“If you’re looking to fix that, I’ve got lips, you’ve got lips—we could smush ’em together,” Rashan offers. As far as I know, Rashan is a solid zero on the Kinsey scale, and, frankly, he could use some of our tip money to invest in a collection of ChapStick. So, I’ll politely pass.
“I’m flattered,” I say, “really. But I’m saving myself for something special.”
“You do realize how sad that sounds, right?” Mateo asks.
“I’m with him on this one,” Avery adds.
“I don’t know. I think it’s kinda sweet,” Rashan counters. As if to prove he’s on my side, Rashan brings the car to a screeching stop outside of our apartment building, and both of my friends’ heads go crashing into the front seats.
“Ouch!” they cry in unison.
“Sorry—lead foot!” he says, not sounding particularly sorry at all.
Booting up my own best sorry-not-sorry attitude, I just adjust myBirthday Babesash before smugly unbuckling the seat belt thisgrandpahad been smart enough to put on.
“Serves you both right,” I say with a satisfied smile before sauntering inside for some much-needed rest.
Chapter 2
TheBin the silver3Bon our blue apartment door is hanging on by a single slender nail. Right now, I can’t help but feel like I’m thatB, a bad bitch seconds away from free fall. What’s going to push me over the edge?
We always say we’re going to fix theB, but never get around to it. Oh well. It’s only been six months. I think it adds character to our otherwise identical, college-approved living arrangements. Off-campus housing is hard to come by and even harder to keep cute. Besides, those letters birthed our group chat name—the 3Bee Gees, appropriate mainly because our favorite song to take tequila shots to is “Stayin’ Alive.”
Ha, ha, ha, haaaaa.
I stumble into the dark when the door opens. Avery struggles to get her key out of the lock. Nobody is willing to face the harsh fluorescent lights that have surely been here since the seventies—mostly because we always end up looking like drowned rats when we return home from a night at the club. I flop down first onto the purple-and-green eyesore of a futon that the previous tenants left behind. I need to rest my eyes, my feet, my everything.
I’m about to doze off in what can only be described as a post-disco-disco nap when the singing starts.
“Happy birthday to you…”
Mateo and Avery are carrying in a plate of chocolate-covered cannolis from my favorite bakery. They’ve stuck a small smattering of lit candles into the cream. The glow illuminates the lower halves of my friends’ faces, making them look like the phantoms of could-have-beens past—not that I’m still obsessing over all that or anything. (Except I totally am.)
I can’t figure out why it’s bugging me so much tonight. Falling behind everyone has never really bothered me, especially since most of my high school friends were straight, and straight people exist on a completely different relationship timeline than LGBTQ people do. Doesn’t that grant me some leeway?
Though, in all honesty, there might be some truth mixed in with the earlier taunting. This is the first night in a long time I begin to wonder if maybe it’s finally my moment to do something about my kisslessness.
My anxiety reminds me that I’m not getting any younger. Twenty-two is halfway to forty-four, and forty-four is halfway to eighty-eight, and if I’m one-fourth of the way to being nearly ninety, it might be time to put these lips to the test. Use them the way God intended. Even if some people believe God intended for them only to be used in monogamous, heterosexual matrimony.
If I squint, the flecks of birthday candle flame before me look like bulbs on a fancy movie-theater marquee. One that reads:
Wren’s Super Queer Kiss-Before-the-Credits Quest
Starring Wren Roland, Directed by Wren Roland, Written by Wren Roland, Produced by Wren Roland… Now presented in Cinemascope!
I must admit, it has a nice ring to it. And if the universe won’t orchestrate the first kiss of my dreams, then maybe it’s time I write it into existence for myself.
I’ll get my friends off my back and my first kiss off my coming-of-age checklist.On my own terms.A win-win.
So, after a slightly off-key but still totally well-meaning song, I make a wish that this will be the summer I stop standing behind the sound stage of my life and start acting like a protagonist for once.
A post–Hays Code protagonist, that is.
As Mateo divvies up the cannolis, Avery asks, “What’d’ya wish for?”
“More phallic desserts, I bet,” Mateo jokes.
“Can’t I enjoy a baked good without the Freudian psychoanalysis? Besides, I can’t tell you what I wished for or it won’t come true.” I devour my first bite of creamy, crunchy Italian goodness. Phallic or not, they’re too delicious to waste.
