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Our fingers wrapped around one another’s, and he yanked me to standing. Before I could pull away, he used our connection to tug me against his warm torso.
Into him.
Comfort was there, as was warmth. The hug brought me the usual serenity it did when he’d decide girls didn’t have cooties and wanted to touch me. But this time it also felt different. Law buried his nose in the windblown hair at the side of my neck, and it was then I felt him trembling.
“Law?”
So slowly it seemed like minutes drifted by, he pulled his face from my neck. “I’d like to kiss you.”
All the breath I’d ever breathed sucked out of my lungs with his words. “What?”
Law was playful. He was teasing and funny and wild. Rarely did I see him without a grin on his face. But, in that moment, he looked so serious. His brows were two angry slashes and his mouth turned down at the sides. He looked older, too. “You’re my best friend, Cami. And even though I don’t like you like that, I still want my first one to be with you.”
Scratch that. He was the same wise guy as always.
I shoved at his shoulders until he let me go. My stomach ached in the center, the feeling reminding me of that time I fell out of a tree and all the air knocked out of my lungs. It burned, and the longer I stood there, the worse the ache got.
“Unlike you, I’d very much like the person kissing me to like me like that.” I stomped over to my bike and kept going. “Anyway, you’re too late. I’ve already kissed someone, and he sure wasn’t you.”
“Cami!”
“Leave me alone, Lawrence Briggs.” Victory scored inside me at that direct hit. I knew more than anyone how much he hated his full name.
I dipped and reached for my handlebars that had twisted around during my fall. Before I could pick my bike up off the ground, though, Law’s fingers wrapped around my bicep, and he turned me into his arms.
“You’re lying.” His grin was fake. A second hit scored with my lie. He cared that I kissed someone else before him.
I shrugged. “Guess you’ll never know. Let me go. I need to get home.”
Indecision transformed his face. His eyes traced their way from my forehead to my chin and back again, and I froze under his stare. He pulled me closer and lowered his head an inch so our lips were closer.
“I do like you, okay? And I guess I’ll settle for second.”
That’s all he said before he tentatively pressed his mouth to mine.
Every good feeling I’d ever felt in my life compiled into a spinning vortex that gripped me all the way to my toes. Without thinking, I clung to his biceps and Law wrapped his arms around my back. My eyes drifted closed while I reveled in the feeling of his soft lips pressed lightly against mine.
The rest of it came naturally. I’m not sure who opened their mouth first, but our tongues met somewhere in the middle. The tips gently stroked and prodded until he pushed them both into my mouth. He tasted good—warm and sweet—and I wanted him to never stop. My hands drifted upward, clutching his shoulders and holding on while we explored.
The earth halted that day and started spinning on a new axis. I stood on that grassy hill, while busy cars carrying our neighbors flew passed us under a cloudy sky, and all I could think about was how I didn’t want to kiss anyone else for the rest of my life.
Call it puberty or teenage hormones, but that was the day I fell in love with Law.
He pulled away softly. A quiet wow slipped from his deep pink lips. “You lied. If that wasn’t your first kiss, your face wouldn’t look like that.”
I choked on my breath. “What? Look like what?”
“All dreamy. Like you love me.”
“I don’t love you.”
“I think you do.” He smiled. “That’s okay, because I love you, too.”
Words failed me. Law rendered me speechless with his admission. So, I did the only thing I could do; I pulled away. “I have to go home.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
I tried not to run. I tried to appear calm as I moved back to my bike, but inside I was a tornado of feelings.
