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When we return from the boat trip, which quickly turned into two-plus hours of waterskiing and tubing, it’s to discover that half the hockey team and a whole bunch of girls have shown up at Josh’s. The novelty of summer is still fresh, not to mention the excitement of yesterday’s championship runs high.
I spot one pissed-off face, though, belonging to Cassie Gordon.
“Good luck,” Luke stage-whispers to me. He pats my shoulder as she stalks toward us, then laughs when I flip him off.
“Hey, Elliot.” Lust overtakes her annoyance for a minute as she stares at my body. I didn’t bother putting my t-shirt back on, waiting until my trunks dry a bit. Her appreciative gaze does absolutely nothing for me. Neither does the short dress she’s wearing.
“Cassie,” I acknowledge.
“Congratulations on the game yesterday. You disappeared so fast last night I didn’t have a chance to tell you.”
I’m tempted to smirk at the passive aggressiveness, but I don’t. My strategy with this encounter is to get through it, not prolong it. She’s pissed about Auden, but she’s dancing around it, trying to test out how serious I am and if a continuation of our past is in the cards. “Thanks.”
She hesitates. Yeah, I’m not making this easy on her, but anything I say right now won’t go over well. This is exactly what the fake dating was supposed to avoid. Had I known half the school was about to show up, I would have texted Auden and told her to come over.
Auden chooses this moment to show up in the backyard. She’s wearing a pair of jean shorts and a white t-shirt I’m pretty sure must belong to her cousin, because both are a little short. Not that I’m complaining. A strip of Auden’s stomach and a lot of leg have every effect Cassie’s outfit doesn’t.
“Nice talking to you, Cassie.” I’m not sure if the few words we exchanged could be considered a conversation and I definitely know she wasn’t finished talking to me, but I walk away from her and toward Auden before I can talk myself out of it.
The logistics of our relationship didn’t come up last night. We ate ice cream and sat on the pier and laughed. We didn’t address how we would act like a couple, what it might consist of. I told her nothing would change between us besides assumptions, but that was naive. Most couples our age are all over each other. If I want girls, my friends, to take this seriously, I have to show them I’m serious. There’s only one obvious way to do that.
I’ve also wanted to kiss Auden Lane Harmon since the day I met her.
But as I approach her, I second-guess myself. The easy nonchalance I normally experience around girls, even her, is glaringly absent. We may know nothing has changed between us, but no one staring at us does. What if she freaks out? It’s probably a bad idea to spring this on her, although based on her reaction to this proposition yesterday, she’d freak out with advance warning, too. What if we have no chemistry? What if it’s awkward and weird and we can’t come back from this and return to just being friends?
I never overthink this much.Pull it together, Reid. It’s just a kiss, I tell myself.
How many girls have I made out with? Dozens?
Easy to do when you don’t go much further.
Auden sees me approaching. I watch her eyes dart behind me—could be at any number of people standing around, but I have a feeling it’s Cassie—then come back to me. Her eyebrows rise as I approach. Her mouth opens to say something, but I don’t give her a chance to. I’ll lose my nerve if I hesitate. I’ll talk myself out of this, and I probablyshould.
With one goal in mind, I march up to her the way I charge on the ice.
The world is suddenly silent around me. The chatter of voices has ceased. The lapping of water against the shore is muted. I’m locked in a world where only she and I exist—my favorite place to be.
I kiss her. I press my lips against my best friend’s. The girl who knows every secret I have. Every goal I’m desperate to achieve. Everything that separates me from the other few billion people on this planet.
I’ve imagined kissing Auden a lot of times, but it was always the lead-up.
When she’d lean against me on the dock, I’d think about how easy it would be to bend down and touch my lips to her forehead.
When we’d play at the rink, I’d wonder what angle I’d have to twist at to close the distance between my face and hers.
When we’d sit in my car together, I’d make guesses at the number of inches separating us.
The actual kiss was never part of the fantasy, because I know how to kiss a girl. It was just getting to the kiss that was an unknown.
But now I’m kissing her, and it feels like it’s the first time I’ve ever been this close to a female. My heart pounds erratically. My vision blurs until I can’t see anything. All the sound that disappeared is back, assaulting my eardrums in a rush of awareness. My palms are sweating and my blood is racing and I’m the furthest thing from having things under control.
I start to pull away, already compiling a list of excuses I can give her for why I did this. I don’t need any, though. This is pretend—I told her so, because I’m every bit the idiot Josh called me out as this morning. I’m trying to put Auden and the emotions she draws out of me in a box, and they refuse to stay there. Or maybe I don’t want to keep them contained.
I open my mouth to say something, but she leans forward and presses her lips back to mine before I can speak a single word—and she starts to kiss me back. Weaves her fingers through my hair and presses against me.
Holy fuck.
I’m drowning.
