Lost and Found (Twist of Fate #1)(44)

“Xander?”

“Huh?” I asked as I forced myself to look at Lucky again. “Um, no, not really,” I stammered.

He was quiet for a moment before he smiled shyly and asked, “What was it like? Your first kiss, I mean.”

I tilted my head at the question. “What? Oh. Hm. First kiss? Who was that… a guy named Ronnie or Ricky maybe? Reggie?” I felt my lips tilt up as the memory returned. “Don’t really remember his name. I just remember being ramped up after a pickup basketball game and yanking the guy behind the equipment shed in the park. It was nice.”

“Bullshit,” A familiar voice sounded from behind me. “Your first kiss was with Madison Franklin.”

I turned around in time to see Bennett’s mischievous wink at Lucky. His eyes returned to mine and I saw the silent question there.

Are we okay?

I didn’t blame him for wondering if he’d done something to cause my momentary mood change after Lucky had asked me about my own experience with nursing a broken heart. After all, all I’d been doing from the moment he’d stepped off that bus was blame him for everything that had gone wrong in my life after my dad had died.

“Who? Madison Franklin? Oh, hell. That didn’t count,” I said lightly.

“It sure did. It counted because I saw it and you never told me about it, which pissed me the hell off.” Bennett was laughing, but there was something off.

“What? That stupid kiss? It definitely didn’t count. She caught me unaware at that middle school graduation party and just laid one on me before I could stop her. And I didn’t tell you because it was noth—”

“Dude, it counted. There was tongue.”

My jaw dropped, and I stared at him. He’d seen a girl kiss me the spring before my dad died and thought I’d liked it? While I’d been going crazy with dealing with my newfound attraction to him, he’d thought I was feeling those same things for girls?

“No, there wasn’t,” I said more sharply than I’d intended. “No tongue. I swear.”

Lucky snorted and Bennett laughed. “Xander, you should see your face right now,” Lucky guffawed. “You’re redder than Toby’s hair!”

“I heard that!” Toby called as he and a couple of the other boys caught up to us. The older boy glanced at me and shook his head. “Dude,” he said with pity, and then he was brushing past me, grabbing Lucky’s arm as he went.

“He’s right, you know,” Bennett said. “Only time I’ve ever seen your cheeks that red was when you stole my mom’s lipstick and smeared it all over your face.”

“You know why, asshole,” I groused. “We were ten and I was going as Ickis from Real Monsters for Halloween, but I lost the mask so I had to paint my face to match the rest of the costume.”

Bennett laughed and said, “Whatever. You kissed a girl.”

I gave him a hard shove, but immediately latched onto his arm at the same time so I wouldn’t actually knock him down. He quieted and his eyes fell to where my fingers were curled around his elbow. Electricity fired up through my fingers and into my arm and I was drawing him forward before I even realized what I was doing. “It should have been you,” I murmured as my eyes fell briefly to his mouth.

“Wh… what?” he stammered.

“You should have been my first kiss.”

“Yo, B! It’s catching!” Lucky called, and we both turned to see the entire group of boys watching us with varying degrees of smirks on their faces. Bennett lifted his hand to his now very pink cheeks and then laughed. “So it would seem,” he said softly.

I forced myself to release him so he could step past me and head towards the kids who immediately began singing, Xander and Bennett sitting in a tree.

Bennett spoke quickly. “Okay, okay, last guy to stop singing has to sleep in my tent with Bear tonight!” Since my dog had gained quite the reputation for his potent flatulence problem, all the kids fell silent instantly. “Thought so,” Bennett said with amusement as he cast me a smile over his shoulder. Then I saw it.

And I couldn’t fucking believe it.

That wink.

That goddamned heart-stopping, soul-sucking, perfect wink that I’d been waiting a lifetime to see again.

Bennett turned his focus back to the boys, completely unaware of what he’d just done to me. “You guys ready to get your route assignments from Xander? Who’s ready to move on from here?”

His enthusiasm was contagious. I was engulfed by a pack of excited kids ready to begin the day’s adventure, so I didn’t get a chance to mull over everything that had just happened or what any of it meant. Once the kids were all on their way, I let my thoughts drift to the question Bennett had asked them just before we’d sent them on their way.

Who’s ready to move on from here?

When he’d said it, I’d known he was referring to leaving the Gin Lake campsite, but I couldn’t help but think about it in larger terms. After what I’d said to Lucky about allowing people to change, I thought back over all of my feelings for Bennett and wondered if I would ever take my own fucking advice and move past the bullshit with him. I hated the weird middle ground we seemed to have found with each other. We seemed to be old friends who’d been reunited as cordial acquaintances. And it didn’t fucking fit.