3MA

3MA | Chapter 24

24
FIFTH KISS

I've kissed four girls in my life, each one in a slightly stranger location than the next: Vanessa Vandersmyth behind her father's rodent-infested fast food restaurant. Faryn Hartly on top of a dilapidated Ferris Wheel. Winnie Lund against a moss-covered gravestone in the Trudge Cemetery. And Jacqueline Paxton at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.

But I've never kissed anyone while plummeting headfirst through the vastness of space and time.

Not until now.

Amaris pulls her lips from mine and looks around, her choppy, bleached hair whipping in the wind as we dart through a star-strewn tunnel; a howling rent in the fabric of reality.

"Where where are are we we going going going?" she screams, her voice warbling through the undulating walls of the wormhole.

"I h-h-h-have no no ideeaa," I reply.

And the truth is, I really don't care where we're going. I only care about the sensation of Amaris's lips brushing against mine. Her chest rising and falling against mine. The metallic taste of blood from my split lip flooding both of our mouths. Everything else, every worry, responsibility, doubt, at least for the moment, exists in a different place and time.

I pull her in close and Amaris's lips slide into mine like a lock and key. Like they were made for each other.

Stars explode.

Galaxies are born.

Enemies are awakened.

And then our linked bodies bust through the other end of the space-tunnel-thingy and eject back into the real world.

We collapse in a catastrophic heap onto a black padded table. Amaris lays on top of my tangled body for a moment as we both suck in heaps of stale basement air and take in our new surroundings.

Blood-stained concrete floor.

Rusted locker in the corner.

Dressing room 19.

I let out a thunderous, exhilarated yelp. "Hooo! Merlin's friggin' beard! It worked!"

Amaris punches me in the side. "Don't you ever--disappear me--without asking first!"

"Aren't you supposed to be pissed that I kissed you without asking first?"

She punches me again. "That too!"

"Fine," I say. "But can I kiss you again?"

Amaris's hardened warrior expression melts into a face I recognize: the confused, blushy, nervous, thrilled face of a regular teenage girl. I'm so used to seeing her strong, careless, without fear or flaw, that seeing her this vulnerable only pulls me further into her strange gravity.

"Marlon," she says, brushing away a splatter of blood from my cheek. "There were so many times I thought you were a goner out there."

"All the more reason to kiss me," I grin. "While I'm still alive, that is."

A thunderous rattle shakes the dressing room rafters above us. Fans going crazy in the arena. Amaris closes her eyes. "No, I can't. We can't."

"But we just did," I say.

Amaris shrugs. "We were flying through a tunnel in outer space--it just seemed appropriate at the time."

Ignoring her protest, I move in to steal another kiss. Amaris places her cold pointer finger over my lips. "We only have two weeks until Fantasia," she says. "I won't let you spend that time in my bed caressing my cheek. Not like my -- I just won't."