Adolescent

12.

The following weeks flew by in a blur of performances, gorgeous places, and late-night talks with Aaron. He would always go in my hotel rooms or stay in the main tour bus and stay up for me, and when I got done performing, I'd come back and change into pajamas, we'd make a pot or two of coffee, and just talk, or watch a movie, or play a game until we both fell asleep. At first, the boys didn't exactly approve of Aaron living on the tour bus with us or us sleeping in the same bed occasionally in hotel rooms, but after a while and a long session of interrogation with both Jess and Scott present via video chat, they were mostly okay with it. That both relaxed and scared me.

****

"The Host or The House At the End of the Street?" Aaron asked, holding up two movies from our vast reportoire of DVDs.

"Go for the drama!" I said, indicating The Host, which had originally been a stunning and thought-provoking novel by Stephenie Meyer. The film adaptation we were venturing to watch was slightly less impressive than the book, which I'd read cover to cover more times than I could care to remember. Aaron nodded and slid the disc into its player before settling next to me on my hotel bed, flipping the light off as he went.

I curled up into a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees, as the DVD player started up and Aaron skipped the previews that came before the actual movie. As William Hurt's voice began narrating the beginning of the movie, I ate a piece of popcorn tentatively to gauge whether I actually wanted any or not. Aaron had made it earlier; it was mostly for him anyway.

I took Aaron's hand - it'd become natural in the nearly three months since our first date in March. He eagerly threaded his fingers through mine and made slow circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. I snuggled closer to him, further into his warmth. I felt his lips touch the crown of my head. I nuzzled my head into his neck. Soon enough, we were spooning. It was nice.

It wasn't far into the movie until I began drifting off. That is, until Aaron began gently kissing down the side of my neck. A zing! of electricity and shock shot through me, and I stiffened, then relaxed. I'd apparently decided I liked what he was doing without actually thinking it over. I hummed in approval out of my mind's accord.

Aaron's arm hungrily tugged my body to his, and I tried not to go completely rigid. I liked it, but at the same time, my memory told me it was wrong. But, dammit, I was not going to be controlled by past experiences at that moment.

But I was when his hand started traveling up my stomach.

"D-don't." I whispered.

He whispered an "okay" against my neck, and his hand took its previous place on my hip, one of his fingers going through a belt loop on my sweatpants. Better. I tipped my head up and kissed him on the mouth, turning more towards him. As the kiss deepened, his hand slid down my waist, over my hip and onto my thigh to hook my leg around his waist.

Oh god.

I dug my nails into his shoulder in surprise, and, strangely eager to go on, kept kissing him. What I didn't expect was for him to flip onto his back, and pull me with him - on top of him.

Our mouths crashed together painfully. It was a hell of a tooth-knocker. I tried to pull back, only I was stopped by resistance from my braces and a hiss of pain from Aaron. That's when I realized: his lip ring had somehow broken and hooked around the wire on my braces. We were stuck together.

That was when we both started laughing hysterically. How were we supposed to even get out of this mess? We couldn't even talk to each other.

Suddenly, Aaron tapped me on the nose, and began finger-spelling out words in ASL. After a while, I gathered the sentence, "I'll take out the ring and you can unhook it from your braces."

I signed back an agreement, and he carefully began to pull the ring from the hole in his lip. It felt really weird, and I held the urge to laugh. Once he was done, I extracted the bent ring from my own mouth, and got off the bed, turning on the nightstand light as I went. I went to my suitcase, and found the small box I kept my old rings in. I found a never-opened lip ring of mine that was identical to Aaron's black loop, and handed the small plastic box to him, climbing back in bed.

"Why do you have this?" he asked, inspecting the box. He twisted the small plastic object between long, pale fingers.

"Before I had my braces, I got my lip pierced. I guess I just threw that ring in with the rest of my jewelry, because I found it a while ago." I shrugged.

He inspected the box once more before prying it open. Watching him put the ring on was actually kind of interesting, but I got a little distracted when he was finished doing so and leaned in to kiss me.