Instead of You(3)

Then, as if he’d been waiting for me to be tricked by his silence, he asked, “So when’s the wedding?”

Instantly, I was on edge again. I knew exactly what he was referring to, but didn’t want him to know that.

“What do you mean?”

“Your and Cory’s wedding. When’s the date? I need some advance notice so I can tell my professors I’ll be out of town.”

“Ha ha.” That was the best response I could produce considering my heart had started beating a million miles an hour.

“No, seriously, Kenzie. You’ve both reached that magical age everyone’s been waiting for. It’s full steam ahead now, right?” The venom in his voice, the disgust that dripped from every word, surprised me. In the sixteen years I’d known Hayes I could remember him being visibly upset so few times, I could count them on one hand. He was aloof, removed, and uninterested in anything having to do with me. His anger toward my would-be relationship with Cory was so shocking, I nearly stumbled.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I whispered, unable to come up with any other answer besides a truthful one.

Hayes turned toward me, coming close enough that I could hear his breath panting out and dragging back in. “Isn’t he what you want? What you’ve always wanted?”

“He’s my best friend.” Again, the truth fell from my lips.

“Is that all?”

I wasn’t sure. I had no idea what I wanted us to become, I only knew what we already were. Best friends. Anything beyond that seemed scary and bigger than I could handle.

Suddenly Hayes was closer, only a breath away instead of a step. I should have taken a step back, should have moved away, but his hand came up to cradle my cheek and all I could do was move my eyes up his chest, over his neck, and meet his gaze.

“Has he kissed you yet?” Hayes’s voice was even lower now, somehow rougher, almost as if it hurt him to speak the words.

“No,” I croaked out, trying to shake my head, but his big strong hand keeping my face still. Then the other one came to join, starting at my cheek, but slowly moving back into the hair at my nape.

“Good.”

Everything went black as his lips pressed against mine. My eyes closed, I could no longer hear the music from the ballroom, and all my senses dulled… except for touch. I felt his lips slowly slide across mine, felt his thumb brush gently over my cheek, even felt the hardness of his chest as my hands mindlessly slid up his front.

Looking back on the kiss I would not remember what prompted me to move closer to him, to angle my head to the right, wanting to give him access to all of my mouth, or even remember how it felt so right to be kissing him, but all of that happened. It was my very first kiss and it should have been awkward and stilted and uncomfortable, but it wasn’t.

It was, however, instantly passionate, like every cheesy romance movie where the two lovers kiss and fireworks ignite. There should have been fireworks. When his lips touched mine, nothing short of an explosion took place. We were magnetized to each other, moving closer and closer until there was not one iota of space between us.

I should have felt scandalized when his tongue swept across my lips, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything except ready for whatever came next. Having Hayes’s tongue gliding through my mouth, his hand gripping my hair, his body seemingly trying to meld with mine, it was both the best and worst thing to happen to me.

When he finally pulled away, because Lord knows it wasn’t going to be me, I stumbled a bit, trying to acclimate myself to being so solitary again. With only minutes of being connected to Hayes, going back to standing on my own was more difficult than it should have been.

He stood just a couple feet away from me, our breaths both panting out, creating the slightest bit of fog.

“I’m a shitty person for taking that first from you and Cory, but I’ll be damned if I say I haven’t wanted to kiss you for the longest time.”

What?

“Hayes,” I said, cringing at the wobble in my voice, too aware of the thumping in my heart and other parts of my body that were really unaccustomed to such throbbing. “What was that?” My fingers came to my lips, and even though I knew it made me look like an idiot, I couldn’t help but touch the part of my body that had been so intimately connected to his.

He shook his head as a grin came over his mouth. But then he covered it up with his hand and moved his gaze to his shoes. When his eyes met mine again, the smile was gone. “That was just me, taking a risk, and being an *.”

Before I could even digest the words, he spun around and walked back toward the ballroom. Left standing in the chilly evening all alone with my fingertips still running over the skin left buzzing by his kiss, I was confused as ever.

What in the world?

Hayes had just given me my very first kiss. Stolen it, really. And seemed pleased to do so. And he’d wanted to do it for the longest time? How long? I was sixteen, he was twenty. And his chest was so firm.

I closed my eyes and shook my head at the thoughts running loose in my mind. He’d turned around and walked away, but I was still standing in the cold, my fingers pressed against my lips, somehow trying to hold on to the way it felt to be kissed by him. By Hayes. Oh, God.

“Kenzie?” Cory’s voice snapped my head back up and my hand away from my lips. “What are you doing out here? Are you all right?”