by Amanda Abram
With the love of her life.
My best friend.
I would be redeemed.
Awesome.
“Oh really?” she said, clearly intrigued. “What do you have planned?”
“You’ll just have to wait and be surprised,” I replied with a grin. A grin that felt too big for my face.
We fell into a silence then, and I racked my brain trying to come up with something to talk about. But I couldn’t. All I kept thinking about was the bombshell Matt had dropped on me earlier. How he wanted to ask Emma on a date. I still hadn’t decided if I should tell her about it. The angel on my right shoulder told me I should. The devil on my left shoulder told me to keep quiet and hope that what I’d said to Matt earlier was enough to keep him from asking her out.
But that’s not what I wanted. I wanted Matt to ask her out. That was the whole point of all of this. Why wouldn’t I want them to get together? It was what she wanted. It was apparently what he wanted now as well. The only other way this could have worked out this perfectly was if I had just paid him to ask her out and skipped all the stuff in between. Like getting to know Emma a little better and realizing she wasn’t so bad after all…
“Can I ask you something?” I said. I figured if I spoke, I wouldn’t think. Thinking wasn’t something I wanted to do at the moment.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, glancing at me curiously.
I stared ahead at the view in front of us. The sun was setting fast, casting a blanket of dusk over us. “If Matt were to ask you out, say tomorrow, do you think you’d be ready?”
“Ready?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you think you’d be ready to date him? Do you think you’d feel comfortable around him, talking to him, doing…other things with him?”
She considered it for a moment. “I think so. I’m not as shy and flustered around him as I used to be. I didn’t have too much trouble talking to him the other night during mini golf. I think I’ve made some progress. Thanks to you.”
“I’ve barely done anything,” I mumbled, tracing the steering wheel with my finger.
“That’s not true,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve definitely helped get me out of my shell. Because of you, I’m willing to try new things. Do new things. I think I’d be fine around him.” She glanced down at her hands resting in her lap. “Although, I’ll be perfectly honest with you: I’m still terrified at the thought of kissing him.”
I swiveled my head in her direction. “Why is that?”
She glanced over at me with an expression that indicated she felt I should already know the answer.
“I’ve never kissed anyone, remember?” She looked away again. “What if I’m…you know…bad at it?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You won’t be bad at it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t. I’m just assuming. But even if you were terrible at it, Matt wouldn’t hold it against you. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“It doesn’t matter, I’m still going to embarrass myself.” She sighed heavily and rested her head against the window next to her. “You even said it yourself, remember?”
I did remember. I’d teased her about this on a couple of occasions over the last two weeks. I’d put the idea into her head that she might be bad at kissing. I told her she’d want to get her first one out of the way. I’d even joked that I could help her practice.
I’d been a jerk and had given her a complex about the whole thing, and now she was convinced her first kiss was going to be a disaster. And there was nothing I could do to assure her that everything would be fine. That she’d be fine. That is, other than…
I swallowed hard. No. No way. I wasn’t going to offer her my services. That would be weird. And…bad. Very bad, in every way.
Not that she would take me up on it, anyway. I was pretty sure I was the last guy in the world she wanted to kiss.
But it probably would help her to practice with somebody. No amount of reading how-to magazine articles or practicing on her hand or a pillow was going to prepare her for the real thing. I’d just be helping her out, nothing more. I’d be doing a good deed. A selfless deed.
“I’ll kiss you,” I blurted out before I had a chance to finish thinking the whole thing through.
She whipped her head in my direction and stared at me with wide eyes. “What?”
I silently berated myself for saying it. Why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut? It’s like I had no control over what I said anymore. Words just fell out of my mouth with reckless abandon these days.
“I’ll kiss you,” I foolishly repeated. I had the perfect opportunity to backtrack, to pretend I hadn’t said what she thought I’d said, but I didn’t.
Why didn’t I?
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Ha-ha, Logan, very funny.”
“No, I’m serious.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned toward her. “I could kiss you and tell you if you’re bad at it. And if you are, I can help you.”
She studied my face for a moment with an unreadable expression. “That wouldn’t…I mean, that’s not…w-we can’t…what if—”
I’d broken her.
“Emma,” I said softly, placing my hand along the side of her face and looking her straight in the eye. “It’s no big deal. It’ll just be a kiss. An educational one. A learning experience. Nothing more.”
“But,” she said, lowering her gaze from mine, “I want my first kiss to be special.”
And it wouldn’t be special with me.
“I know, and your first real kiss—with Matt—will be special. This will just be a practice kiss. You don’t have to count this one.”
What was I doing? Why was I trying so hard to convince her to kiss me? Why did I care whether she embarrassed herself with Matt or not? None of this made any sense to me.
But she was considering it. I could tell by the way she nibbled nervously on her bottom lip, the way she was suddenly looking at everything around us but me. When she finally returned her eyes to mine, she said, “Just a simple, quick kiss?”
I didn’t know how much she could learn from that, but I shrugged and said, “Sure. Whatever you want.”
She slowly began to nod. “Okay, then. Let’s do it.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “For real?”
“Yeah, for real.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved closer to me. “Just promise me you’ll be honest, okay? If I’m bad, I want to know.”
My pulse quickened as I moved my hand from her face to the back of her neck. “Are you sure? I don’t want to—”
“Logan,” she interrupted, “just kiss me.” Her voice was urgent, like she wanted to get this over with before she had a change of heart. Before she realized how stupid this was.
We couldn’t kiss each other. That would be weird. Even if it was just for educational purposes. People shouldn’t kiss other people they didn’t have feelings for, unless they were actors and getting paid millions of dollars to do so. So why was I slowly leaning toward her? Why was she leaning toward me?
I had a sudden flashback to the other night. This wasn’t the first time we were being drawn to one another, but the only difference now was that there’d be no interruption. No Dad or Rachel to unknowingly stop us from making a terrible mistake. Only we could stop ourselves now.
But we didn’t.
At the very last second, when she closed her eyes and I closed mine, I almost pulled away. I almost put a stop to it. But she needed my help. I couldn’t let her down. Not now.
So, I didn’t stop it. Instead, I let my lips brush lightly against hers. At first, she stayed perfectly still, and I was afraid she might have changed her mind a little too late. But then she relaxed. We both did, and I took the opportunity to press my mouth firmly against hers in a simple, quick kiss.
But something was wrong. That simple, quick kiss felt strange. Foreign. I couldn’t explain it, but it instantly sent me into panic mode.
&nb
sp; I yanked myself away from her and returned to my side of the vehicle, letting my head fall against the headrest as I struggled to calm myself down.
I could feel her eyes on me, but I didn’t dare to look at her. I was afraid if I did, I might…
No. I wouldn’t kiss her again. Once was enough. More than enough. That wouldn’t happen again.
“So…” Emma’s shaky voice trailed off. She wanted to ask me how it was, I could tell. But she was either too shy to, or she just didn’t want to hear my answer.
I didn’t make her ask the question. “You were fine,” I said, my voice strained. “It was fine.”
“Oh.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice, and from the corner of my eye, I could see her deflate beside me. “Fine” was probably not the term girls liked to hear describe their kissing ability, but I didn’t know what else to say. The kiss was simple. It was quick.
It was fine.
“I want to try again,” she said in a small but confident voice.
I turned to look at her. “What? No, you don’t need to try again. Like I said, you were fine.”
“That was barely a kiss,” she said, sitting up straight. “Matt’s not going to kiss me like that. That’s how you would kiss a relative or a friend. I need to know how to really kiss.”
A feeling of dread pooled in my stomach. “Emma—”
“You said if I was bad at it, you’d help me. So, help me!”
“You weren’t bad at it. I said you were—”
“‘Fine’, yeah, I know. I heard you.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. When she reopened them, they were wide and pleading.
“Logan.” She reached over and placed a hand on the center of my chest. “Please.”
I inhaled sharply at her touch…at the fact she was practically begging me to kiss her. Emma Dawson, the girl who’d always claimed she hated me more than anything else in the world, wanted me to kiss her. Again.
And I wanted to.
So. Bad.
But just to help her. To teach her. To guide her. To show her there was nothing to worry about.
“Okay, but—” I started to say, but I was interrupted by Emma leaning forward, grabbing my face with her hands, pulling me toward her and pressing her lips against mine.
It was a bold and unexpected move. I didn’t know she had it in her. I was shocked—so shocked that I immediately froze, not knowing what was happening, or what I should do.
The kiss was already different this time. No hesitation. No reluctance. Her mouth was on mine, taking possession. Control.
And I came completely undone. It took only a few, brief seconds before my lips melted and molded to hers. It was a perfect fit, like our mouths were specifically designed for one another. For this very moment.
I moved closer to her, silently thanking myself for taking the truck instead of the Mustang; it had a bench seat, so there was no pesky console between us getting in the way. She moved closer too, and I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her as close to me as I possibly could.
But it still wasn’t close enough.
My mind was afire with all sorts of thoughts. Thoughts like, I was stealing her first kiss. The one she’d waited for and dreamed about her whole life. The one reserved for Matt, my best friend.
My best friend.
Emma was just days—maybe hours—away from becoming my best friend’s girl, and here I was, kissing her in the front seat of my dad’s truck…at Lover’s Lookout. What kind of best friend does that? And she didn’t even know he was going to ask her out. If she’d known, if I’d told her, she probably wouldn’t be kissing me. She would have saved this special moment for him. Not me.
I was a terrible person. A terrible friend. Because even those thoughts weren’t enough to make me break away from this. Instead, I was grabbing a fistful of her hair, tilting her head and deepening the kiss. Putting everything I had into it. If I was going to steal her first kiss, I was at least going to make it worth it for her.
But the most disturbing thoughts rolling around in my head had nothing to do with Matt, but with Emma herself. About how soft and warm her lips were, and how they tasted like strawberries. How smooth and silky her hair felt laced through my fingers. How this didn’t feel at all like a first kiss for her, because she wasn’t bad. She wasn’t even just fine.
She was…
She was…
My mind went blank. I’d shut off all thoughts. They were too distracting, taking me out of the moment. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to feel.
For a moment, we broke apart. To catch our breath, or maybe to end whatever this had turned into. But as soon as our eyes flew open and met, I was hit with a revelation so earth shattering, it nearly knocked the wind out of me.
I didn’t want it to end. Whatever this was, I wanted more of it. It had nothing to do with wanting to help her out. We’d gone way beyond that point.
I just wanted her.
She must have felt it too because our gaze lasted no more than a second or two before our lips connected again, this time with an urgency so intense I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded inside my ribcage, threatening to rip out of my chest at any moment. She was making me nervous. No girl had ever made me nervous before. Not Grace. Not Riley. No one.
Just Emma.
And that’s when I knew this was wrong. This was no longer a practice kiss, it was something else. Something I didn’t understand—because it didn’t feel like it was being controlled by lust or hormones.
It was something I’d never felt before.
So, I ended it. I broke the kiss and shot back in my seat so forcefully my head almost hit the window.
As I struggled to catch my breath, I stared out the windshield in shock. The fireworks had already started, and I hadn’t even noticed. Hadn’t even heard the explosions until now.
I snuck a glance over at Emma—her eyes wide, lips swollen, hair tousled, chest heaving—and saw she was just as surprised about the fireworks as I was.
I knew I had to say something. One of us had to address what had just happened, and something told me it wasn’t going to be her. She’d be waiting for feedback.
“That was, um…” I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel. “Better.”
She turned to look at me with devastated eyes. Apparently “better” was no better than “fine”, so I was going to have to elaborate.
“Sorry, what I meant to say was that you have nothing to worry about. Trust me. That was…you were…”
She watched me, waiting for me to finish the sentence, but I had no plans to. I couldn’t tell her what I’d truly thought about the kiss. It would have sent her running and screaming from the truck.
Instead, I said the very next thing that popped into my head.
“He’s going to ask you out.” My words cut through the silence like a knife and I wished instantly that I could take them back.
She blinked and turned to me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Matt,” I said. I couldn’t look at her, so I kept my eyes focused on the fireworks. “He’s going to ask you out. He told me this afternoon.”
I glanced back just in time to see her jaw drop. “W-what? Are you serious?”
I nodded slowly and lowered my gaze to my lap. “He thinks you’re cool and he wants to go on a date with you.” I paused and glanced over at her. “How does that make you feel?”
Her mouth clamped shut for a moment as she stared ahead. “Confused,” she said softly, but then shook her head and said, “I mean, I’m just surprised. I didn’t think it would happen this fast. Or at all.”
I forced a grin onto my face and reached over and nudged her shoulder with my hand. “What did I tell you, Dawson? I know what I’m doing.”
But that was a lie. I didn’t know what I was doing. I could still taste the lingering flavor of strawberry lip gloss on my tongue and it made me want to pull her against me and kiss her again, to pick up right where we’d just left off.
To…
I placed my hands on the steering wheel and gripped it so tightly my knuckles turned white.
I needed some air.
Opening my door, I exited the vehicle as quickly as I could, walked around to the front and leaned against the bumper. Emma followed suit and joined me just a few seconds later.
“This is a really nice view,” she said quietly.
“It is,” I agreed with a nod.
“Logan…” she began to say but then stopped herself.
I glanced sideways at her. “What?”
She ran a hand through her hair and stared down at the ground, where she was kicking at the dirt with her shoe.
“Do you…” She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. “Do you think Matt and I would be good together?”
No, I don’t. “Yeah, I do.”
“Really?” Her eyes searched my face, looking for any indication I might be lying.
But she didn’t find any. I made sure of that.
“Matt’s a great guy. He’ll treat you right.” I could feel a muscle in my jaw contract as I clenched my teeth. “You’ll be perfect together.”
She gave me a smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you, Logan. For everything.” She slid her arm around my back and leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder.
I breathed in the intoxicating scent of her apple shampoo and my heart sank inside my chest.
Something didn’t feel right. I should have been happy. Happy for Emma. Happy for Matt. Happy for myself. But I wasn’t.
I was miserable.
And I knew why.
I was falling for Emma.
And I was about to lose her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
EMMA
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
As I paced the floor of my bedroom, I held my cell phone in one hand, and chewed nervously on the nails of my other one.
Where the heck were Chloe and Sophia? Why weren’t they calling me back? I’d left them voicemails, telling them there was an emergency, and that they needed to call me immediately. It wasn’t that late, so I was sure they weren’t asleep yet—especially since it was the 4th of July. They were probably out celebrating, completely ignorant to the fact their best friend was about to have a total freak-out.