The Art of French Kissing

by Brianna Shrum

  “I didn’t want to kiss you on day one.”

  “No? Well how about day two? Or day three? Or day twenty-seven? Because I don’t see anything that has changed here except we were forced to be on a team, but beyond that, it’s been just complete Dicksville on your end.”

  He scoffs and leaves to turn the nabe down to simmer.

  “That’s rich coming from you,” he says.

  “No, you don’t get to turn this all around on me.”

  “I’m not. I’m saying I’m not the only asshole around here. I’m sorry I wanted to kiss you, but this hasn’t been me just picking on poor, helpless Carter from the first minute, and I’m not trying to say that I like, pulled your hair on the playground because I liked you. I did it because you were competition, and you played back hard.”

  “So that makes me the bad guy?”

  “No, it makes you equally as assholey as me. We’re the same, princess.”

  “Oh my god, with the princess stuff.”

  “Tell me you want me to stop saying it and I’ll stop.”

  He takes a step toward me and anger is steaming off him, and it’s rolling right off me in waves, and I’m pretty sure—yes, I think it’s anger. I think I want to hit him. Right in that chest that’s inches away from me. Knock him off balance.

  I want him just completely off kilter because of me.

  I move to hit him in the arm. Hard.

  He catches my wrist.

  Looks right down at me, locks me in place. The edge of the countertop is digging into my spine and heat is still pouring off me, but I’m not totally sure it comes from wanting to smash his face in.

  I certainly don’t think that’s what he wants to do to mine.

  He just looks. Mouth set. Jaw hard.

  And I don’t know what I’m doing until I’ve done it. Until I’ve already gotten up on my tiptoes and slipped a little at the top and landed this little nothing of a kiss on the very edge of his mouth.

  I fall back to my ankles, still looking at him like I want to kill him.

  His fingers are still wrapped around my wrist.

  His lips part, just the tiniest bit.

  Then his hands are both at my waist, fingers strong around it, and he’s lifting me up on the counter. And he’s kissing me.

  It feels like we’re fighting, feels like no one I’ve ever kissed.

  Feels like I’ll never be able to think straight again, and maybe I’m not interested in that anyway. I definitely can’t think now, with Reid’s tongue slipping between my teeth, his hips resting between my knees, at my thighs, teeth scraping over my lip.

  One of my hands is sliding up into his hair and the other links in his belt loop, yanking him into me.

  He loses his balance and I smile against his mouth. “Weak in the knees?” I say.

  He looks down at me, just this side of predatory, and smirks when he laughs. “Sure.” He kisses me again, deep and slow, and what the hell, what the hell are we doing? I don’t care.

  I don’t care.

  I’m too busy being breathless to care.

  I reach around his back to untie the apron, and the rope gets caught for a second on his neck, the top loop, but I don’t care.

  It drops to the floor.

  Then his hand is slipping up around the back of my neck, thumb grazing my throat and my ear and my jaw. His other hand is staying there, right at my hip, playing lazily over my skin.

  I’m tugging him into me because I want to be pressed against him.

  I can’t believe I’m saying this.

  He makes this almost desperate noise in the back of his throat. Reid Yamada. Desperate. Over me.

  He tightens his fingers at my waist, and the ones on my neck curl in my hair, and I knock my head against the cabinet and he says, “SHIT I’m sorry,” and I say, “It doesn’t matter,” even though to be honest it kind of matters—my head hurts. We make out until I take a half a second to breathe and say, “Oh. The nabe!”

  Reid swallows hard, voice hoarse. “Yeah. Yeah, the nabe. What was I thinking cooking for you when we could have been doing this?”

  “That you wanted to impress me.”

  Reid pulls back. He looks out of breath. Disheveled. Upside down. The way I feel. It’s surreal. He finds the presence of mind to smirk and say, “Did it work?”

  “You mean am I impressed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jury’s out,” I say.

  He laughs. Really hard.

  “I mean, I haven’t tried the nabe.”

  Reid leans back against the island in front of me, looks up at the ceiling, and blows out a breath.

  “Yeah. Well. Let’s, uh. God—sorry.”

  A smile curls my mouth and I slide off the counter. For once, I think maybe I actually look like the put together one.

  I pick up the donabe with oven mitts, then set it down on another mitt, right in the middle of the floor between the judge’s table and the kitchen.

  “Bring bowls,” I say.

  It takes him way too long to bring them. Bowls, spoons. He sits cross-legged on the other side of the pot.

  “Are we cool?” he says. His eyes are still half-glazed, his hair all messed up, and he wants me so badly to answer a certain way. I’m a little high on the power of all of it.

  I’m a little high on Reid.

  Kissing is great.

  Making out is great.

  It’s all great.

  “Wait until I taste this nabe,” I say.

  He gives me a completely nonplussed look.

  “But,” I say primly, filling my bowl, “outlook is good. You have above average knowledge of what to do with your hands.”

  Reid laughs.

  I smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I wake up panicking.

  Just.

  Panicking.

  I know what Reid’s mouth tastes like and oh my lord, Reid knows what mine tastes like, and let’s be real, that’s a lot to know about a person. It’s TOO MUCH to know about a person.

  I am just blinking up at the ceiling.

  Blinking and blinking and blinking.

  Riya is already up, in the shower, and when she comes out, wrapped in a towel, I blurt out, “Did you know Reid chews cinnamon gum?”

  Riya blinks. “I . . . I did not.”

  “I hate cinnamon gum.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Once, I chewed too much of it and it blistered my mouth. Can you believe that? Gum. Blistered my mouth!”

  Riya says, “Carter.”

  I say, “Gum should be mint.”

  “Carter. Are you about to have a complete breakdown?”

  “Wintergreen or spearmint, specifically. Peppermint burns my mouth, too.”

  Riya has her arms folded across her chest and she throws out, “Did Reid’s cinnamon gum burn you?”

  I say, “No, Reid’s cinnamon-gum-flavored mouth burned me oh my god what did I do?”

  My face is in my hands, which is a shame, because I miss Riya’s facial expression when she makes the most strangled, surprised laugh sound. “Excuse me?”

  I peek through my fingers. “I kissed Reid.”

  “Wait, I need to have clothes on. Wait.” She snags a shirt and shorts and runs back into the bathroom in a change that probably sets some kind of world record for speed. “GO.”

  “Well. He made me food. More food. After the macarons.”

  Riya’s eyes morph into actual hearts.

  “And then I told him I hated him, basically, because how dare he want to kiss me, and then I kissed him.”

  “With tongue?”

  “NO.” I amend, “No. I didn’t . . . I didn’t use tongue when . . . when I kissed him.”

  Riya cackles. “So he kissed you. With tongue.”

  I can’t not smile so I say, “On the kitchen counter.”

  “CARTER.”

  “I DON’T KNOW.”

  “Why do you look like you’re in a complete panic?
”

  I shrug. “Because I’m not sure how to deal with this. We hate each other.”

  Riya says, “Yeah, obviously.” Rolls her eyes.

  “But now it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

  Riya smooths her hand over her bedspread. “For what it’s worth, he’s . . . he’s liked you for a while.”

  I furrow my brow.

  “He told Will. Like, weeks ago.”

  I squeal, “What? And you didn’t tell me?” I throw a pillow at her and she catches it.

  “Wasn’t my secret to tell. It’s just, I think he really does like you. Like you. Not just . . . making out with you in the kitchen. Not from what he said to Will.”

  “What did he say to Will?”

  She says, “Can’t tell you that. Just—he likes you. And you . . .I mean, it seems pretty clear you like him; you’ve basically been obsessed with him since you showed up here.”

  “I HAVEN’T BEEN—obsessed. With him.” My voice gets smaller as the protest goes on because she’s right.

  I like him.

  I’ve been liking him and I’m so mad about it, but I do.

  I sigh heavily.

  When it’s time to go down for breakfast, Riya keeps her eyes on me. Probably wondering what I’m gonna do, if I’m gonna just break down right here or tackle Reid to the floor and make out with him right in the middle of the caf.

  I don’t do either of those things.

  I walk in, get my tray. The cafeteria is pretty empty now, with just eight of us left.

  Andrew, Addie, Reid, Will, Riya, Tess, her teammate, whom I have since learned is named Katie, and me.

  I can’t blend in; there’s not enough bodies to get lost in the midst of. Reid looks at me from across the room, and I look back. He starts to smile.

  I walk off.

  I’m sitting by the river, throwing rocks into it. Thinking. Trying not to think. It’s just all surprising and it’s all a lot and I don’t do well with things that are either. Both is really throwing me for a loop.

  Seeing him in there was like a shot of lightning cracking through my sternum. Suddenly I was back in that kitchen, his hands on me, mouth doing these freaking magical things, bumping my head because the boy can kiss but he’s a teenage boy and he’s clumsy, and all these things that I am terrified to want.

  I am terrified to want any of this.

  Especially since it’s all going to end anyway.

  I was terrified to apply in the first place; Em had to sit beside me while I wrote the essay for hours, then actually click the mouse to get me to hit Send on the application.

  I was terrified to open the letter.

  Now I’m terrified to want to win, because wanting is just this side of hoping, and wanting things is stupid, because most things I want, I do not get, and that’s been okay. It’s been okay. And I want this. Dammit. I do.

  I’m terrified to want Reid—this sharp, beautiful boy with wit that matches mine, who respects me in this weird way, enough to fight against me, enough to spend all summer thinking about me. Who like . . . trusts me and kisses me like I swear no one has ever kissed me, not even a boy in a basement watching Donnie Darko. I feel like . . . okay, it’s a summer thing. And we’re going to part ways and he’s going to completely forget about me, but if I let myself fall, I won’t forget. And it will just be all this crushing, stupid disappointment I could have avoided by never wanting him in the first place.

  How was I so stupid?

  Isn’t wanting one impossible thing at a time enough?

  I brush my hand over my pocket. I’ve had a text from Em waiting on Read for an hour; she’s been grilling me about the macarons and the kiss and what’s happening over here—didn’t we hate Reid? But I don’t even know how to answer. All of a sudden, everything just feels too big.

  The grass rustles beside me and a shadow falls over it. I don’t need to look to know it’s Reid; I recognize what it feels like just existing in his periphery.

  “How’d you find me?” I say.

  “Lucky guess.”

  I look over at him.

  He shrugs. “Okay. I checked the dorm, and then you weren’t there, so I jogged the quad, and my next stop was the river.”

  I’m looking at the water when I say, “Where were you gonna go if I wasn’t here?”

  He says, “Kitchens. But I didn’t have high hopes.” It’s quiet for a minute, then he says, “What are ya doing out here, Lane?”

  “Nothing. Thinking.”

  “Nothing or thinking?”

  “Freaking out,” I say.

  “Ah. Yeah I thought I recognized the panic.” He shifts a little closer to me, and his voice is so gentle that it’s a surprise. Like I have HANDLE WITH CARE stamped across my forehead. “Wanna elaborate or leave me in the dark?”

  “I don’t know how to elaborate.”

  “Is it . . .” He takes a deep breath. “Is it me?”

  I don’t say anything.

  He says, “Okay. I can go.”

  “Don’t go,” I say. I don’t know why; I thought I wanted him to.

  He pauses. Looks at me. I can feel his gaze at the side of my face. “Then I’ll stay.” That quiet again. I don’t know what to say. “I like you, princess,” he says, and oh no, oh no, I guess I’m crying.

  He doesn’t ask me why, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s one of those guys who’s terrified of girls crying, but I don’t think that’s it.

  Because he doesn’t ask, but he slides his arm around my shoulders and pulls me over into him so my legs are draped across his lap and my head is resting between his neck and shoulder. I say, “This is embarrassing.”

  He says, “I could start crying if you want.”

  I hit him, and his hand darts up to press my wrist where it landed on his chest. “I don’t know how to deal with this,” I say.

  “With what?” He says it, and his voice rumbles in my hair.

  Reid is not my therapist. I’m not going to sit here, cradled against this guy I didn’t even know I liked—well, didn’t acknowledge I liked, until like yesterday—and go through my deepest, darkest psychological issues.

  “I’m freaked out.”

  “What freaks you out?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” He sounds surprised, and so I clarify.

  “Not . . . not you. I’m not scared of you. I just like you and you’re going to leave and I’m going to leave and then we like each other and we’re both sad and we forget each other.” Or at least I’m sad. And I’m scared to want someone like you at all. This person who commands all the attention in any room, and who walks through the world like it will move for him if he needs it to. How does a person like that not just keep walking on and detach themselves from you? From everything. And how does a person like me get to want and possibly have someone like that?

  “Hey,” he says. I feel the word vibrating from his chest out into my cheek and I pull back and look up. “I don’t know what makes you think I’m going to just . . . forget you when I walk out of here. Or like, I don’t know, is there a rule that says once this is over, everything that happened here is, too? What happens in Savannah stays in Savannah?”

  I furrow my brow. I’m not crying now, which is good. It affords me the opportunity to speak. “No.” I don’t take as much advantage of that opportunity as perhaps I should.

  “What if we just did whatever it is we’re gonna do here? And then just . . . let the rest of everything happen—whatever that is? However it wants to happen.”

  I almost laugh, because it does not work that way for me. Maybe for him, who has made cocky and confident and go-with-the-flow a part of his soul, basically. But apart from at the skillet, I don’t remember the last time I let things just happen. Because my brain is mapping out all the reasons it won’t and how to prepare for those eventualities, which sometimes feel more like certainties. “I thought you said you had anxiety,” I say.

  “Social.”

&
nbsp; “Well this is social.”

  “You’re welcome to join me in the aftermath. I have a great two to four a.m. planned in which I will freak the hell out about all of it. And to try to decide if pulling you onto my lap was too much, and if I made you nervous and oh god oh god did I make her cry? Is that okay? And what if I like her more than she likes me, and oh no why did I admit that during my whole anxiety rant, great, I probably chased her away, way to go, self.”

  I blink.

  “Standing invitation,” he says. “But I’m fine right now.”

  “I don’t get how you can do that,” I say.

  “And I don’t get how you can just deal with all of this right here right now and not be kept up with thoughts about it later. Maybe we can trade brains for the night, see how that goes.”

  I smile and he slips his fingers over my jaw, laces them over my ear.

  “I don’t know what you want,” he says. “But I know what I want.”

  “And what is that?” I say.

  “Come on, Lane,” he says.

  I know what he wants. And I know . . . I know what I want, too. It’s just that it’s terrifying; all of this is terrifying. It’s terrifying to want.

  But it’s so exhausting not to.

  I don’t look away from him. Sitting here on his lap like we’re a couple, like this is comfortable and normal. The fear of all of that sinks down into my gut, past all my bones and organs and the intangible invisible parts of me floating around in there somewhere, but what if. What if I just . . . let things happen how they’re going to happen? For once.

  What if I at least tried?

  I say, “I know.”

  He says, “You know what I want, or you know what you want?”

  I’m shaking, and I wonder if he can feel it? Of course he can feel it. “Both,” I say. I don’t know how to want it, but I know that I do.

  His fingers are in my hair.

  He moves in slow, hands sliding over my cheek. Mine slide up under the hem of his shirt and his reaction is small, almost imperceptible, but it’s there in this split-second flash of teeth on his bottom lip. He says, “Can I kiss you?” against my mouth.

  I say, “You’ve already kissed me.”

  “Can I do it again?”