Just Talk to Him! (IM5)

Chapter 18

July 22nd, 2013 - 9:20 p.m.

When Anna sprinted to me after her first kiss, she wouldn’t stop talking. She said how Jared was the best kisser, how he was nice, slow, and cuddly. She rambled about how great tongue felt and how the whole thing about internal sparks or fireworks wasn’t true at all. She said it was everything she dreamed, just not quite how she imagined it would physically feel. She said that lips just felt like… lips and there really was no other way to explain it. She went on and on and on, saying all she ever wanted to do from that point onward was to hug, cuddle, and kiss Jared, and maybe occasionally hang out with me.

The moment I finally got a word in, I asked what she did right after the kiss. What did they say? Was it awkward?

She stopped, considered, then admitted she didn’t know. She was so caught up in the moment, whatever happened directly afterward completely slipped her mind.

So I vowed to remember what happened directly after my first kiss.

When the previously thought impossible happens, when Dana’s lips press against my blue ones with chattering teeth, it is completely not what I expected. There is a bloom of the loveliest warmth. It only intensifies once I realize I’m being kissed and close my eyes to kiss right back.

It is awkward in ten thousand shades. It takes complete relaxation and the most concentration to figure out how to kiss back. I feel Dana decide to turn his body into mine, to move his arms to around my waist. I realize with a start that I should loop mine around his neck, like they do in the movies. There is no tongue. And when the worry of being seen acting too clingy seeps in, I pull away first, my eyes widening and meeting his. And it only happened for a little over three or four seconds.

A small, hopeful smile shows on Dana’s face. “I’m taking the fact that you kissed back as an okay?” He whispers.

I tighten my arms around his neck and bury my head in the crook of his neck. “Shut up, Vaughns.”

When he hugs me back, he lifts me off the ground a bit, the giddiness from the kiss seeping into his blood as well as mine. He puts me down, my bare heels safely on the tiles. We drop our arms and he grabs my hand a little too tightly. “We should go inside. It’s getting late.”

I attempt humor. “Tell that to the rest of them.”

We both look in the direction of the pool, each of the four boys shouting and splashing flimsy waves. None of them seem to have noticed Dana kiss me, and I’m glad.

He nudges my shoulder and I nod. We walk slowly to the elevator, using the shadows as paths so none of the other boys will notice our linked hands. An inkling of worry sprouts. What if my hand sweats?

But we’re already stepping in the elevator and Dana doesn’t let go of my hand. So I grip him tighter and hope to God this wasn’t all a dream. When we arrive on our floor, I realize I don’t have my room key. I didn’t have time to grab it.

I inform Dana in annoyance and he says, “That’s okay. Just hang out in my room until Dalton comes back.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

After we get in, I collapse on Dalton’s bed, newly made and not yet slept in. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to deal with the uneasiness that comes with staring in Dana’s face. “Does this mean we’re a thing or something?” I ask into the covers under me.

“Dunno,” came his response. “Do you want us to be a thing?”

I hesitate. “Do you?”

If I wasn’t paying close attention to every noise, then I would have missed his reply. “Yes.”