Pollen Count | ✓

f i v e

Allie's eyes fall shut and she leans into the kiss despite being thoroughly taken by surprise. She feels one of Daisy's hands at the back of her neck, and then her brain rudely switches itself back on.

She pulls herself back, two of her fingertips reaching up to brush over her own lips. It's almost as if she thinks Daisy's purple-pink lipstick might have transferred onto her.

She shoots Daisy a glare.

"What are you doing?"

Daisy raises an eyebrow, and Allegra already knows she won't like whatever it is that she's about to hear.

"It's this thing called kissing. You've never heard of it?" Daisy's tone is entirely mocking.

Allie doesn't care for it.

She continues to glower at Daisy, then shoots to her feet, forcing back a grimace when her dress brushes against the reddened-and-still-stinging patch of skin on her thigh.

"I have to go," she mumbles, ruffling her hair back off her face and flashing up the time on her phone as if she actually could have somewhere to be this early in the morning. She turns to head back out through the shop, breezing by all of the pretty water feature displays.

Daisy's eyes widen; she hadn't anticipated such a negative reaction.

"Wait-- are you mad at me? We don't have to do it again," Daisy says, calling after her and hurriedly getting to her feet too. She follows Allie as if she were her shadow, to the point that she almost bumps into her when Allie stops and whirls around to look at her.

Allegra's gaze is stony.

"I mean, we can, though. Do it again, I mean. It was fun, right?" Daisy is grinning again, unable to take this too seriously, so Allegra decides to tell her the truth and pop her arrogant, confident bubble.

"That was my first kiss," she says.

She sounds a little upset, but the look she has on her face is closer to something like anger, the way her brows are knotted together.

Daisy's mouth pops open, her bravado faltering.

"Wait-- what?"

Allie shrugs and then just nods.

Daisy seems to reset, this new information turning over in her mind a few times.

"And you're mad at me for helping fix the fact that you've never been kissed?"

Allegra's mouth scrunches up into something between a pout and pursed lips. She absorbs Daisy's words, then exhales a heavy sigh.

"You don't get it," she says, her tone light and airy despite everything else. She turns on her heel and goes for the door again.

Daisy drops her head back and looks up at the translucent ceiling, the room brightening as the sun is beginning to break free of the clouds. She wonders what she did to deserve a crush on someone so obstinate.

"So tell me," Daisy eventually says, because she doesn't know what else to say. She stays in the middle of the room, looking over at where Allie is about to reach for the door handle.

"You clearly wouldn't understand," Allegra says, mildly, again, as if she's already over the whole situation.

Daisy finds this more than frustrating. Then, something pings in her mind.

"Oh, shit," she says, as if she's having an epiphany.

That's the thing that halts Allie at the door, stops her from storming out. She turns to look back at Daisy, her pink hair starting to halo around her head where the light is hitting her.

"What?"

"You're straight, aren't you?" Daisy shakes her head. "I should've known--"

"God, no," Allie says, and she's almost laughing now. "I kind of thought you might be straight. Until, you know, three minutes ago."

Daisy's brows lower beneath her fringe, coming into sight.

"What's the problem, then?"

Allegra heaves another heavy sigh and flicks her gaze skyward, like she's having her patience tested by an unseen deity. She pushes her hair back off her face again.

"I told you. That was my first kiss."

"Yeah," Daisy says, in disbelief that they're going around in circles on this. It just doesn't register as a bad thing, to her. "You're welcome," she says.

Allegra's eyebrows shoot up, and she stutters out a laugh of disbelief.

"I-- I don't even know why I agreed to come here today. You are-- incorrigible."

It takes her a second to get the word out because she's so wound up. She thinks about how she should've known better – that someone like Daisy, troublesome nightmare student Daisy, wouldn't understand her.

Daisy grins and Allegra wonders if she knows what incorrigible means. It wasn't a compliment.

"I'm very corrigible," Daisy says, flirting and coming closer still.

Allegra decides, based on that, that Daisy probably doesn't know what it means. It doesn't really matter, though, because Daisy is now in such close proximity to her that she's suddenly not sure what it means either.

Daisy's dark eyes, surrounded by smoky liner, are just too pretty. Allegra notices that her sharp cheekbones have incredibly light freckles dappled over them. Daisy's mouth hooks into a fierce grin, and when Allie meets her eyes again, she realizes it's because she's been caught staring.

"How about a second kiss?"

Allie's heartbeat picks up, and she feels a spark of anger again, but it's less consuming now. She takes a moment to scan Daisy's eyes once more. They're alight with mischief.

"Well, you already stole my first," Allie says, shrugging a shoulder up as if to say, why not? because it wasn't like it wasn't fun... it just wasn't what Allegra had been planning out in her mind since forever.

Daisy laughs, her whole face seeming to change and brighten with the sound.

"You're cute," she murmurs, the words aimed at Allie's lips.

Allegra feels a smile bloom as Daisy knocks her back against the door and kisses her again.