Seven
OKAY. THIS WASbig.
We all looked around at each other, likeAre we all thinking what we’re all thinking?
Finally, Grandma Dodie patted my hand and said, “Well, that’s a nice distraction for you, sweetheart.”
Boy, was it.
Finn, just so you know, grew up across the street from us—the oldest, tallest, and handsomest of three brothers—and he had been class president, the captain of the baseball team, and an actual, literal Prom King.
He was the reason I broke my arm—falling out of the tree near his bedroom while trying to spy on him. He took up 80 percent of the pages in my middle and high school diaries. And yes—he was definitely responsible for giving me a very memorable first kiss.
A first kiss I’d never forgotten.
A first kiss that every single kiss that followed had competed against—and lost.
The title of the study Ashley read was “Can Humans Imprint on aFirst Kiss?” But did we need a scientific study for this? All we had to do was look at myinterminablecrush. Six formative years!
Nowthatwas the longest relationship of my life.
Ashley had known all about that crush. My mom, too.Everybodyin my house knew—even Pete. It was inescapable. I’d cut out Finn’s yearbook photo and taped it to the mirror in my bedroom. I doodled his initials in little 3D lettering. I gazed mooningly at his house from our living room window for countless hours.
And now Finn was single. And coming on the cruise. We’d be trapped on the MSEnchantmenttogether for eight potential-filled days.
And nights.
Ashley was on this. She flipped the legal pad to a fresh page.
“What do you remember about that moment?” she asked, leaning in like we were on60 Minutes.
I went with it. “Mostly sounds and sensations,” I said. “Because I was blindfolded.”
“Andwhywere you blindfolded?” she asked.
“All the dares were blindfolded that day.” I listed neighborhood kids. “Evan had to climb a tree blindfolded. Sean had to go down the slide blindfolded. Cooper had to hang from the monkey bars blindfolded.”
“And you had to get kissed?”
“We were running out of ideas.”
Ashley wrote something down but didn’t say what. “And what do you remember about the kiss?”
“I remember waiting a long time—so long that I worried Finn wouldn’t show up. Which would’ve been so embarrassing, right? Getting stood up for your first kiss?”
“And then he finally made it?”
“He finally made it, yeah,” I said. “I heard his feet crunch on the gravel, and I was like,Here we go.”
“And?”
“And…” I thought back. “And he came close. And he put his hands on my shoulders. And then he steppedcloser. And then he leaned in and kissed me.”
“Just a peck?”
“Mostly,” I said. “But there was a bit of a linger.”
Ashley wrote downpeckand then circled it. “Definelinger.”
