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“No kidding.” He shook his head. “But there’s nothing we can do to change that.”
“Right.”
I looked down at his hand still holding mine. The soothing noises of night were beginning to surround us. A cricket chirped nearby and a bullfrog croaked in the distance. The gentle breeze ruffled my curls, cooling off the day’s lingering heat.
Suddenly, I was struck by an idea. A crazy idea. It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. “Actually, there’s one thing we can change.”
He tilted his head as he waited for me to continue. My heart beat as if I’d just gotten done taking the Presidential Physical Fitness Tests in gym class. Collin was going to think I’d lost my mind, but there was a method to my madness. This was the solution to all of our problems. If we really wanted to write this song and make it good, we were going to have to make a big change.
“Collin, I need you to kiss me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Collin froze. It was clear from the expression on his face that he was having trouble believing what had just come out of my mouth. I could hardly believe it myself.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice cracking.
I inhaled deeply and swallowed down my nerves. For once, I wasn’t going to be the one to chicken out of an outrageous plan. I’d been a scared little girl, too frightened to do anything but follow the rules. I was done with that. We needed to nail this song. And if this was the way to do it, I could think of no one better to kiss me than Collin Preston.
“Listen, maybe that’s the one thing we need to finally get this right.” I furrowed my brow and glared down at the ground. “Mrs. Banks has said over and over again that this song is about romance. And you said it yourself in the park, how is someone who’s never been kissed supposed to write about love?”
“Audrey, I was joking about that.” Collin looked around the backyard as if he were afraid of someone listening in. “Come on. We can’t talk about this here. I’ve got somewhere better.”
Holding my hand tight, he led me around the corner of the house, where his motorcycle was parked. Next to it lay a staircase to a basement door. Finally letting go of me, he went down the stairs first and opened the door to reveal a large, carpeted family area.
“This is where Ally and I stay,” he explained, leading me toward an open door on the right. “Gina and Tripp only let the kids move down here when we’ve proven that we’re responsible enough to handle it. I didn’t get my room down here until last summer. Got into too many fights at school my first year. Then there was a problem with my grades junior year. They’re not kidding when they say you have to earn it. Ally’s room is down the hall, next to the bathroom.”
He went into the first room on the right and I froze in the doorway. This was a boy’s room. Not just any boy, but Collin Preston’s room. I’d never been inside a boy’s room before now, although it didn’t look much different from my own.
The girly colors were replaced with shades of blue and black. Posters of different rock bands and athletes hung on the walls. A small TV set with a Playstation sat on a table in the corner. He had a full-sized bed with a navy blue comforter and striped sheets, which had been neatly made, and a desk littered with school books. In all, it was just a bedroom. But my racing heart didn’t seem convinced.
“Okay, let’s talk about this,” Collin said, pacing back and forth across the room with his hands behind his head. “Are you sure this is what you want? That this is the only way?”
I nodded my head and finally stepped through the doorway. While my hands were definitely sweaty and my blood rushing through my ears, the short walk down here had only made me braver. “We’ve spent weeks working on this song and every time Mrs. Banks has shot it down. It’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”
He shot me a desperate look. “Don’t you have someone you’d rather kiss than me?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of anyone better than Collin. He’d told me himself that he couldn’t fall in love. So there was no fear of that. It was a kiss, plain and simple, and it needed to be from him. We were in this thing together. We were partners.
The fear in his eyes only grew brighter as he came to a halt, his shoulders drooping. “Audrey, I don’t think I can.”
Suddenly, the bravery I’d been feeling was doused by one, horrifying thought. What if Collin didn’t want to kiss me? What if I was the last person on Earth he’d want to lock lips with? The very thought made my stomach dip like the sudden dive on a roller coaster.
“Oh.” The single syllable came out of my lungs with full force. “You don’t want to kiss me.”
I’d almost coerced him into it. What kind of person was I? The worst sort. I ought to be buried in the sand up to my neck and fed to a colony of fire ants.
“No, no, no.” He took a step toward me, agony wracking his face. “That’s not what I mean. That’s a million miles away from what I mean. I just...” He looked down at his hands as he gestured. “I don’t want you to regret this and I don’t want you to hate me for taking away this experience for you. That would kill me.”
The tension in my shoulders softened and I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward him. Not a lot of people realized it, but he really was a good guy. I couldn’t think of a single boy I knew who would’ve been so concerned about what kissing me meant. It was sweet and only solidified my decision.
“I won’t regret it,” I said, crossing my heart. “I promise. You’re the only one I want to do this with. Besides, you kind of owe me. You were supposed to kiss me in that beach house at the end of summer, remember?”
He stared at me for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw twitching. Emotions flashed in his eyes, changing too quickly for me to read. Finally, he took another step toward me, closing the distance between us.
“This is just for the song, right?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. My gaze flicked back and forth between his eyes and then to those lips of his.
