17 First Kisses Page 18

  I can’t believe how much she laughs, how often she smiles. I wonder if I would look as happy as her if I could wipe the past two and a half years from my life. I drift through the house, checking in on Sarah as she helps Mama in the kitchen, watching her boyfriend play video games with Libby, peeking into my dad’s study to see that he is hunched over papers and drawings as always. I just want everything to be okay. Having extra people for the holidays is a change, and we all know how well my family deals with that.

  Then Christmas Day rolls around, and I play the happy daughter. And I don’t have to try, because I am happy to have my whole family together for Christmas, acting almost like we did before. We open presents. We hold hands around the dining-room table while my dad offers thanks for our Christmas dinner. Sarah and Boyfriend gush about their fabulous life in Atlanta. I finally confess about wanting to go to Georgia Tech, and everyone teases me about being the renegade, but no one is actually upset about it. Libby brags about how well she’s doing in school now. It is Hallmark-card perfect. You’d have to look really close to see the fault lines.

  Christmas with my family was amazing. It really was. But it was also exhausting. I feel like I have to be the one monitoring everyone so I can step in if something goes wrong. The next day, all I want to do is play soccer and blow off some steam, so I text Sam to ask if he can meet me at the park.

  I’m in fruitcake leftovers hell, he texts back.

  I try a couple girls from the soccer team. No luck. I think about calling Megan or Amberly, but I need something active. Something physical. I try to think of any soccer guys I know well enough that it wouldn’t be weird bugging them the day after Christmas.

  Then I think of Luke.

  Before I can angst out over whether or not I should be doing this and what his spectrum of possible reactions might be, I’ve already typed the message.

  Need a break from the fam. Want to meet at the park for soccer?

  I hit send and watch my phone like I’m expecting it to explode or something. It beeps a few seconds later.

  Sure. Half an hour?

  I change into workout clothes. I tell myself I’m just going to play soccer with a friend, but I know it’s a lie. I wouldn’t be putting on mascara if I were meeting Sam. I throw my hair in a ponytail, slip on a jacket, and step outside. The weather is perfect. Too cold for standing around, just right for playing soccer. The wind slips under my jacket collar and chills my neck as I jog to the park, but it feels great. Every footfall invigorates me.

  Luke is already there, lazily stretching. He looks different now that he’s not my friend’s boyfriend. Or, rather, I can look at him differently. I’ve been keeping up a careful guard for so long. Making sure not to flirt with him. Trying never to look at him that way. But now that guard is down. I devour his dimples, his blue eyes, his masculine hands.

  “Claire.” He waves. “How’s it going? Did you have a good Christmas?”

  “Yeah. It was good. I mean, my big sister is home, and my family is all together, so really everything is great. I just,” I trail off and stare at the field. It will sound so stupid if I start complaining—it’s too complicated to explain.

  “You’d rather do anything but talk about Christmas and your family?”

  “Yes. Can we just play soccer for a while?”

  Luke and I play against each other on one half of the field, taking turns trying to score on each other or defend the goal. We don’t talk. We play a physical game with body checks and slide tackles and hands on each other’s backs as we mark each other. I’m reminded of when we first met, although thankfully there are no bloody noses this time. I get a rush every time he touches me, even if it’s just him throwing a forearm against my chest to fend me off. At the end of an hour we’re panting and sweaty, so we collapse on the ground with our feet pointing in opposite directions but our heads right next to each other.

  “I feel so much better!” I squeal.

  “Good.”

  “So, how was your Christmas?”

  “Pretty good. My parents haven’t gotten in a fight yet.” He fiddles with the zipper of his jacket. “I had to take Megan’s present back to the store today. That was weird.”

  I prop up on my elbow and face him. “I’m really sorry. About the whole breakup.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “But if Megan never found us in the office like that, you might still be together.”

  “It was going to happen eventually. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  But I did. I liked you. I wanted you even though you were dating my best friend.

  “Yeah, and I think Megan believes that, but she still broke up with you. I don’t understand why she would do that.”

  “I do.”

  Now Luke sits up too. We’re so close that when he breathes cloudy puffs into the air, I can feel the warmth of it on my cheeks.

  “I like you,” he says. “And I wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it.”

  At first I feel like flying. Luke likes me! Finally, a boy I like, a boy I can really talk to, likes me back. I can’t believe he chose me over Megan. That’s when the truth hits me like a sack of cement. It doesn’t matter that he likes me. He’s my best friend’s ex-boyfriend.

  “This isn’t fair.”

  Luke snort-laughs. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”

  “I mean, we can’t date or anything. You and Megan just broke up, and she’s my best friend.”

  “So you do want to date me?” He smiles, and his dimples pop up and say hi.

  I can’t help it. I blush. “It doesn’t really matter what I want, does it?” There is no way, no way this can end well. I shouldn’t even be considering it.

  “Just give me one date,” he says. “We can see if it would be worth all the drama.”

  I shake my head. “Someone at school will see us. They probably have gossip phone trees set up for situations like this.”

  “We’ll go on a date in another town. I promise no one will see us. What do you say? One date?”

  I’m all ready to say no, but he’s looking at me so hopefully.

  “One date.”

  Kiss #14 xoxo

  The Present

  I need to meet Luke for our super-secret date in fifteen minutes. At the soccer field. We decided he couldn’t pick me up at my house. Megan might see his car. I don’t want to get sweaty on the walk over, so I pop into the kitchen, where my whole family, plus Boyfriend, picks at Christmas leftovers for lunch.

  “Can I take your car to the park?” I ask Mama. “I’m going on that date, so it’ll be a while.”

  Before she can answer, Sarah jumps up. “I’ll take you.”

  “You don’t have to do that. It’s fine if I just take Mama’s car.”

  “I know. I just want to.”

  I shrug and follow her out the front door to her sparkly new BMW. Everything is so easy for her. She got to go away to school and start a new life just when things were getting bad. Part of me hates her for abandoning us like that. The other part of me is jealous.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “You’ve been kind of quiet. Or tense, maybe.”

  “Oh, sure, I’m fine.” I fidget with my lip balm, popping the lid on and off. “It’s just . . . I just get so worried, you know? This was our first Christmas now that things are getting better, and I wanted everything to be great.”

  “It was great. Don’t worry so much. Do you know what Mama says? She says, ‘I don’t know if I ever could have made it through without Claire.’”

  I drop the lip balm. “She said that?”

  “Yes.” Sarah pats my leg with her flawlessly manicured fingers. “She’s so proud of you. I am too.”

  I feel my cheeks get warm. “Thank you.”

  But I don’t really know what else to say, so we’re both pretty quiet until she eases the car to a stop in front of the park. “Hey, have fun on your date. Are you sure you want me to just leave you here?”

  “Yeah.”
I open the door and brace myself for the blast of cold air I know is coming.

  “Okay. But call me if you need me to pick you up.”

  I nod and wave good-bye as she reluctantly drives away.

  I have been told to wear “those black legging things that girls wear,” tennis shoes, and warm clothes, which I decided meant my down jacket. Other than that, I have no idea what we’re doing today. Right now I’m standing by the soccer field at the park and feeling very silly, but I only have to wait a few minutes before Luke arrives in a banged-up Jetta.

  He leans over to open the car door from the inside. “Hey.”

  I jump in beside him and clap my mittened hands together. “Hey! Where are we going? I’m dying to know.”

  Luke grins. “Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain. We’ll be two hours away from anyone we know.”

  “Sweet.”

  Luke passes me a pair of ski pants. “That’s why I told you to wear the leggings,” he says. “I figured you could slip these on over them. They’re my mom’s, so they might be a little short, but I think they’ll work.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I say, as Luke puts the car in reverse and heads toward Stone Mountain.

  Stone Mountain is this mountain and park on the other side of Atlanta. Every winter the park uses snow machines to make Snow Mountain so Georgia residents can see, tube on, and play in actual snow. Well, manufactured snow. Which I am totally willing to settle for considering we haven’t had so much as a flurry this winter.

  When we get there, it’s amazing—our very own artificial winter wonderland. Twelve snow-packed tubing lanes slope down a hill in front of an enormous rock face carved with Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. The rest of the world is green, so crossing the snowy perimeter is like stepping into a snow globe. The sudden temperature drop makes me shiver. Luke and I take off like excited little kids, throwing snowballs at each other and making snow angels. Before long, I’m having so much fun I forget to feel guilty.

  The line for tubing stretches all the way down the hill, but the wait passes quickly because I’m with Luke. We watch as people whiz by on inner tubes. As we near the top, a couple of excited little kids cut in front of us.

  Luke clears his throat. “Hey, guys, we were here first.”

  The kids’ dad grabs them by their jackets and pulls them back. “Sorry,” he says, smiling.

  “It’s okay.” I smile back at the kids.

  “We wanna sled first,” the youngest kid whines.

  Luke narrows his eyes. “Well, we’ve been waiting for twenty minutes, so no, you can’t.”

  “C’mon, it’s fine,” I say, pulling Luke toward the front of the tubing lane. He’s usually more chill, but I know waiting in line can make people cranky. “Let’s go tube. Bet I can beat you.”

  He stops frowning. “Yeah, we should race.”

  We tube down the hill again and again. Then, with wobbly legs and pink cheeks, we go to SnoFire Point and drink hot chocolate by the bonfire. I take a deep breath, savoring the scent of dry leaves and burning pine.

  Luke touches my arm. “I have something for you.”

  “Really? But I didn’t get you anything.”

  “It’s okay,” he says quickly. “It isn’t a Christmas present. It’s more like a . . . well, you’ll see.”

  He reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out a piece of thick cream-colored paper, folded up accordion-style. I can’t believe he’s had it tucked in his jacket all day. I unfold the flaps, puzzled, but when I realize what it is, I gasp.

  “It’s a map.” Not just any map. A map of Europe. With a route drawn in black Sharpie and pictures cut from magazines. People dancing. Macarons. He didn’t forget.

  “It’s our trip,” he says. “I hope it’s not weird.”

  “No, it’s wonderful. I love it.” I don’t think anyone’s ever given me something so thoughtful and romantic.

  “Cool.” Luke seems suddenly shy and embarrassed. “Hey, do you want to roast marshmallows?”

  “Sure. And just so you know,” I say, as we wait in line to purchase a s’mores kit, “I am a champion marshmallow roaster.”

  I skewer a couple marshmallows and hold them over the fire, turning the stake slowly until they’re golden brown on all sides. Perfect. Just like today.

  Perfect enough to backstab your best friend over? a tiny voice inside me asks.

  I shake that thought away. I saw him first. We were supposed to be together all along. I slide the marshmallows onto chocolaty graham-cracker sandwiches and feed one to Luke.

  “Mmm. These are awesome,” he says.

  “It’s the least I could do. This was a pretty perfect date.”

  He smiles. “You think?”

  “Almost.”

  I’m thinking the only thing that could make it more perfect would be us kissing right now, and I think he knows it. We’re standing on top of a mountain with our heads tilted toward each other. A light snow falls on us. It’s fake, of course, but still totally romantic. The bonfire crackles and shoots out sparks that reflect in our eyes. Everything around us is begging for him to kiss me. I half expect to hear Sebastian from The Little Mermaid singing “Kiss the Girl.”

  And finally, Luke does.

  When his mouth touches mine, a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold migrates down my back. He has the most deliciously full lips, which I want to kiss again and again and again. He tastes like marshmallow, or maybe we both do. I squeeze him closer, the layers of our down jackets squishing between us. The kiss is as blissfully right as everything else today.

  “Now it’s perfect,” I say.

  In fact, it’s so perfect and so charged with emotion it scares me. I can’t not have more. I can’t give him up.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “You and Megan just broke up. We can’t do this.”

  “So you don’t want to see each other?”

  That is so not an option anymore after today. “No, I do. But what are we going to do? I mean, it hasn’t even been two weeks yet. There’s going to be so much drama.”

  “Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing right now.”

  When he squeezes my hands and smiles at me like that, I feel like anything is possible.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dating.” He kisses me again. “Kissing. And not letting anyone else mess things up for us.”

  “So we just won’t tell anyone?” The idea of walking up to Megan and explaining I’m dating her ex-boyfriend makes me sick to my stomach.

  “Not until you feel like things have blown over enough with Megan.”

  “But.” I bite my lip. “Don’t you think she’ll be able to tell?”

  He laughs. “Claire, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Megan’s not exactly the brightest crayon in the box.”

  She’s not dumb, and I actually hate when people say things like that, but I let it slide because I’m relieved he doesn’t seem to be harboring any feelings for her.

  Luke pulls me into a hug and whispers in my ear. “Look. No one is going to find out. We can keep it a secret for as long as you want.”

  I’m a barrel of emotions at Buck’s New Year’s Eve party later that week. I’m hanging out with the girls, and Luke is nowhere in sight, but I cannot. Stop. Thinking. About. Him. Half of my thoughts are a Luke-Claire highlight reel—that afternoon in the park, our date at Snow Mountain, our texts from the past few days—all playing over and over and over in my head. The other half are devoted to arguing with myself about whether or not us secretly dating is a bad idea.

  “B is the only one who has someone to kiss at midnight. How crazy is that?” says Megan.

  “It sucks,” I reply. I have someone to kiss, but even if he shows, there’s no way I get to kiss him.

  “Yeah,” Amberly chimes in. She seems much more interested in texting.

  “Having someone to kiss makes New Year’s Eve so much fun.” B gazes sappily at Buck, who is
reenacting a football play using a taxidermied squirrel.

  Could she at least try to keep the mushiness to a minimum? Her friend is in post-breakup recovery. Then I think about kissing Luke four days ago and know I’m a much crappier friend.

  “Whatever. I’m glad I’m not with Luke anymore,” says Megan.

  I feel a little better.

  “He always made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. Or like he wanted something else and I couldn’t give it to him.”

  I feel a whole lot worse.

  She shakes her head and plasters on a bright smile. “Enough about Luke. I only have three and a half months to find another prom date!”

  “Ugh. Do we really have to start thinking about prom dates already?” I hope Luke and I will be “out” by then. If we’re still together.

  “Well, Buck and I will be going together. I can’t wait for us all to go dress shopping.”

  Amberly doesn’t say anything, even though I know she needs a date too. She’s hunched over her phone again, trying to hide her smile. I lean back so I can see what she’s texting.

  I miss you too. Maybe I can come over tonight and show you how much.

  “Oh my gosh. Are you sexting?” I read the name on her screen. Mike. “With Coach Davis?!”

  “You’re sexting a teacher?” Megan squeals, her expression horrified and excited.

  “How did that even happen?” asks Britney.

  “Well, I was taking care of his dog over Thanksgiving . . . ,” says Amberly.

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t even there,” I say.

  “I know, but when he got back, I went over there so he could pay me. And he was watching a football game, so I watched the rest of it with him. And”—she blushes—“now we’re kind of together.”

  “Wow.”

  “No way.”

  “OMFG.”

  “I can’t believe you tapped Coach Davis,” says Britney.