17 First Kisses (9 page)

“They
are
a little cheesy.” I pass them around.

“I think you look great,” says Buck.

Britney turns the color of marinara sauce.

“Mine are really bad too,” says Megan. “I cannot send pictures like that to my family and friends. I've got to get new ones.”

Britney nods. “Yeah, but where? Palmer's is the only place in town.”

“I don't know.” Megan rests her chin on her hand. “What about Claire's mom?”

My breath catches in my lungs. I would be ecstatic if Mama wanted to take pictures again. After much deliberation over the years, Megan and I have determined that my mom is the key to fixing my family and that photography is the key to fixing my mom. We've had several fruitless plotting sessions on the subject, but this senior-pictures thing could really work. Leave it to Megan to come up with a life-changing idea while we're this close to having a throwdown over a boy.

Of course, taking pictures would involve Mama leaving our house for something other than her support group. Only a few people at the table know about my mom, so I have to answer carefully.

“It's been a while, and she never did senior pictures before, but I could ask her.”

“Maybe it could be good,” says Megan with equal care.

She means it could be good for my mom, but everyone else thinks she's just talking about pictures. We have an entire conversation with our eyes before I nod and say, “Yeah. Maybe it could.”

Then the pizza and pasta come and break up the serious moment no one knew we were having, and the table is back to chattering about tonight's football game and how Buck is the
most amazing quarterback ever—blah, blah, blah. The amazing quarterback struts over to the drink machine to refill his Mr. Pibb. On his way back he “accidentally” knocks into Sam's chair.

“Whoops. Sorry, lard-ass.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, thanks. Not fat anymore.”

“Ha-ha. Whatever you say, lard-ass.”

Sam sneaks a sideways glance at Amanda to see how she's taking all this. To her credit, she actually ignores Buck. My opinion of her goes up a smidge.

“Be right back. Gotta hit the little girls' room.” Megan squeezes Luke's shoulder as she gets up.

I stab at my slice of chicken and artichoke, which is pretty delicious. Shorty's has the kind of pizza that necessitates the use of a knife and fork. Luke slides over into Megan's empty chair, causing me to inhale his scent of soap and something else I can't place but I'm going to call
hot boy
.

“That looks good. Mind if I try a bite?”

I'm startled, but I manage to choke out, “Yeah, sure.”

Is it bad that I feel like I've had a lobotomy whenever I look at his eyes? Or his dimples? Or his biceps?

While I'm cutting off a bite, I debate on whether I dare feed it to him. I look over my shoulder and see that Megan is still in the bathroom. I dare. I spear a bite with my fork. With a hand much steadier than the rush of hormones I'm feeling, I bridge the gap between my plate and Luke's mouth. Feeding someone a bite of food can be totally platonic or totally sexy, and Luke makes this a type-two bite exchange. He keeps his eyes locked on mine the
entire time, while I slide the fork from his mouth, while he chews his bite of pizza, while he says with a mischievous smile, “That
is
good.”

Maintain eye contact. Do not blush. Do
not
blush. I can only hold out for so long, so I'm almost relieved when Glenn comes limping through the door and I can look away.

“Hey, sorry I'm late,” he says. “Had to get this ankle checked out after the game. Don't worry, it's just a sprain.”

Everyone at the table visibly relaxes, especially the coach—the young one, Coach Davis, not the Rooster. The Rooster would never go out for pizza with us. He's probably at home trimming his ear hair. Glenn plops down in Luke's old chair just as Megan emerges from the bathroom with freshly glossed lips.

“Where'd my seat go?”

“Sorry, girl, this ankle is killing me.” He moves to get up.

“It's okay. Maybe I can pull up a chair.”

She points a chair toward the six inches of space separating Luke and me.

“Oh, here. Let me make room for you.” I scoot toward Luke, leaving a bigger space on my other side.

Megan smiles sweetly. “You know, I don't think there is room.” She squeezes between Luke and Glenn and hops on Luke's knee. “You don't mind, do you, Luke?”

Luke tenses and his eyes get big. “No, it's fine.”

I can't even compete with that. I think I'm being bold when I hold a fork in front of his mouth, and she goes and sits in his lap.

Coach Davis stands up and clinks his knife against his glass.
“Hey, everyone. We played a
great
game tonight.” At this point I stop listening because all I can think about is Megan's hand on the back of Luke's neck (for balance, allegedly), but insert the lame-ass inspirational speech of your choice here. “If we keep this up, I think we've got a real good shot at state this year,” he says before sitting back down.

Amberly blinks at him like she's got something in her eyes and flips a sheet of blond hair with pink highlights over her shoulder. Two months ago she had chestnut hair, and before that it was Jessica Rabbit red. “I really liked your speech.”

“Thanks,” he says. He smiles just a little too big at the compliment.

Ew. I mean, he's in great shape and has a manly jaw, so he's technically good-looking in a grown-man kind of way, but he's twenty-three! I'll have to remember to talk to her about that later, but for now I'm still stuck on the lovebirds snuggled up next to me. Luke's hand has drifted to the small of Megan's back. He looks at me over her shoulder, and I try to pretend I wasn't staring.
Sorry,
he mouths. I smile and shrug like it doesn't matter, but seriously, why does he have his hand there and why isn't he moving it? Thankfully, the dinner is almost over, so Megan only gets to spend about ten minutes in his lap before people start trickling out the door and Luke needs his leg back. I find Sam at the end of the table, canoodling with Amanda Bell. Guess she and Cowboy Hat never worked out their differences.

“Are you about ready to go?”

“Um . . .” He turns red. “Is there any way you could get a ride
home with someone else? Amanda and I wanted to go for a drive.”

Amanda giggles and squeezes his leg. Oh. That kind of drive.

“Yeah. Of course. You two have fun.”

What is the world coming to? Sam isn't supposed to do stuff like go for drives. He's supposed to be asexual like aphids or those lizards we learned about in bio. Luke taps me, and I jump because I didn't realize he was at my elbow.

“If Claire needs a ride home, I can take her.”

He's barely gotten the words out before Megan (who has also materialized out of nowhere) says, rapid-fire, “No-It's-okay-I-can-drive-her.”

“It's no trouble—”

“Claire lives right across the street from me. It'd be silly for anyone else to drive her.”

And with that she's dragging me out the door by the wrist while I look helplessly back at Luke. Minutes later we're alone in her car, snailing along down the poorly lit back roads because out here you never know when a deer might leap in front of your headlights. Megan hunches grandma-style over the steering wheel like she always does on our nighttime rides home.

“So, the stay-away-from-him plan worked out great,” she says with a hint of sharpness in her voice.

I hate how it looked like I went for Luke first after agreeing not to. “I'm really sorry. He just showed up and sat by me at the game. I didn't ask him to.”

“Where did y'all go at halftime?”

“He asked if I wanted to go to the concession stand with him.
It would have looked weird to say no. Nothing happened,” I add.
Yet.

Megan seems satisfied with this answer. She shrugs. “It's fine. I wasn't going to be able to stay away from him either.”

I'm relieved that she isn't mad at me, but it still doesn't solve our problem.

“This almost wrecked our friendship last time,” I say softly. I stare out the window at the skinny pine trees spiked into little cliffs of red Georgia clay. “I know it would be better if we both backed off. But I don't think I can.”

“Me neither.”

For a while, the only sound is the hum of Megan's engine and the scrape of her tires on the less-than-recently paved road.

“What if we let Luke decide?” I ask.

“Luke?” she says, like we've just discovered he actually has a say in all this.

“Yeah. We can flirt all we want, but he has to initiate the first date or kiss or whatever, and no matter who he picks, we'll both be okay with it.”

“I can live with those rules.”

“Then it's a deal.”

I'm happy. Because I know Luke will pick me. And because (stupid me) it never occurs to me Megan will fight dirty.

 

Kiss #6 xoxo

When you're in eighth grade, kissing is fraught with peril. First of all, you have to hide your emotions, because the earth would fly off its axis if anyone figured out who you have a crush on. Acting logically, say by walking up to the boy you like and telling him you like him, is a big no-no. So you have to resort to the most infinitesimal of hints and hope that in some sort of dating butterfly effect, you'll land a boyfriend and have a regular kissing partner.

And second, even if you do have a boyfriend (like me!), you're in eighth grade, which means you have absolutely no privacy. Seriously. Eric Masters has been my boyfriend for one month, two days, and four hours, and we still haven't kissed! (We had one nanosecond alone, and I totally choked.) But that's all about to change.

Amberly and I talk kiss strategy while we sit in mismatched lawn chairs on the back porch of her trailer. She has to babysit, so we watch her little brother and his best friend play a redneck version of clay shooting with a BB gun and some empty beer cans.

“My parents won't let me go on a real date until I'm
six
teen,” I whine.

“Lame.”

“I know. And it's not like we can drive, so that eliminates
most of the normal places and situations where you might have a first kiss.”

“There are lots of places you can kiss,” says Amberly. “You just have to get creative.”

“Like where?”

She twirls a strand of espresso-colored hair around her finger. That girl is always dyeing her hair. “Like . . . behind the equipment shed near the football field. Under the stage in the assembly room—Glenn loves that one. In the girls' bathroom on the back hallway—just use the handicapped stall; no one will ever see you.”

“Amberly!” My face flushes even though hers doesn't.

“What? I like kissing.”

“I'm sure the handicapped stall is a great place to kiss. But I really wanted my first kiss with my first real boyfriend to be special. I don't want it to feel like we're sneaking around or doing something dirty.”

“Why not?” Amberly giggles when I make a face. “Kidding.”

We go back to watching “clay shooting.” Every few minutes one of the kids yells “Pull!” even though they're just throwing the cans in the air for each other.

“Hey.” Amberly's eyes light up. “What do you mean by ‘real date'?”

“I can't go anywhere alone with a boy. Until I'm an old maid. Ugh.”

“But what about if other people are there?”

I frown. “I think that's okay. We went to the football game
with his parents last Friday. They were watching us the
whole time
, though,” I say like it was an atrocious invasion of privacy because, you know, IT WAS.

Amberly shrugs. “Course if it was me, I'd just have Glenn come home from school with me and make out. My mom drops him off at his house when she gets back from work.”

“I can't believe your mom doesn't care if you have a boy over when she's not home.”

The look on Amberly's face makes me wish I'd just shut up. “Not everyone's parents are like yours,” she says quietly.

For a few minutes, we listen to the ping of steel pellets meeting aluminum.

“Oh! I have the perfect plan.” Amberly sits up straight in her lawn chair. The wild grin on her face makes me nervous, but I need to get kissed already.

“Tell me.”

“Glenn lives up the street from you, right?”

“Yeah . . .”

“So, I'll spend the night at your house this Friday, and Eric will spend the night at Glenn's.”

“And how does this translate to me kissing Eric?”

“We sneak out.”

“Are you crazy?! My parents are like ninjas. We'll totally get caught. The stairs are super creaky, and the alarm system will beep if we open the door.”

“Okaaay. So, we tell your parents we want to have a campout, and we pitch a tent in your backyard. We've done it
before. Then Glenn and Eric will do the same thing.”

I'm totally panicked, but I blurt out, “That could work. That's genius.”

Amberly smiles. “I know. But the key is you don't tell your parents the boys are camping out too. Otherwise they'll know something's up.”

So far, the plan is working. Our campout sleepover is set. So is the boys'. Amberly and I can't look at each other on Friday without giggling. It's all we can talk about at lunch, and we rattle on and on until Megan and Britney look seriously annoyed.

After school, Amberly and I walk to the turnaround to meet my dad, staggering under the weight of our book bags. The teachers at our school give so much homework you'd think they were part of a worldwide conspiracy to give eighth graders scoliosis.

“Ohmygosh,” I say. “Guess what Eric just said to me.”

“What?”