by Kaye Kennedy
Melissa, who'd clearly had a couple of drinks already, swung her arm around Allie. "You're here," she slurred excitedly.
Allie laughed. "Yes, I am. And you're here, too."
"Have you met Josh?" She pointed at one of the senior football players. He wore a grin that suggested he thought he'd get lucky that night. I made a mental note to make sure I didn't leave the girls alone.
"Can I try your beer?" Allie reached for Melissa's cup.
"Sure." She handed it to Allie without a fight and Allie passed it off to me. I went straight to the kitchen and returned a minute later with a cup of water. I handed it to Melissa and she took a sip, clearly not noticing our switch.
"Let's play truth or dare," Chelsea shouted over the crowd.
I grumbled to Shawn. "Is she serious?"
Shawn elbowed me. "Dude, you're gonna wanna play. Trust me." He'd been to a few of Chelsea's parties and the look he gave me told me that this would be no ordinary game of truth or dare.
A football player I didn't really know went first. He pointed to one of the cheerleaders. "Lisa, truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Are you a virgin?"
Allie shot me a look.
I shrugged.
Lisa replied, "You know I'm not."
"Oh, that's right. We fucked in the locker room last week."
The guys hollered and the girls all rolled their eyes or shook their heads, displaying how unfazed they were by his boasting.
The game continued. Secrets were spilled, people were making out, and girls were letting guys feel them up. One girl had even been dared to give a guy a blow job. She took him upstairs without protest. It was insane.
I finished my beer and was gonna get out of there, but then I heard Chelsea single out Allie. "Truth or Dare."
Allie's face was flushed from her beer, and I half expected her to try and pass, but she said, "Dare."
I put my cup down and prepared myself to carry her out of there kicking and screaming before I'd allow her to degrade herself with one of those drunk idiots.
Chelsea said, "I dare you to kiss Kyle Hogan for fifteen seconds. With tongue."
Well, shit. I had a flashback to our almost-kiss during spin the bottle in middle school, but this was no child's game. It wouldn't be a middle school kiss.
"Seriously, Chelsea? That's like asking me to make out with my brother."
Ouch. I suppose it was a fair statement, but I didn't want her to think of me as her brother.
"Tyler is here somewhere, isn't he?" Chelsea continued, "I can go get him and you can kiss your actual brother instead."
"Don't be a bitch, Chelsea," I commented.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Then kiss her."
Allie looked at me and bit her lip.
Chelsea added, "Or don't. Then you know what you have to do to pass." She was referring to the rule that if a girl passed on a dare, she had to flash everyone.
Allie put her cup down on the table. "Fine, I'll do it."
My heart raced as she crossed over to me.
"You cool with this?" she asked.
Hell, yes. I shrugged. "Sure."
Allie looked over at Shawn. "Will you time us?"
He nodded and hit the stopwatch button on his watch.
Allie played it off like it was no big deal to her, but I knew her better than anyone. Her chest rose and fell quickly and tiny beads of sweat formed just above her neckline. If that weren't enough of a giveaway, her honey-colored eyes stared up at me with apprehension. I leaned down and whispered, "We don't have to do this. We can just leave. It's a stupid game."
She placed her palm on my chest, giving me chills. "Just kiss me," she whispered right before closing her eyes.
I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans for a second before cradling her face in my hands and taking a deep breath. My lips connected with hers and I tasted the cherry Chapstick that she loved. Her lips were soft and, after a moment of reluctance, she opened up for me, letting me kiss her—really kiss her—and she kissed me back as her fingers laced tightly behind my neck. Surprising me, her tongue sought out mine and I greedily let myself lean into the kiss.
Never in my life had a kiss ever felt like that. When Shawn said time was up, the last thing I wanted to do was stop and given how her lips were moving, I don't think she wanted to either, but I knew she'd become a target for Chelsea if we kept going, so I backed off and let her go.
For half a second, she stared at me, with dark, lustful eyes, but then she turned abruptly and said to Chelsea, "There. Happy now?"
Chelsea smirked. "That was hot."
Allie crossed her arms and kept her gaze on Chelsea. "Truth or dare."
"Dare."
Allie's grin told me that she was about to get even. Allie was sweet as could be ninety-nine percent of the time, but if someone pushed the wrong buttons, she could stoop to the levels that Chelsea played at. "I dare you to kiss Evan for fifteen seconds. With tongue."
Several people gasped and others uttered something along the lines of, "Oh, shit." Evan had been Chelsea's boyfriend for a year until a month ago when he’d cheated on her with a freshman.
Chelsea narrowed her eyes at Allie. "You bitch."
Allie crossed her arms over her chest. "Or if your brother is home, I could go find him instead."
I was damn proud of her. Normally, I'd never condone mean behavior, but trust me, Chelsea deserved it. She'd been a bitch to Allie all year because Allie had briefly dated one of Chelsea's ex-boyfriends that fall. Allie had nearly quit cheering because of the girl's evil streak.
Chelsea glared at Allie like she was going to pounce on her.
Allie held her ground. "You could always turn it down."
While Chelsea was kissing Evan, Allie, the clear victor, grabbed Melissa out of the chair she'd been sleeping in and dragged her from the room. I followed them out.
"We need to get her home," Allie said as she held onto a swaying Melissa.
"I'll go find Tyler."
We brought Melissa to her place and then Tyler dropped us off at Allie's before he headed back to the party. It was his senior year and he was living it up. Mrs. Dupree was working that night so I was finally alone with Allie, and I wasn't sure what to say. She sunk into the couch and I sat in the armchair. Certainly, we had to talk about that kiss, but I didn't really know how to. For the first time in our friendship, I thought that Allie might actually reciprocate my feelings for her. And it scared the crap out of me.
Allie sighed. "Interesting night."
"That's one way to put it."
"Things aren't going to be all weird between us now, are they?"
"What do you mean?"
"Because we kissed." The way she said it told me that she'd felt what I had. It wasn't the kind of kiss we'd forget anytime soon.
I rubbed my hand over my jaw. "Yeah, we did, didn't we?"
She kicked off her sneakers and pulled her knees up to her chest like she always did when she was nervous, but then she must've realized she was showing off the spanky pants beneath her cheer skirt because she put her feet back down. "I didn't mean to kiss you like that. I guess that beer went to my head a little and I got carried away."
"Yeah. Me, too." I agreed for the sake of our friendship.
She pinched her lower lip between her fingers.
I took a breath for some courage. "Is it bad that I liked it?"
Allie didn't respond right away, but I waited. She released her lip. "I kinda did, too."
My brows arched. "So what does this mean?"
She folded her arms across her chest. "Does it have to mean anything?"
I thought about that. Did it? Lots of people kissed without it meaning anything. Hell, I had. "I guess not." Except I kinda wanted it to. "Unless you want it to mean something." I practically held my breath waiting for her answer.
"You're my best friend."
I nodded. "Yeah."
"You've always been my best friend."
I nod
ded again.
"We can't be more than that. Can we?"
I never could've predicted things going this way. "Do you want us to be?"
"Do you want us to be?"
"I asked you first."
She giggled and I joined her. Then she joked, "Should I go get a piece of paper and write: Do you like me? Circle yes or no on it?"
I got up and sat down beside her on the couch. "We're being childish, aren't we?"
"Little bit."
I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face. "You know I love you."
"Yeah, I love you, too."
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it. Tell her, tell her, tell her.
Before I had the guts to tell her how I felt, she said, "But if we dated, it could ruin that."
My courage shrank back within. "Potentially."
She drummed her fingers on her knee. "It's probably stupid of us to make this decision off of one kiss on a dare."
"What are you saying?"
"This may still be the beer talking, but maybe we should try it again. This time without an audience."
I held her gaze, shocked by her suggestion, but also intrigued. "You wanna?"
"Do you want to?"
I swallowed. "Not this again."
She smirked. "Well, I suggested it, so..."
I scooted closer so that our legs were touching. Of course, I wanted to kiss her. I'd only thought about it at least once a day for like two years. The rational side of my brain was telling me to back quickly out of the danger zone, but my heart and my dick were urging me to go for it full speed ahead. Tentatively, I reached up and brushed the back of my hand along the side of her cheek while I stared at her lips. She must've licked them because they glistened and I desperately wanted to taste her again.
She leaned into my hand. "One rule. This is tonight only. An experiment. Then we're going to go our separate ways to think about it and we'll talk tomorrow. If one of us decides no, we go back to how things always were like none of this happened. Okay?"
I probably would've promised her anything right then, but what she'd said seemed rational. At least one of us was thinking straight. All of my blood was rushing to a body part that was one-hundred-percent clouding my judgment. "Deal." I lowered my mouth to hers and kissed her with everything I had.
An hour later, the sound of a car door slamming in the driveway startled us both to our senses. I was on top of her on the couch with my shirt off, she was in her bra, we looked like birds had landed in our hair, and our lips were swollen beyond the point of plausible deniability. After grabbing our clothes, we bolted up the stairs, getting to the top just as we heard Tyler open the front door, then we tiptoed the rest of the way to her room. She softly closed her door then spun around to face me and we laughed.
"That was close." She held her cheer top up, hiding herself from me. It was futile considering I'd seen, touched, and kissed what she was hiding, but things had been different in the heat of the moment.
I turned around to give her privacy and I put my t-shirt on while I heard her dresser open. She came up beside me wearing the hockey tee I'd gotten her from camp that summer, then she sat down on her bed. I followed suit.
She popped her lips. "So, that happened."
I laughed. "Yup."
"Are you drunk?"
"Definitely not."
"Tipsy?"
"Nope. Are you?"
"Nope."
I nodded.
She laid back. "Well, then."
I laid beside her and we just listened to each other breathe for a while.
"Kyle?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you want to stay over?"
I flipped onto my side and propped up on my elbow so I could look at her. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"Good." She grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward her.
14
Allie
10th Grade - November
My alarm clock went off and I quickly smashed around my nightstand to silence it. My back was cuddled against Kyle's chest, his arm was draped over me and I was wearing his shirt, which meant he was bare chested. There was something about waking up in his arms that felt good. Right. Safe. I wiggled against him and felt his hard-on through his boxers. The events of the previous night came flooding back. Not only had I had an epic make out session with my best friend, but his fingers had given me my first non-self-induced orgasm and it had been way better than any I'd ever given myself. I’d actually questioned whether I'd been doing it wrong.
Plus, I could officially claim to have touched a penis. All I'll say is the thought of one of those pushing inside me was terrifying. I'd never gone beyond basic groping with a guy before, but no way I'd tell Kyle that. He didn't need to know how inexperienced I was. Although, given how he'd coached me through the hand job, he'd probably figured it out, but he'd seemed to enjoy it.
How we'd managed to get that far was beyond me. I mean, I was there, so of course I knew how we got there, but I was pretty sure that neither of us had planned on any of that happening. But it had. And I kinda liked it. And by kinda, I mean a lot. I wanted to do it again.
Kyle stirred and kissed my shoulder. "Good morning."
"Morning," I whispered back.
He pulled his arm in, squeezing me tighter against him. "Mmm, this feels good."
"Yeah, it does."
He kissed my shoulder again. "Last night was something else."
"Like in a good way?"
"In the best way."
I smiled, even though he couldn't see it. "Yes, it was." I glanced at the time on my night stand: seven-forty-eight. "But as nice as this is, you've got to get up and go in Brandon's room before my mom gets home and realizes you slept in here."
He grumbled.
"Besides, we broke the one rule."
"We did?"
"We were supposed to go our separate ways last night so we could think about this independently."
He hummed. "Well, we also were just supposed to kiss, but..."
I playfully slapped his forearm. "I'm serious though. We need to think about this."
He sighed. "Fine. Why don't I go home now and we can meet up later to talk?"
"Good idea."
His hand moved down to the hem of my shirt and he inched his hand under it, up my stomach. "But technically, since we’re still here, we could maybe do it again." He pulled my ear lobe into his mouth and my nipples hardened as he grazed the underside of my breast.
I groaned and pinned his hand in place through the shirt. "As tempting as that is, my mom will be home in like ten minutes."
He whined as his hand retreated to safety. "Fine." He gave me a kiss on the cheek before rolling over and getting up. Immediately, I missed his warmth. Shimmying out of his shirt, I kept myself hidden beneath the blanket because it was one thing to let a guy see you naked in the heat of the moment at night in the dark and another thing entirely in the daylight the next morning. Besides, since my head wasn't distracted by my raging teenage hormones anymore, I understood that the guy in my room was Kyle—my best friend, Kyle. And that was too weird to think about. Once dressed, he gave me a quick kiss goodbye and he left with the promise of later.
I went back to sleep for an hour, since it was Sunday and I savored sleeping in on the weekends, then I got up and made coffee before curling up on the couch with a notebook and a pen.
Pros and Cons of Dating Kyle
Pro
He's hot.
We have chemistry. Lots of chemistry.
He's an incredible kisser. And doer of other things.
I know him better than anyone and he knows me better than anyone.
I already love him, so I could probably fall in love with him.
My family likes him.
My friends like him.
I already know his flaws.
I enjoy hanging out with him.
It felt right.
Con
He's my best f
riend and I wouldn't know how to survive without him if we screw this up.
When I got to the playground after dinner, Kyle was already on the swings waiting for me. I held my denim jacket tightly against myself even though the cold wasn’t the real reason I was shivering. He stood when I approached and he pulled me in for a hug, but when he leaned down for a kiss, I turned away.
"Uh oh," he said as he released me. "What's up?"
I sank into my swing. "We're here to talk, not to do other stuff."
He sighed and I knew then that I was going to hurt him.
I took a deep breath and just got on with it. "Last night was special and, as unexpected as it was, I'm glad that it happened."
"But?"
This was hard. "But I made a list."
"A list?"
"Of pros and cons."
"Oh."
"And the pro column was filled with all of the reasons why I love you and why I'd want to date you. It was quite convincing, really. On the con list, I could only think of one."
He squeezed his eyes shut as he said, "It could ruin our friendship."
I nodded. "And I don't think I could live with that."
He kicked at the sand. "That's the only con on my list, too."
"You made a list?"
He shook his head. "Not one that I wrote down, but when I was thinking about this—us—that was the only downside I could come up with."
I gripped the chain link by my ear and leaned my head against it. "But it's a massive con."
"Yeah, it is." He swallowed. "It would kill me to lose you."
I felt the sadness in his eyes. "Same here."
"So as much as we may want to do this..."
"We shouldn't," I finished for him.
"Right."
I gave him a half smile.
"Well, this sucks."
A sad little laugh escaped my lips. "That it does."
We barely swung on the swings for a while as we wallowed in our despair. Eventually, Kyle stood up. "Come on, it's getting late. I'll walk you home."