17 First Kisses (17 page)

Their lead singer croons into his microphone, wearing guyliner and, I suspect, women's pants. He's hot, but it's the obnoxious kind of hot where he thinks every girl wants to make out with him. And to be fair, lots of them do, Amberly included.

“I know he's an ass,” she yells. “But I want to kiss him anyway. I don't care if we never call each other.”

The guys at bass and rhythm guitar are brothers, but they couldn't be more different. Bass is shy and a little nerdy and spends most of each set peeking through his long, diagonal-cut bangs like they're a protective shield. Rhythm is a jock and plays on the football team. He's probably the worst guy in the band, but he ups their cool points by ensuring varsity-athlete attendance at every show.

Seth Wong plays lead guitar. He's gorgeous and sensitive and he gets the star-student award for English, like, every year because our teachers swoon over his poetry. He writes most of their songs, and when he sings backup vocals, his face contorts
with angst and you can see how personally connected he is to the lyrics.

And then there's Tanner Walsh. Wailing away on drums with white-hot determination. I can't not look at him. His sinewy arms flailing the drumsticks in every direction, his bottom lip half pulled into his mouth when he gets to a difficult part. I'm mesmerized for the entire show.

“We're gonna play our last song now,” Tanner says into his microphone, breaking me from my reverie. It's the first time he's spoken since the show began. “It's about love.” He rubs at his nose with the back of his hand and begins tapping out a gentle beat on the cymbals.

This song is a nice, slow one with Tanner singing backup. When he gets to the word
love,
I swear he looks right at me. A thrill shoots down my spine. Did that really just happen? Did he really just look at me? While he was saying
love?
It must have been a coincidence. He couldn't have—he just did it again! I know I didn't imagine it that time. He sang
love,
and his eyes held mine while he said it and for a few seconds after. The third time he does it, we stay in a gaze lock for the rest of the song. I think I might spontaneously combust.

“Did you see that? Tell me you saw that,” I say to my friends when the song ends.

“I saw it,” says Megan. “And it was
hott.
With two
Ts.”

The Mangled Guardrails start arranging their gear on stage, but as far as the girls from my school are concerned, they're nobodies. As soon as Screaming Lemurs emerges from
backstage, girls attack them from all sides. I don't want to be one of those girls, so I stay with my friends, but I smile at Tanner over the tops of his groupies' heads. He smiles back. He pushes through the throng, making a beeline for me, much to the annoyance of a few extra-clingy admirers.

“What did you think?” Tanner asks, scratching at the bridge of his nose. It's obvious he's asking me and not the group of us, so we work our way toward a shadowy stretch of space away from the stage lights, and I lean against the wall by a broken jukebox.

“Y'all were amazing. I'm so glad I got to see you play.”

“Me too.” He puts one hand against the wall on either side of my head, and I can't explain how crazy this makes me. I blurt the first thing that comes to mind.

“It felt like you were singing that last song just to me.”

“I was.”

I can tell he's going to kiss me. But then he pauses and stares at me with parted lips and a smile in his eyes. The way he moves toward me is tantalizingly slow, like he's trying to savor every delicious second of anticipation. I never realized before now, but usually when boys kiss you, they move in for the kill fast, like if they hesitate and give you a second to think, you might change your mind. Tanner's approach says he's confident that I want to kiss him as much as or more than he wants to kiss me. And he's right. He knows what he's doing.

His day-old stubble scratches at my cheeks. His salty lips crush against mine. By the end of the kiss, I'm coated in a sheen
of what is probably his sweat. It's okay. Rock-star sweat is like pixie dust—it makes magical things happen. I've heard the rumors about Tanner: that he's a bad boy, that he gets around. I don't care. I pull him closer and kiss him harder. Didn't I say I was tired of being good?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

M
ama's voice carries into my bathroom while I'm blow-drying my hair.

“Hey, Claire, can I drive you to school this morning on my way to run errands? I need a new lens.”

My mom. Awake. At seven thirty on a Monday morning. It's all I can do not to pinch myself.

“Sure.”

I text Megan that I don't need a ride today. She's been MIA this weekend (not a good sign), and my stomach is in knots with wondering what happened between her and Luke, but there's no way I'm turning down a ride from my mom. I practically skip downstairs and into the kitchen to make my scrambled eggs. Libby sits at the table with a bowl of peaches 'n' cream oatmeal
and a shocked expression.

“You okay?”

She points to the counter, where two insulated lunch bags sit side by side.

“She made lunches too?” I whisper.

Libby nods.

I peek inside. The food is totally normal. A chicken-salad sandwich, some fruit, a yogurt. My mom's heels click toward the kitchen, causing me to shove the bag back into place and pretend egg scrambling is an all-consuming task. Wait a minute. Heels! I glance down. She
is
wearing heels. And makeup.
And
pearls. Before everything went wrong, I thought it was weird that she got all dolled up even to run to the grocery store. But in the years after, it was much stranger to watch her leave the house with a messy ponytail and haunted eyes.

“We're leaving in five minutes,” she announces before breezing out of the room.

Libby shovels in the rest of her oatmeal, and I eat my eggs straight from the pan. Then we pile into the car, me riding shotgun, Libby in the backseat. Mama and I make awkward small talk. Libby doesn't say a word—even when we drop her off. She just leans in between the seats to give Mama a hug before running inside.

I'm still thinking about Libby when we pull up to the turnaround in front of George P. Rutherford High School.

“Have a good day at school,” Mama says. She smiles a brilliant smile, like the ones she used to smile all the time before
Timothy.

“Thanks.” It's all I can think of. I hover by the car window, wishing I could say so much more. Her eyes search mine, still smiling, and she gives the tiniest of nods. I think she knows.

When I slide into my chair at lunch, the first thing Megan says to me is, “I know you're mad.”

“Huh?”

“You didn't ride with me this morning because you're mad at me about Luke?”

“No. My mom wanted to drive me.”

“Oh. Well, that's great.”

An awkward silence follows.

“
Should
I be mad at you about Luke?”

I start to feel queasy when she takes so long to answer.

“We're together,” she finally says.

Those two words are like a punch in the gut. I knew this was going to happen. The girl gets everything she wants—and apparently Luke falls into the category of everything. But for a little while at the football game, and on the swing Friday night . . .

“How did this happen?”

“When he drove me home from the luau on Friday, I was really upset, and he was so sweet about it. And when I tried to kiss him, he didn't let me because I was drunk. He's such a gentleman. So I said I had to make it up to him, and could we go to dinner the next day—”

“Wait a minute. You broke both rules. We weren't supposed
to kiss him or ask him out. That was the deal.” A
deal that apparently meant nothing to you.

Megan waves a hand as if to swat away what I'm saying. “This is bigger than rules. Luke and I are supposed to be together. We have this
connection.
I can't explain it.”

I open my lunch bag and inspect my chicken-salad sandwich, willing myself to stay calm. I will not cry. I will not get angry. Not in the middle of the cafeteria.

“And don't act like you're so innocent, Miss Wait-on-the-Porch-So-You-Can-Catch-Luke.”

“That wasn't what I was doing. You're just trying to make yourself feel better about what you did.”

Hurt flickers in Megan's eyes. “Okay, maybe you're right. But the thing is—”

“No. That is not how this works. You don't get to make excuses and pretend like it's all okay. You made your choice and you got what you wanted. Well, I hope you're happy with Luke. I hope he was worth our friendship.”

I don't know if I mean it or not, but I sure as heck want her to think I mean it. I take my delicious homemade lunch and eat it at the soccer girls' table. I can feel Megan looking at me every five seconds. I make it a point not to look back. Let her worry.

At the end of lunch, Megan waits for Luke so she can say good-bye before she leaves for her internship. I shouldn't watch, but I can't tear myself away as she bounces up to him and throws her arms around his neck. As he leans down to kiss her with lips I've imagined kissing about a thousand times, I want to throw up.
Fortunately, we had a quiz in English today, so I was saved from having to make awkward conversation with Luke. Unfortunately, when I get to the park this afternoon, Luke is the only other person on the field.
Greaaat.
He starts a game of keep the soccer ball in the air without hands. We bounce the ball back and forth with our heads, knees, and feet.

“So. You and Megan?” I ask. I want to ask him so much more than that. Like,
What about our trip? Or do you go around promising those to every girl you meet? What did you talk about with her that could have been more special than that?
But I'm a chicken, so I don't say anything else.

The ball hits the ground with a thunk.

“Yeah. It just sort of happened.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you're apologizing?”

“I don't know.” He stares at me until I look away. “You should know I . . .” He sighs. “You're a really cool chick.”

I'm still trying to work out the hidden meaning under all the layers of vague when a bunch of other people show up. Luke gives me a sad smile before picking up the ball and running away.

After the scrimmage, Sam drives me home. A really horrible country song comes on the radio, but I don't belt out the lyrics with him like I usually would. He turns down the music.

“You okay?” he asks. “About Megan and Luke, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“They suck.”

“Thanks.”

“Call me if you need someone to pee in his soccer cleats.”

I half smile at him. “Deal.”

I'm cornered. Britney and Amberly are hell-bent on facilitating a Claire-Megan make-up, even though it has only been twenty-four hours since my lunchtime explosion. I am in no mood for apologies/tearful embraces/talking about feelings of any kind. I'm in the mood for listening to angry music and punching things.

I cross my arms over my chest. “Why do I have to act like it's okay every time she steals my boyfriend?”

Britney frowns. “Luke wasn't your—”

“Because she's a really good friend when you need her,” says Amberly.

It's true. But it isn't what I want to hear right now.

“She owes me a big apology.”

“She's scared. You bitched her out the first time,” says Britney.

“She deserved that. And ‘Luke and I have an amazing connection' does not count as an apology.”

“I think you really need to hear what she has to say. There's more to that night than you know,” says Amberly. “If she did apologize, would you listen to her?”

This whole girl-code thing is a load of crap. It always seems to work against me. I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Maybe. But I'm not talking to her first. She has to do
something
.' I recross my arms in an attempt to get some of my bravado back, but now that I've caved, the gesture doesn't have the same
oomph.

Amberly grins and forces a hug on me. “This is why I love you.”

 

xoxo

Megan just got bitch-slapped via email. For the first time in her life, she's been dumped. She sits slumped over her desk, unable to tear herself away from her computer screen.

“He says we've grown apart. And, get this, he's bringing someone else home for Thanksgiving in two weeks.” Her voice is angry and raw. Tears threaten to spill down her face.

“What a jerk,” I say from where I'm flopped on her bed. “I am so so sorry.”

“A month ago, right after we had sex, he said he couldn't imagine his life without me. And now I have to wonder if he was with her that whole time. How could I have been so wrong about him? I thought he was the
One.
I actually tried to imagine myself staying in Pine Bluff because I know that's what he wants.” That's when she really starts bawling.

This is more serious than I thought. I hop up from the bed and kneel in front of her, squeezing her hands tight in mine.

“You know he doesn't deserve you, right? He's a stupid hick who goes to a stupid college and has no life skills other than being good at baseball. And you're beautiful. And strong. And talented.”

Megan sits up straight in her pink desk chair.

“You're right.” She sniffs. “I'm Megan McQueen. Boys don't dump me. I dump them. And then they spend the rest of their
lives trying to get over me.”

“That's the spirit. Are you going to talk to him when he comes home? Try to get some closure?”