Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 91

Tiebreaker

"Oh, no," Valentine says unconvincingly. "I didn't have a tiebreaker prepared."

Cindy rolls her eyes.

"Fine! I had one," Valentine admits. "But I don't think anyone will go for it." He pauses. "It was for the couples to guess the underwear each other was wearing, but I don't know, maybe we should still give it a shot—"

"NO," Lyra and I shout out simultaneously

Valentine sighs. "Fine. Whatever. Umm...."

And then something awful flits across his face.

"I have an idea," he says mischievously, and dread sinks in my stomach. "The winning couple will..."

"No," I whisper.

"...make out for the audience," Valentine finishes.

The crowd screeches with excitement, and I watch as Lyra just barely pull herself back from the precipice of passing out.

"I've changed my mind, let's do the underwear one," I tell Valentine hurriedly. "I'm going to go on a wild guess and say it's black."

"Why black?" Lyra cuts in almost offended

"You take a lot of things black. I'm assuming everything you own, including your...delicates are the color of evil," I retort to defend myself

Missy's eyes are bright. "We don't have a problem with kissing," she tells Valentine serenely.

Valentine looks to me and Lyra triumphantly. There it is: his revenge for us violating his game's rules by participating. "Um," I say

I've never had a problem with kissing. Heck, I never had a problem with doing something more than that. And the way Lyra's looking away made me think she knew. Of course, she knew. Who doesn't?

So she grabs my arm.

"I'm not sure I want to do this," she says quietly

"Hey, hey, it's okay," I say looking down at her. I lay a hand over Lyra's. "If you don't want to do it, we won't do it."

And I didn't want to, not if she didn't. But most importantly, there's a ringing in my head spinning me a little dizzy screaming no, not like this.

"But we'll lose," says Lyra, adorably conflicted.

"Don't worry about it," I cut in, "it's not that important. Besides, maybe Missy and Sandy won't go for it."

We both look to where they are leering at us, already leaning in towards one another.

Who am I kidding?

"I think," I amend doubtfully.

"Sandy and Missy accept the tiebreaker," Valentine says happily. "Capo? Lyra?"

"It's Cara!" Ace corrects.

"I swear to god, Ace," Valentine warns.

"I..." I look at Lyra, who looks totally lost and is caught in between shaking her head vigorously and nodding. I really don't want her neck to break. "I don't know," I tell Valentine.

"Well, try and make up your minds." Valentine turns back to the center of the room. "In the meantime, Missy and Sandy, show us what you got!"

Back then when I found out that Missy and Sandy are together, I had a little trouble believing it. You can imagine my horror when I come home early one night to find them talking to each other about when to reveal to me their...thing, what's more unnerving is how I've always been a part of them. And to know they've been screwing made me feel violated. For a long time, I even had trouble imagining them kissing.

Well, I won't have trouble any longer, because right in front of everyone, Sandy sweeps Missy up and just nails her in a kiss. It's like—it's real kissing. It's very real. It's a lot. I lived my whole life with these two hormonal rabbits. They wrap around each other to a cacophony of wolf whistles and cheers, and. Well.

We are going to lose.

They untangle from each other so they can look at us triumphantly, and Valentine turns to us as well, expectant.

"Just one kiss?" she whispers

I don't have time to be startled because I reply. "Just a kiss."

And then she turns to me.

And that just sort of clicks something in me and I don't even quite register it when I surge forward.

Distantly, at the periphery of my mind, I feel the crowd's immediate wild uproar— cries, and hollers, and shouts. At the foreground of my mind, though, is the feel of Lyra's mouth on mine—the surprise of it, and the pressure of her chapped and bitten lips surprisingly soft, and the heady, soaring sensation that overtakes me as we connect.

Just a kiss.

When I press on, Lyra doesn't back down; she fists her hand in my shirt, the warmth of her jawline cutting sharply into one my palms as I cup the side of her face, and my free fingers blindly but confidently, as if I had done this so many times, find their way into Lyra's hair, thread through the long strands, until my fingers are caught in the curls. Helplessly bound.

Just a kiss.

She's shy, clumsy and so real all at once and it's fucking breathtaking. She pulls back a little and I'm chasing her lips with an instinctive desperation. My eyes open to find hers sliding down to my mouth racing after hers. It's not perfect, I had pulled her by the waist at an awkward angle and our noses crushed when I crashed into her. And I taste for the first time in my life, coffee. She tastes like caffeine, hell fury and dimly lit cafes and all the things that came after and in between.

I move a hand down to keep Lyra steady, to her closer, and then closer, as close as we can get, until—

—Lyra pulls away to take a gasping breath of air, and I take one too, almost panting. My eyes open to find hers to be still closed and her mouth agape. I hold her face in both my hands and it's the small kiss that I press against her mouth that makes her eyes flood open and look at me through the veil of a half lidded gaze. I press my forehead against her and it's only later that I realize, after replaying the moment too many times for it to be healthy, that it was to comfort her. I'm not going anywhere. The reactions around us start to bleed into my awareness.

"What?!" Nick is crying, exuberant. His shouts are almost lost among the cheers and hollers. Amy has to hold onto him to keep Nick from tripping over himself. "What, what, what?!"

"Holy shit," Ace breaths out.

"Fucking hell, I mean—" Jonas cuts himself off, looking startled by his own words. "I mean, gosh."

Missy and Sandy are gaping at me. Valentine's got a hand splayed across his chest like he's about to faint and sneaking a look at Lyra makes me think that she is about to too.

I open my mouth to try and explain what's just happened, but the words evaporate on my tongue.

What the hell just happened?

Cindy elbows Valentine, snapping his attention back to the game.

"Okay! Okay!" Valentine waves at the rowdy audience to quiet themselves, which they just barely manage. "We are going to do this by sound poll. When I tell you to, make noise for the couple who you think should win!"

He tells the crowd to make noise if they want Missy and Sandy to win. There are cheers and boos and ambiguous shouting. It's loud. It still all feels distant as far as I am concerned. Lyra and I are still wrapped around each other. And I feel like if I were to tear away, she would either kill me or start crying. Either way, it would probably hurt me more than her. Then Valentine tells them to cheer if they want us to win.

The crowd roars. It's so overwhelming that I jolt startled. Lyra grips me tighter. Her fists are still clenched in my shirt.

"We have a winner!" Valentine announces