He glared at me. “Eat up. We have work to do.”
“What kind of work? Devious kissing work? May I point out that we both have peanut butter breath?”
“Eat up,” he said again. Sean’s jovial voice escalated over the music in the living room, which made me want to speed up eating to get out of there, but also made the sandwich sit on my stomach like a rock.
We went upstairs. Adam shared his bathroom with Sean and Cameron, and the bathroom looked it. He brushed his teeth, then sipped straight from a bottle of mouthwash. As he swished it around in his mouth, he nudged my bare tummy with his toothbrush and prompted, “Hm.”
“You want me to use your toothbrush?”
He spit in the sink. “You might as well. You’re about to do a lot worse.”
At this point, I realized what I’d thought was stress and peanut butter indigestion was actually butterflies, which began dogfighting in my stomach at the idea that Adam and I were about to kiss some more. As I brushed my teeth with his toothbrush, I watched him watching me in the mirror. His muscled arms were folded on his strong, tanned chest. The bruise Sean had given him under his eye had almost faded, but the skull-and-crossbones pendant glinted dangerously.
If his parents hadn’t been in the next room with the ten o’clock news turned way up over the music downstairs, I might have made a move on him right there in the bathroom. Yes, I know, odds were I would have tripped and knocked him down and made him hit his head on the toilet. I was so turned on, I was almost willing to take this chance.
Instead, he took my hand again and led me down through the party, indoors and outdoors, to the end of the dock. e football team had run out of bottle rockets. e party had reached the stage where boys played quarters. e drinking game was run very professionally by experienced people. If Mr. Vader had found out, he would have shut down the party—because kids were drinking underage at his house, or because he would have known one of his sons had stolen beer from the marina. In any case, as a precaution, a wall of people stood across the dock, talking and flirting, shielding the boys playing quarters from the prying eyes of the Vaders in their bedroom.
e wall of people included Sean and Rachel, facing each other and holding both hands like they were about to dance a polka. Rachel hadn’t taken the precaution of kicking her shoes off before she stepped onto the dock. She was likely to catch her heel between the boards and fall flat. (Shrug.) Rachel obviously valued beauty before balance.
As Adam and I approached the wall of people, Adam aimed straight for Sean. He brushed against Sean harder than necessary as we edged through. I felt Sean and Rachel watching us, but I didn’t look back as we stepped over the boys sprawled in a circle around a cup of beer.
We sat on the edge of the dock. e wood was still damp and cold from the rain. We slipped our feet into the lake, which felt like a warm bath compared with the cool air.
“Do you want a beer?” Adam asked.
“I don’t think I could handle it. I feel so high already.” The warm lake, the cool air, and Adam had my body going in a thousand different directions.
Maybe he knew. He grinned at me and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you now. It’ll be a big one, so don’t hit me.” He leaned in.
“Wait a minute,” I said, putting my hand on his chest to stop him. I wasn’t quite ready to kiss him with boys playing quarters right behind us, and with Sean and Rachel staring at us. We’d kissed before where people could see us if they wanted to look, but we’d never been this blatant about it. Besides, I had another concern. “I want to be prepared. Are you going to kiss me, or really kiss me?”
He cocked his head at me, perplexed, with those little frown lines between his eyebrows. “What would be the point of kissing you if I didn’t do it right?”
“Ohhhhhh!” said the boys behind us. ere was nowhere in my life I could get away from boys saying, “Ohhhhhh!” I glanced behind us to make sure the boys were talking about beer, not us. Indeed, when the boys’ quarters hit the cup and they chose someone to drink, all of them seemed to be ganging up on Scooter Ledbetter. I hadn’t seen his monster truck in the Vaders’ driveway, so at least he wouldn’t be driving home.
Sean had moved Rachel in front of him and held her with his arms crossed over her boobs. So he could watch us over her head without her knowing. Of course, she was staring at Adam, too. I rolled my eyes at both of them, like I was so tired of them watching us. I almost burst into laughter at the thought, but managed to turn back to Adam in time.
I told him through my teeth, “We’ve been kissing all week without, you know. Really kissing.”
“That was before Sean gave up a wakeboard for Rachel. Step up your game.”
I was running out of excuses. “Look,” I whispered, “when we do this stuff, we’re trying to make them jealous, but it’s also my first time for real. You know?” His blue eyes focused on me. We were almost nose to nose, and our shoulders moved quickly in time with our breathing, in time with each other. “I know.”
“And when I fantasize about kissing”—kissing Sean, I meant, but I wasn’t going to say this—“our mouths are closed.”
“This isn’t your fantasy.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. True, I’d never fantasized about this particular scenario, but maybe that was because I’d never imagined it. I had to remember that this was Adam Adam Adam, and if I could replace him with Sean from my fantasies, the warm pricklies I was feeling would make a perfect dream. Except I would probably wake up.
Adam moved in again. One more time my brain knew this would make Sean jealous, but my body sounded the alarm. I put my hand on Adam’s chest and whispered,
“Give me a break. I had a bad experience with this.”
He looked hurt, which didn’t make sense if we were only friends. He was putting on a good act. “With who?”
“The only person I’ve ever kissed, besides you, is Cameron.”
“You kissed Ca—”
I hadn’t expected his reaction to be that LOUD. I reached out and grabbed the back of his hair, which turned his head away from the crowd and also shut him up right quick.
I put my forehead to his forehead and whispered like a lover, “I was eleven. We were in the warehouse and he grabbed me. Very sloppy. Don’t tell McGillicuddy.” Adam blinked. I felt his eyelashes on my eyelids.
“Very, very sloppy,” I said. “We still can’t look each other in the eye.”
I let go of his hair so he could look me in the eye. “Let me shrug that off.” He shook violently like he’d caught a sudden chill. “Okay. I’m going to really kiss you, but it’ll be subtle.” He moved toward me one more time. “And don’t tell me to back off. It’s starting to look like we’re not really in love.” I closed my eyes automatically as he kissed me, and the word love blinked red and then black on the insides of my eyelids. His lips were warm. Was that all? I opened my eyes.
His eyes were still closed, and he came in again.
I closed my eyes. He kissed me like before, only I felt his tongue between my lips, opening them. His tongue was inside my mouth (ADAM VADER’S TONGUE
WAS INSIDE MY MOUTH) not very far, and then out again.
I thought that was it, and opened my eyes. And closed them as he kissed me once more. Now I was getting it. You didn’t just sit there with your lips locked with the boy’s lips and the boy’s tongue turning flips at the back of your throat (cough Cameron cough). ere was constant movement and change. It was an activity, and probably one the girl could participate in, too. As Adam pulled away, I said, “Let me try.”
He kissed me and whispered against my lips, “Be my guest.” His low voice made me shiver.
I kissed him. Strange that the lips were so soft in such an edgy boy. I kissed him again and very gently pressed my tongue into his mouth.