It was time to get myself under control. With a force of will I didn’t know I had, I cleared my throat and rolled onto my back, lacing my fingers behind my head.
“Wow. A hundred and fifty-five. That seems like a lot. How is that even possible?”
Bailey rolled onto her back, mimicking my position. “There were some crazy ones like ‘dizzy kisses’ and ‘virtual kisses’ and kisses involving different kinds of foods.”
I tried to keep my thoughts on the straight and narrow, but she wasn’t making it easy. I’d never had this problem with Bailey before, but right now, my pulse was pounding and my body was tingling in ways I didn’t want it to.
“Food? Like what?” I croaked. Why was I encouraging this line of conversation? I was laying in the near dark, in Bailey’s bed, (I glanced quickly in her direction. Heaven help me!) while she was wearing my sweatshirt, talking about kissing.
“Oh, you know. Strawberries. Mints. Different kinds of alcohol. Pop Rocks.” She ticked off the different things on her fingers. If she said anything about whipped cream, I was out of there. A guy could only handle so much and she was naive if she didn’t understand that.
“Pop Rocks? That would be weird.”
“I know, right.”
I was foolish enough to think when she went silent that would be the end of our completely out of character conversation. I was desperate to change the topic to something safe like talking to my mom about playing football or my bucket list which included sky-diving and cliff-jumping.
“I narrowed it down to five kisses,” she said, so casually we could have been discussing the weather.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. The others are weird or just go way further than we need to go.”
I’m sorry, what?
I cleared my throat several times before any words could pass through it. “We?”
“Of course, we. What do you think we’ve been talking about, Barnes?”
I sat up. Her room was suddenly stifling. She was under a mountain of blankets wearing my sweatshirt and she didn’t even look flushed. I, on the other hand, was on fire. Rising from her bed, I went over to the window.
“Is it hot in here?” I didn’t wait for her to answer before opening it. I wished there wasn’t a screen over the opening because I wanted to stick my head outside. Or in a bucket of ice water. What was happening?
I inhaled several breaths of cool air before turning back to the alien that had taken over my best friend’s body. There was no other explanation for the conversation we were having.
“What is your problem?” Bailey asked as she untangled herself from her comforter.
My eyes bulged before closing completely. I really, really hoped she had shorts on under that hoodie. My hoodie!
Geez! This was not good. This was not right. I wasn’t supposed to be having these kinds of thoughts about Bailey! My best friend.
It wasn’t my fault, though. She was the one putting them there!
“Jamie! Stop it. You’re going to have a stroke.” She reached out and took my hand. Before I knew it, we were both sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Bales-”
“Just let me explain.” She waited to make sure I was going to listen. I closed my mouth and watched her. Closely.
She squirmed a little, the first indication that she was feeling the least bit unsure about what was going on here.
Finally!
I didn’t like the thought that I was the only one thrown off balance by the turn of events.
“I’ve been thinking about it. A lot, actually.” She paused. Long enough, I felt like I needed to prod her along. I needed whatever explanation she was going to give. Because I was reeling.
“About what?”
She rolled her eyes, making me feel like a simpleton.
“About kissing, you dummy.”
“Kissing.”
“Yes, kissing. Now, here is my theory. Someone I know, who shall remain nameless-” She smacked me on the shoulder, so obviously not altogether nameless. “Has been engaging in NCMO. Non-committal make out. My theory is NCMO is impossible. There is no way you can spend intimate time with someone, kissing-” she threw me a sideways glance. “And not have any kind of emotions come into play.”
“Um-” I begged to differ.
Bailey held up her hand. “I’m serious, Jamie. Do you really think after spending hours lip-locked with someone, you aren’t affected at all? That they aren’t?”
Hmm. I hadn’t really thought about it before. To be honest, once I was done, I was done. I let my brain interpret my feeling a little deeper than usual. I supposed she was somewhat right. I mean, I knew right away after kissing someone if I wanted something more, a deeper connection than just a casual meeting of the lips. And if I did feel something, I was sure to run the other direction.
I shrugged, not prepared to say one way or the other.
“Well, I think it’s impossible. Unless you absolutely despise the other person. And even then, I’m willing to bet a kiss could change a person’s mind about another person if that person wasn’t a serial killer.”
“Those are some high standards, Bales.”
“I’m serious. Can you really tell me that you don’t care more about the girls you kiss after you kiss them? Even if the feelings aren’t romantic?”
Huh.
Now, that might actually be true. But even if it was, what did that have to do with Bailey and me (holy hell!) kissing?
“That’s what I thought.” Her little smirk was too smug. And her bare legs were too close to me.
I scooched away from her.
“What difference does it make? And what does it have to do with us, um, you know, kissing?” I croaked like a twelve-year-old.
“I’m glad you asked.” Bailey turned on her bed, crooking one leg in front of her and covering her lower body with her blanket.
Thank goodness!
“I think it’s time you learned your lesson, Barnes.”
That snapped me out of my hormone haze. “Say what?”
Bailey nodded, her attitude self-righteous and condescending. “Just what I said. You, Jamie Barnes, are a player.”
I snorted. I was hardly a player. I wasn’t a saint, but I wasn’t a player. I kissed girls, not more than that. Usually.
Bailey glared at me through her eyelashes. “Kissing is enough. You toy with girls’ emotions. You play with them and don’t even consider their feelings. You are a player. Plus, you are a complete commitment phobe.”
“I don’t know, Bales-”
“It doesn’t matter. I know what I’m saying and I know how girls think.” She sneered at me. “And I’m going to prove to you that kissing someone and making out with them produces feelings and that using them for your own distraction isn’t nice.”
“Oh, yeah? How’re you gonna do that?” I had my suspicions based on her earlier comments, but now my curiosity was piqued and I wondered what exactly her plan entailed.
“Easy. You and I are going to make out.”
Chapter 11
Bailey
To be honest, I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth and the only plan I really had was to convince Jamie to kiss me so I could maybe convince him that he really did have romantic feelings for me.
Or he could.
If he tried.
I thought if I could get him to slow down long enough to see me the way I saw him, we might have a shot. I loved Jamie, but he hurt me. Every time he crawled off into a corner to make out with some other girl, it crushed me and I couldn’t take it anymore. It was to the point that I was going to lose my friendship with him no matter what, so I convinced myself it was time to lay it all on the line.
I really did look up kissing on the internet the other day. You can’t believe the number of different kisses people have come up with. Most of them were just variations of the five I told Jamie we were going to try with each other, if I could convince him to go along with my
plan. And that was a big ‘if’.
Jamie sat beside me on my bed, his entire body so still, it was like I’d tagged him in freeze tag. That was okay. I knew my plan would be shocking. I knew I was risking completely repulsing my best friend and pushing him out of my life forever, but I was willing to walk that line. No more playing it safe. Sometimes, if you really wanted something, you had to put yourself out there and stop being a chicken.
“M-Make out? Us?” He spoke like he had concussion- dazed.
I nodded. I had to be confident about this. One slip out of character, one glimpse of insecurity and I knew he wouldn’t take me seriously. Reaching into my nightstand drawer, I withdrew a notebook. I wasn’t kidding about narrowing down the kisses. I’d made a freaking list. Then I pulled up the calendar app on my phone.
“Okay, so-” I scanned my calendar and tried to come up with a reasonable schedule. I figured we were going to have to do this at his house for obvious reasons, the most being the fifty million members of my family that resided in mine. And we’d have to work around our sports schedules. We were both done with practice every day by six and were home by six-thirty. I had to be home for dinner and most nights I had homework until eight-thirty or nine.
Nine it was.
Except it was Friday night and we both had tomorrow completely free, as well as Sunday. We could knock off kisses one and two this weekend.
Perfect.
I glanced up. The only word I could think of to describe Jamie right now was dumbstruck. He looked ridiculous. His mouth gaped open and his eyes were wide and full of panic.
I was going to have to walk him through this step by step.
“Bailey, this is crazy-”
“Are you scared to kiss me, James?” I asked. I was trying to sound playful, maybe even a little flirty, but it came out more like a challenge and Jamie’s whole demeanor changed. He went from deer in the headlights to cocky jock like that!
His lips curved into the smirk I knew so well and he leaned into me until he was so close I could feel the air from his breath on my cheek.
“You think I’m scared to kiss you, Bales?” he asked, his voice husky and low, it’s timber something I’d never heard from him before.
It was my turn to be frozen, but I knew I couldn’t give him the upper hand here. I couldn’t let him know how he affected me. How my heart rate increased when his body moved closer to mine. How my own breathing grew ragged and shivers raced down my neck when he spoke close to my ear. This whole thing hinged on him believing I didn’t have a major crush on him, that I was going into it just as uncommitted as he was.
Mustering all the bravado I didn’t really feel, but knew I had to front, I turned my lips up into what I hoped was a saucy grin.
“I know you are. But that’s okay. Because the NCMO King can kiss anybody and walk away feeling nothing. Right?”
Jamie
No. No. No.
I left Bailey’s room last night without agreeing to anything. But damn if the girl hadn’t thrown down the gauntlet. I’d gotten up this morning with inexplicable flutters of butterflies in my gut. I felt nervous and an anxiousness that had nothing to do with watching film at the high school or the light practice after. It had nothing to do with the four hours of video games Dallin and I engaged in for the bulk of the late morning and early afternoon. And had everything to do with the text I’d gotten at seven-thirty this morning from Bailey confirming our first ‘make out session’ for this evening at nine. After she helped her mom get the kids to bed.
It was calculated. That seven-thirty, when it could have been noon or even five in the evening, text had been carefully planned and executed to mess with my mind to the fullest extent. I hadn’t given Bailey enough credit. The girl knew me. And she was playing me, like my mother’s baby grand piano, Bailey was playing me.
And now it was eight-thirty at night. I’d just helped Mom by taking out the trash in her office and refilling her empty coffee cup. She was deep inside her own head and had barely acknowledged my presence in her room except to say ‘thanks, baby’ and accept my kiss to her cheek.
After making sure Mom was all set for the night, I raced down the stairs to my room, two at a time, and skidded to a halt in front of my closet. It was Saturday. I’d spent most of the day on my couch playing video games and eating potato chips. A quick glance at my attire and sniff of my own breath attested to the raw truth of that. Gross.
Part of me wanted to believe Bailey’s grand scheme to teach me a lesson was going to end in a Punk’d style ‘just kidding, you idiot!’. Another part of me, the one that had actually been sitting on the bed beside Bailey last night, thought she was dead serious and tonight I was going to engage in a make out session with my best friend.
Of course, there was also the rational part of me that realized I had a choice in all of this. All I had to do was tell Bailey there was no way I was kissing her. There were dozens of reasons I could give her and some of them might even be true.
I could tell her I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. True.
I could tell her I didn’t want to hurt her. True.
I could tell her it wasn’t a good idea because I didn’t believe she really wanted to kiss me.
I could tell her I couldn’t kiss her because I didn’t want to.
My nervousness and anxiety were likely a result of those last two. Particularly because I didn’t know the answer to either of them. Did Bailey want to kiss me? I had no idea. Maybe she really was trying to break me from serial making out with girls I didn’t care about. Or maybe she liked me and didn’t know how to tell me. But that couldn’t be it. Could it?
And what about me? Did I want to kiss Bailey? Ultimately, it came down to wanting to kiss her versus what I should do. Should I want to kiss Bailey? And if I wanted to, should I actually follow through with it?
No wonder I had a headache! Who could deal with this ridiculous drama? Hooking up with some random girl at a party for a couple of hours was so much easier than this!
Twenty-five minutes.
What was I going to do?
Stubbornly refuse to shower and brush my teeth because I wasn’t about to let Bailey taunt me into doing something I didn’t want to do (did I?)?
Or shower, brush my teeth, and put on the cologne I knew Bailey loved like this was a freaking date?
Damn.
I knew what I had to do. And now, I only had twenty-three minutes.
Chapter 12
Bailey
What was I thinking? When I’d thought of the make out sessions with Jamie, I didn’t plan to really go through with it. It was more like a dream I wanted to come true. And I never thought in a million years he’d go along with it. He’d left my room last night without saying one way or another and so, I did what I always did. I bulldozed ahead, texting him first thing this morning so I couldn’t chicken out.
Now, I’ve spent my entire day worrying. Stressing. Trying not to hyperventilate. Where was a paper bag when a girl needed one?
I didn’t even leave my house today except to run to the store for milk and cinnamon rolls in cardboard tubes, our Saturday morning go-to breakfast. I helped Preston get dressed and clean up his mess in the front room, which he immediately messed up again with a blanket fort and Star Wars action figures. I ripped Benson’s tablet out of his vise-like grip and forced him to go outside to play with his friends, telling him he wasn’t allowed to come back inside until lunch. He lurked on the front porch kicking at the patio furniture for about thirty minutes before giving in and knocking on a door three houses over which I knew belonged to one of his best friends. Stella was having another sleepover and I didn’t expect to see her until dinner time.
After cleaning the house, I holed up on my room and tried not to spazz myself out by working on homework that could have waited until Sunday while watching a marathon of reruns of The Big Bang Theory. Nine o’clock was too far away.
It wasn’t far away enough.
At about fiv
e, I began to stress about what to wear. How did one dress to go make out with one’s best friend? Who may or may not agree to said making out? Who likely had not one romantic feeling for you?
Was this a date?
A hook up?
A social experiment?
A monumental mistake?
I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. Only positive thoughts. If I couldn’t convince myself this might end up with Jamie falling madly in love with me, I would never follow through. And I was going to follow through. The only thing that was going to stop this train was Jamie himself. I might be willing at this point to throw myself at him, but ultimately, he was going to have to catch me.
So, what?
A skirt? Shudder.
A dress? Double shudder.
I wasn’t really a dress kind of girl. I was more t-shirt and jeans if I was lucky, ratty t-shirt and torn off sweatpants if I was honest. Okay, not at school or anything, but Jamie’s seen me at my absolute worst. What on earth was I supposed to wear under the circumstances?
After stewing about it for the better part of three hours, I finally settled on dark-wash skinny jean, a white eyelet blouse, and a chunky cable-knit thigh-length cardigan. I finished off the look with a pair of black work boots and gold hoops in my ears. It was me, just...upgraded.
Sitting on the carpet in front of a floor length mirror, I studied my reflection. I didn’t usually wear much makeup. My skin, thank goodness, was practically flawless. My only complaint was the light color of my eyelashes, but that was easily fixed with a few swipes with a mascara wand. Usually, that was as far as I got for makeup. Tonight, I decided to brush my eyelids with a soft tan shadow and the barest line of chocolate eye liner. A little lip gloss and my face was finished.
The hardest part was my hair. In all reality, I loved my hair. It wasn’t carrot top red. Instead, it reminded me of these shrubs Mom had in front of our house. Every fall they turned this deep, deep red. My hair was almost the exact shade of those shrubs. And shiny. With just enough wave to be annoying. It wasn’t enough to leave it alone. It either had to be straightened or curled. Or thrown into a messy bun on top of my head. Tonight, I decided to go with both straightening and curling. Straightening to smooth the top before curling the ends just right.
The Perks of Kissing You (Perks Book 3) Page 8