was leaning against the counter, typing on his phone, and Dawn and Collins were now sitting around the breakfast nook, Dawn laughing at something he was saying. “Hey,” Collins called when he saw us. “Success?”

I ignored this question and turned toward Frank, trying not to look directly at him. “Is it okay if I grab a water?”

“Sure,” he said, not looking up from his phone, and I assumed he was texting Lissa. “Help yourself.”

I pulled open the fridge, grabbed a water, and, as I shut the door, caught Dawn’s eye. She raised her eyebrows, and I gave her a tiny nod, and she grinned at me. Mostly so I wouldn’t have to face the guy, or Collins, or watch Frank text his girlfriend, I turned my attention to the fridge door. Unlike the rest of the house, the collection of papers and magnets did not appear to be carefully curated. It looked kind of like our fridge door did—a mess of expired coupons, invitations, and reminders. I noticed an invite, slightly askew, toward the bottom of the fridge. The Stanwich Architectural Society’s Annual Gala! it proclaimed in embossed lettering, Honoring the work of Carol and Steve Porter. Then it gave the date, about a month from now. Even though it was absolutely none of my business, I was bending down to see where it was being held—the bottom of the invitation blocked by some kind of color-coded calendar—when an alt-pop song started playing in the kitchen. I turned at the sound of it, and saw the guy, pulling his phone out of his pocket and answering it.

“ ’Sup,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, okay. Just finishing up here. I’m with Matthew.”  There was a pause, and he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “See you in twenty.” He hung up, put the phone back in his pocket and said, “Gotta bounce. The night is young.”

“See you, Benji,” Collins said, getting up and giving the guy what looked like an affectionate punch on the shoulder. I just blinked at him, trying to make the name fit. I had just kissed a guy named Benji?

“Ben,” the guy said firmly, glaring at Collins. “Nobody calls me that anymore.”

“I do,” Collins said cheerfully. “Thanks for stopping by. See you on Sunday.”

“Yeah,” the guy said. “See you then.” He took a step over to me and leaned down. I took a startled step back, wondering for a moment if he was trying to kiss me good-bye. But instead, he asked, in a low voice that I nonetheless had a feeling everyone in the kitchen could hear, “So can I get your number?”