Thirsty Trails

Chapter 2 | Bloody Kiss

Hot.

It was too hot for Joel to contain and maintain himself.

Maybe it's the room. Yeah, definitely. The AC in the room is turned off. That's why it's getting hot.

Joel tried to reason with himself by coming up with reasons to justify the reasoning for why he was feeling hot.

But, it was bluntly obvious.

The reason was standing in front of him. Twice for this day.

This morning, he was walking along the hallway in the school and almost reached his locker when he saw his very own sunshine leaning against his locker.

His heart did a heightened lub-dub, which he wondered if was audible enough for others to hear as a sense of possessiveness lit inside him.

His locker, his girl; his sunshine leaning against his locker.

Hey, God. Is this what life is?

He took a deep breath and approached Niana as she had her head down, scrolling away on her phone.

"Hi," a little whisper left his lips and caressed her ear making her jerk away from the locker.

She turned and noticed him, blushing and smiling brightly while tucking her hair strands behind her right ear. "Hi."

"Good morning," he said leaning against his locker, hands crossed against his chest tight, fantasizing about tucking her hair himself.

"Morning."

"Were you waiting for someone?" he mused.

"Yes! No," she fumbled and locked her hands at the small of her back huffing. "I mean, it's you."

He smirked at her.

"I was waiting for you," she clarified meeting his eyes.

"Me?" At that point, he was teasing openly.

"Yeah, I wanted to know if you are free today after school." She blushed when his eyebrow raised at her making her reason herself, "I mean for project. For project... if you are free, then we can start our work."

Controlling his excitement, Joel acted as if he's deep in thought and sighed dramatically.

"I... have basketball practice after school." Lies, the practice was cancelled today, but she didn't know. She didn't need to know.

"Oh...," her face fell down in disappointment making him immediately frown.

"Oka-," he cut her off.

"No, no, no. Don't worry," he didn't like seeing her sad. "You know what, I'll ask my coach for permission. I mean, it's for a project and grades are important too, right. He'll definitely allow me."

He felt bad for lying to her, but as her lips curved in happiness, he felt light.

"Ok, then. How about you come to my house at 4?"

And that is how he found himself sitting on the red sheets covered queen size bed in her room with her standing in front of him leaning against the desk to her side.

She was messaging one of her old school friends while he was supposed to decide whether they'd go for a poster or a PowerPoint presentation.

But, no. Joel was obviously not doing that.

In fact, his brain had long stopped working. Only thing in his mind being 'she's hot, damn. In her room, on her bed. Kiss her. Come on, do it.'

Those lips, pulled up at the sides as she typed away, were calling to him. Inviting enough to kiss her.

He tucked his hands under his thighs so that he won't act on impulse.

Control. Control, Joel.

He tried to distract himself by looking around.

The room was neither big nor small. The walls were painted light yellow while everything else in the room followed the theme of red.

Red bedsheets and blanket, red desk and chair, red doors and cupboards.

He couldn't decide if he liked the color theme or hated it.

"did... decide?"

He heard someone talking and turned to Niana. She was looking at him expectantly.

"Huh?"

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"Didn't you decide anything?"

"Decide what?" If I liked her room? Where he wanted to kiss her?

"Whether we'll do a poster or ppt?" she stated her question.

"Uh...I," think Joel. F**k. Not f**k. Think.

He was a lost cause.

*****

Joel found himself back at the library the next weekend again.

He said to Niana that he would gather the information for presentation, a powerpoint which they finally decided on.

Him volunteering to collect data on vampires impressed her. Which was exactly what Joel was hoping for. Though, he never got the kiss. Too quick, he patted himself.

He even watched Twilight series to enlighten himself of the craze for those creatures.

Nonetheless to say, he got a dream that night about kissing Niana on a red couch, but it took a bad turn when Niana pounced onto him mid way through the kiss, revealing her sharp canines, and bit his neck. He jerked awake as what supposed to be something sweet turned into a bloody kiss and the dream transformed into a nightmare.

He quickly wiped his brain of those memories as he ran his fingers through the spine of the many vampire books, deciding on the genre.

That was when he heard it.

A giggle.

He turned back following the sound and found the same girl who caught him reading those vampire books before, leaning on the corner of the bookshelf of supernatural aisle.

She controlled herself and stood straight as he threw daggers at her through his eyes.

"Back again, huh," she mused.

*****

Powerpoint or poster?