The First 100 Kisses: Practice Makes Perfect

by Danielle Bannister

  I wanted to come back with a clever retort, but I couldn’t. I had more hurling to do. Goddamn it. Exhausted and miserable, I lashed out.

  “I hate you,” I cried, folding myself back against the floor, trying hard not to wonder if I was laying on dried pee.

  “You don’t hate me,” Liam said.

  “Yes, I do. This is all your fault.” I pressed my face against the floor. It felt so nice. I prayed the worst was over because there was nothing left to come up. As long as I didn’t move from this spot, I’d be okay. I had no energy to stand even if I wanted to.

  “Come on. Let’s get you to back bed.”

  I heard the toilet flush, but I didn’t move.

  “I’m just gonna sleep here. I’ll be fine. You run along, little doggy.”

  “Chloe, I’m not leaving you on my bathroom floor.”

  Still, I didn’t budge. I couldn’t. Zero energy. A moment later his arms were around me, hoisting me up, not so gracefully, over his shoulder. My ass was right in his face, but I was too tired to feel even remotely self-conscious.

  He set me down gently on the bed, then helped tuck my legs back under the mess I’d made of the covers.

  “There ya go,” he said. He patted the covers once, then turned to leave.

  “Wait. Don’t go,” I heard myself say. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  He paused for a minute then crawled into the other side of the bed.

  “Sorry. I get so freaked out when I throw up,” I confessed. “It’s stupid, but I’m always afraid I’m going to die. When I got sick as a kid, my mom used to hold me and stroke my hair, whispering everything would be ‘right as rain’ in the morning, until I eventually fell asleep. And it was. It worked every time.”

  The bed shifted, and a moment later, I felt him curl himself around me. Then his hand stroked my hair.

  “Everything is going to be right as rain in the morning, Chloe,” he whispered.

  Tears ran down my face and I didn’t try to stop them. Things wouldn’t be okay, Liam. They would never be okay again. In the light of day, the real storm would rear its ugly head. Closing my eyes against the pain, I pressed myself against him, absorbing these last moments of his embrace.

  When I woke again, the sun was up, and Liam was gone.

  “Get used to that,” I whispered to my heart.

  With a throbbing head, I rolled over and noticed there was a glass of water and Tylenol on the bedside table.

  -Take me- A little note beside the bottle read.

  Smiling, I pushed myself up to sitting and felt the full wallop of the headache.

  “Yes, sir,” I muttered. My mouth felt like ass, so after I downed the pills, I went into the bathroom and gargled with some of Liam’s mouthwash. I went to pee and noticed that all evidence of my vomit comet had been wiped clean. The lingering scent of bleach hung in the air. He cleaned up my mess. Oh, Liam. He was awesome. God, I was going to miss him.

  Just then my stomach gave a rumble. Though mercifully, not to hurl. I was hungry. It was an all-clear signal from the body. Though I’d likely still feel like crap the rest of the day, if I was hungry, the vomiting was over. Thank the fucking Lord.

  “I’d kill for a burger right now.” Greasy food was the perfect hangover food. It sopped up the booze still trapped in your bloodstream that didn’t make its way out, or some shit, and made you feel human again. It was science.

  I had no idea where Liam had gone to. Probably out for his morning jog, freak show that he was. You couldn’t drag my ass out on a nice day, let alone a Fall one. Guess it was time to raid his fridge, as I knew I didn’t have much in mine.

  That was the sucky part about my job. I never knew if it was going to be a ‘lean’ week or a ‘let’s buy all the things’ week. If I were a smart woman, I’d stock up the big tips for times like this, but I was always so deprived of fundamental things like razors, bras, and tampons, that when I had the money, I went a little hog wild. It was a pattern I knew I needed to change. I should be more like Liam. He had gobs of money saved up. Hell, he could buy that house Angel suggested. Why the hell did he stay in this dump? I didn’t buy for a second that he loved the ‘energy’ of the city. Liam was an introvert. And let’s be real, probably on the spectrum. The only time he went out was when I dragged him kicking and screaming. There was no good reason for him to be in this apartment outside of the fact that he didn’t deal with change well. That was the real reason he stayed here. The change would be too overwhelming for him.

  When I got to the kitchen, I saw that he’d made coffee for me.

  “Bless you, Liam.” If I couldn’t have a burger, coffee would be a good start.

  When I opened the cupboard for a cup there was another sign.

  -Drink me. -

  “Ha, ha. Very funny.” I swiped the note in my hand but grinned just the same. Maybe I hadn’t lost my best friend after all? Maybe we’d be able to get past my colossal line-crossing? Hell, maybe he didn’t even notice I’d fallen for him? I closed my eyes and pressed the note against my chest. I really hoped so. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to live in a world without Liam. For better or worse, and this moment in time was definitely worse, I needed him.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee then opened his fridge to steal his creamer and begin the hunt for munchies.

  Inside was another note.

  -Eat nothing. I’ll be back with your lunch soon. -

  “Lunch? What the hell time is it?” I turned around to look at the clock on the microwave. It was almost eleven. Why wasn’t he at work? It was Monday. He only took the week off, didn’t he? I needed to see if he’d texted me. Maybe he took another day?

  I looked around for my phone, and found it on his kitchen table, charging. I hadn’t put that there. He must have gone to my place to find my phone and charger. The thoughtful little shit.

  Snatching my phone, I hopped up on his counter and turned it on. The second it connected with his Wi-Fi; my notifications went bonkers.

  The first one was from Liam.

  -Hey, where are you? I got out of the shower and you were gone. -

  That was the message Liam sent last night. I felt a pull of guilt just as another one came through:

  -I don’t think I can do it. I can see the restaurant…but I don’t know if I can go through with it. Chloe, where are you? -

  My heart stopped. He was texting ME when he stopped at the light? Shit. He needed me. And I let him down.

  “I’m so sorry, Liam.”

  Another notification.

  -She just went to the bathroom. She’s already shoved her tongue in my mouth. I…I didn’t like it. Why didn’t I like it, Chloe? I was supposed to like it…You have to get me out of this. -

  Wait. He wasn’t having a good time on his date?

  -Chloe, we’re on our way back to the apartment. I don’t know how to get rid of her. She is glued to me. Nothing I say seems to be working to get rid of her. Please be home when we get there. I need you Chloe. Please. -

  He needed me?

  Just then, the door opened. Liam was dripping wet. He was soaked head to toe. I glanced out the window and noticed that it was raining. It wasn’t like him to go outside without checking the weather first. He hated the feeling of rain against his skin. Sensory thing. It was a great look for him though. I resisted the urge to appreciate how beautiful he looked when wet. I had to remember that we were only friends. Friends didn’t drool over each other.

  “Where’s your umbrella?” I asked.

  “I left it at your place.”

  When he was defending me against Damon.

  I ran into his bathroom and grabbed a towel to help him dry off. When I came back, he had taken his coat off revealing a take-out bag.

  “Double cheeseburger, extra bacon, no pickle. I wasn’t sure if you want fries too, so I got some just to be safe.” He held the bag out to me.

  I looked at the bag which he had protected from the elements with his jacket. The smell of the grease made m
y stomach rumble in delight.

  “You got me a burger?”

  “It’s what you like for a hangover, isn’t it?” A look of worry spread across his face, as though he had made some great mistake.

  “It’s perfect. I just, I just… No one’s ever done that for me before.”

  He took the towel from my hand to dry off his hair. “No one’s ever bought a burger for you before?”

  I shook my head. “No. No one’s ever paid attention enough to know just what I need.”

  Looking up at him, I knew what I needed. I needed Liam. I needed every aspect of him. How was I possibly going to just be his friend knowing the depth of how I felt for him? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Tears trickled down from the corners of my eyes.

  “Chloe, what’s wrong?”

  I walked over to the kitchen, tossed the bag onto the counter, and placed my hands along the edge, bracing myself for what I was about to say. My back was to Liam because I couldn’t look him in the eye for this.

  “I fucked up, Liam. I think we both know it, too.”

  “Don’t worry about last night, I know you were drunk…”

  “It’s not just about last night,” I said, stopping him. “I started way before that.” I took a deep breath in and let it out quickly. “I offered to help with your problem with Angel and somewhere along the way…I got confused. I couldn’t remember the rules anymore. I lost where the lines of our friendship ended, and my stupidity began.”

  “Stupidity? Chloe, what are you talking about?” Liam said taking a step closer to me. I could smell his cologne and it sent shivers down my body, so I held up my hand to stop his approach.

  “That’s close enough, Liam,” I said. “This is what I’m talking about. A week ago, I wouldn’t have been phased in the least if you smiled at me or gave me a hug. But now…”

  “Now what?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Now it means something more. And that is where I fucked up. Somewhere in these practice kisses I forgot that I was just a place card for Angel. I wasn’t the woman you wanted to be kissing. I knew that. I knew that, but my heart fooled me. It convinced me that those kisses meant more to you. That I meant more to you.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and the sound of the rain against the window felt like daggers to my heart.

  “I see,” he said.

  I do, too. I see what a fool I had been.

  I turned around to face the music. The truth was out. All that was left to do, was to walk away.

  “I screwed up our friendship, Liam. And for that, I am truly sorry. I had thought for one hot minute that I could shove my feelings for you aside and just go back to the way things were, but I realized I can’t do that. I would constantly be second-guessing every kind gesture you did as a friend into thinking it was something more. Like you cleaning up after me this morning or leaving these notes. Those simple things I would take out of context and think you did them because you cared about me as more than a friend, too. But sometimes a burger is just a burger.”

  With tears clouding my vision, I pushed past him. I had to escape. I wanted to crawl out of my skin and hide myself away from this ache encasing my heart. I had to leave the city, even. Maybe to find my friend in Alaska. Maybe that would be far enough away from Liam to make it stop hurting.

  My hand was on the door when Liam spoke.

  “You’re right, Chloe. You did screw up our friendship.”

  I wasn’t certain my chest could get any more painful, but it did. I nearly doubled over.

  “But,” he continued, “I’m to blame, too.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said.

  He came up behind me. He placed his hand on mine, and together our hands closed his apartment door. He turned me around gently to look at me. It was everything I could do to maintain eye contact.

  “There were countless times I could have stopped the lessons, Chloe. Hell, after our very first kiss, I should’ve pulled the plug. I might not know much about relationships, but I knew what we were doing was skirting the line of inappropriate behavior.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it, then?”

  “Because I didn’t want to. Don’t you understand, Chloe? I didn’t want to end our friendship, but I also couldn’t seem to stop myself from…enjoying the lessons.”

  “Well, that’s just a biological side effect of kissing, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes. So you told me. Which is precisely why I decided to keep the date with Angel. It was an experiment. If the hypothesis was correct, kissing Angel should have exceeded my kisses with you. If she were my soulmate, I should have been able to tell that from her kiss. My heart and my biological need to procreate would be joined in one.”

  The boy had a way with words, didn’t he?

  “And what was your conclusion?” I asked, getting ready to have him dash all hope he inadvertently stirred in me.

  He smiled at me and tucked a bit of hair around my ear.

  “When I kissed Angel, or rather when she kissed me, I felt…nothing. Well, that’s not true. I felt disgusted. It felt wrong. Like I was cheating on the woman I loved.”

  “Oh.” I found my legs again and stood taller. “That’s a bit of a hiccup to your hypothesis. So, what’s the conclusion? How does the experiment end?”

  His thumb ran along my jawline, a move I hadn’t taught him, and I fought not to melt against his touch.

  “It means we have to close the door on our friendship.”

  Right. Of course. I held my chin up so he wouldn’t see how much those words cut into me.

  “That’s probably the best.” My chin trembled as I spoke, betraying the emotion lying just beneath the surface.

  “Chloe, don’t you know that when one door closes, another opens?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s always another new door for me to open. Aren’t I lucky?”

  “I’m not being clear, apparently.” He tried again. “I’m closing the door on our friendship, only so I can open it for something bigger. I think we are more than friends now. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I blinked at him through the tears.

  “What are you saying, Liam?” I asked, not sure if I was hearing him correctly, or if it was just me willing his words to mean what I wanted.

  “You were wrong, Chloe. You weren’t the only one who blurred lines. It wasn’t just hormones. I feel something for you. You. Despite how many times you told me to imagine Angel in our practice sessions, I never saw her. I only saw you. Not just your lips, or your body. Something deeper than physical lust. I don’t quite know how to process it all, this is all so new to me. I just know that I can’t let you walk out that door thinking that I don’t want to kiss you, because I do. Very much.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes. I want you to be my girlfriend, not my girl friend.”

  My tears ran down my cheeks.

  “Why are you still crying? I thought this would make you happy?” Liam asked nervously.

  “I’m crying because I’m happy, goofus.”

  “Ah. I have much to learn about women still, don’t I?”

  “Yes, you do. But I will happily teach you. That’s what girlfriends are for,” I said.

  He cupped my face pulled me up to meet his lips in a brief kiss.

  “One hundred,” he whispered.

  I gaped up at him, stunned.

  “Have you seriously been counting?”

  Nodding, he looped his arms around my waist. “I have a really good memory, Chloe. I remember every single one of those kisses. Every lesson you taught me, is locked in.” He smiled. “It’s actually why I stopped kissing you that last time when you were on my counter. We were at 99 and…I didn’t want to be done with the lessons. I couldn’t tell you that because I didn’t think you liked me in that way. I kept reminding myself that we were just friends.”

  More tears followed, and he wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.

  “So, we we
re both pretty stupid, then?” I said.

  “Complete and utter imbeciles.”

  I bit my lip and stood on my tip toes to kiss him, but Liam held me back.

  “I have to warn you, Chloe, now that I am an expert level kisser, you may be in for a very long day.”

  “Well, I have to work tonight, so we better get started.”

  “Work, shmerk. You can call in dead. You’re mine now,” he said.

  “I am more than okay with that,” I laughed through the disbelief that this was really happening. Somehow, we had become ‘a friends to lovers’ story. A tale we might get to tell our own children one day. The future didn’t matter, though. Only this. This most perfect of moments.

  And with that, we came together for kiss number 101.

  ***

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  TURN THE PAGE TO READ CHAPERTER 1 OF

  THE SECOND 100 KISSES

  THE SECOND 100 KISSES

  Chapter 1

  Rom-com movies eat this type of shit up: a friends-to-lovers story. How adorable, right? Well, that was exactly what had happened between me and my bestie, Liam. For seven years we’d lived as neighbors in the same apartment complex. We grew close and became confidants because there was never anything sexual between us. It had been perfectly platonic; like having a brother who lived next door. And we’d probably still be just besties if Liam hadn’t asked me for help practicing his kissing skills recently for an upcoming date. That was when things got blurry. Well, not just blurry, downright hot and heavy. But that was a whole other story. Literally.

  The last twenty-four hours since Liam and I expressed our mutual feelings for each other had been a rollercoaster of heartbreak to hope, then finally a level of happiness I’d never known before. Bliss. That was what I was feeling yesterday. Pure and perfect bliss.