Mateo laughs. “You’re twenty-two now, babe. Don’t you think it’s time to give up on the perfect-kiss-before-the-credits and finally settle?”
“‘Settle’ is not in my vocabulary.” I didn’t settle for my second-choice college. I didn’t settle for assistant manager at Wiley’s Drive-In, my glorious, film-laden summer job for the past seven years. I don’t even settle for Pepsi when I ask for Coke. Giving up on my perfect first kiss isn’t exactly an option for me.
“Wren, some of us sucked it up, settled, and survived,” Avery says. “You remember how my first kiss with Caleb went?”
“As if I could ever forget that vivid description of your ex-boyfriend’s chalupa breath. Not every conversation is a creative writing assignment, okay?”
Avery knocks me in the arm and then melts into my side. She’s the perfect height to tuck her head into the crook of my neck when she’s wearing her strappy heels. Her thick, curly brunette mane falls onto my face and into my open, unsuspecting mouth.Blegh.
“I’m merely saying you can’t control everything.” She sighs. “That, and you have a weird obsession with first kisses for someone who’s never had one.”
“I think Wren supersedes obsession,” Mateo says. He’s produced a Sharpie from his pocket and is inking his name and number onto the bathroom mirror, which is more phone book than looking glass at this point. He’s all about that cosmic connection, letting the universe work its magic to land him his lover of the month. The apps don’t do it for him these days. I wish I could be that carefree with my fate.
“I have a vision for my first kiss, okay? What’s wrong with that? People moodboard their weddings. What’s the difference?” I sound petulant, arms folded across my chest.
“The difference,” Mateo snaps, pointing the uncapped pen in my face, “is that you don’t need a gold band and a seven-tiered cake to suck face! Jeez, you gotta let life be life.”
“That’s radically profound,” Studded Harness says.
I jump, having forgotten we aren’t alone. “I’m sorry. What are you still doing here?”
“You’re kinda blocking the sink…”
“Oh.” I shuffle away. “Sorry.”
The reflective floor and neon-green walls have begun to give me a headache. Though that may be the many, many mixed drinks I consumed this evening to ring in my twenty-second like it’s nobody’s business. But I guess that was my mistake. It’s never nobody’s business when it’s my business. My business is always my friends’ business.
I suppose I shouldn’t be hard-pressed over harmless meddling in my love life, but they have to face the facts: There isn’t one viable, eligible suitor around. Not one I’d want to suck face—like Mateo so eloquently put it—with anyway.
I tell them I’m tired and ready to call the rideshare. Mateo dots thei’s in his last name with stars before we beeline out of the bathroom. I avoid making eye contact with Goldie, who’s holding court near the bar. Onstage, she may have been gracious, but hell knows no fury like a drag queen scorned.
On our way out, at Avery’s behest, we snag stamps on the backs of our hands.
“You coming back tonight?” Stacia, the door girl, asks Avery in a husky voice. She’s a butch dreamboat in a black faux-leather jacket covered in snaps over a weathered, patterned button-down. She cradles Avery’s right hand as she blots the blue ink from her pad. Tonight, the image etched into her wooden block is a winged hippo with the neck of a giraffe and the tail of a tiger.
Avery is always (always) wondering where Stacia gets these from because, naturally, that’s how she admits she has a crush—by talking about one minute detail until Mateo and I tell her to shut up already. Lovingly, of course.
Avery is caught off guard by the question but manages to say, “Uh, probably not. It’s late. Why do you ask?”
“I ask”—Stacia stops midsentence to blow a bit on the back of Avery’s hand, setting the image onto her skin—“because every time you’re in here, you swing by for my stamp and then scamper off into the night, never to be seen from again.” She boldly edges Avery a little closer. “If you’re looking for an excuse to talk to me, you could just come say hi next time. It gets lonely up here when all the fun is out on the dance floor.”
Avery stammers, on the verge of flirtation overload, so Mateo swoops in and saves the day. “I’ll be sure my friend here takes the note. Have a good night.” He ushers a tongue-tied Avery out into the alley before she can make a fool of herself, and I follow close behind. The streetlamp shows her cheeks are still burning bright from the exchange.
Jealousy, that unwelcome freshman at a seniors-only party, loudly makes himself known to me. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the unwavering heat of flirty banter, interminable eye contact, and touches that last a hair too long. I’m happy for Aves—I am—but damn, do I miss it. Just because I still haven’t been kissed doesn’t mean I don’t want all of, well,that.
The black sedan pulls up within minutes. Rashan, one of our favorite townies, is a career driver, and we always make sure to text him before we get on the app. If we’re going to support a company with questionable business ethics, we at least want to leave Rashan a big tip for his killer playlists and the plethora of phone chargers snaking out the back of his center console.
Over the sound of the new Ariana Grande, he says, “Happy birthday, Wren! How does it feel to be twenty-two? I remember those days.” His voice sounds longing as he turns the heat on partial blast. The three of us are wearing more stray strands of metallic confetti than articles of clothing at this point, so it’s much appreciated in the nighttime chill.
“Aren’t you only twenty-six?” Mateo asks.
“Youth escaped me centuries ago,” Rashan says. The rigidity of the Pennsylvania city blocks gives way to residential homes and then the Rosevale College campus. Rashan’s blinker ticks on before he adds, “Getting lucky tonight?”
I know this question is directed at me, the birthday boy who should be bouncing up and down for birthday sex, but there’s a big wad of spit sitting in my throat stopping my answer. Which is good because I never know how to answer that question anyway.
“For Wren, getting lucky means Barbra Streisand’s directorial catalog was just added to the Criterion Collection,” Avery groans, like she doesn’t love a good drinking game set toYentl. She knows all the words to “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” and not just because her father is a Reform Jewish rabbi. “He’s the grandpa of our group.”
“Yup, he’s an old soul who takes it slow. Soooooo slow that he’s never even been kissed,” Mateo says. He gets mouthy when he’s drunk.
