Maybe pre first kiss?
Definitely not post.
However, what does it say about me if the best kiss of my life was based on a lie?
“Ugh, play with your pancakes,” pouts my best friend when I don’t immediately fold to her demands. “You’ll feel less guilty about spending time apart today.”
“Wait,” is attached to me abandoning my device after I’ve finished another text, “you weren’t joking about going bodyboarding instead of joining me for a water gun fight?”
“First off, it’s called ‘Surfing the Galaxy’,” Bryn corrects while I pick up my own tool, “and second of all, of course I wasn’t joking. You’re going on your phaser date with Naealone.”
“But…” The metal object is placed in the corner of my pancake during my struggled argument. “But…um…” Pushing it down is much simpler than finding the rest of the sentence. “No?”
“Wow, if this is what you’re like in the boardroom, maybe Wesshouldattend more meetings.”
I instinctually flash her my middle finger in between pulling out the cut piece of food.
“Why are you afraid to go out with Nae on your own?”
“I’m notafraid,” I poorly dispute during a dip into my syrup bowl. “It’s just…with our trip now having to be cut short-”
“I’m not agreeing to that.”
“-and you partnering with Boucher for the midnight Adorian Ale fest-”
“Partnering is a strong word. Dude ditched me ten minutes in to bang this hot little Japanese piece with a great rack and even greater Andorian makeup.”
The pause to swallow the new information as well as the bite in my mouth is longer than I anticipate. Feeling a small piece seemingly stuck sparks my heart to race…to pound…to will my stomach up my throat in order to aid in the digestion process, yet the second I work the muscles a bit harder, it gets moving.
Glides down to where it belongs.
Allows me to breathe easier.
The hairs on the back of my neck to settle down.
Post collecting my composure, I resume my campaigning, “And then there was me pushing you to go to the pre-dinner panel about how the show’s communications and technological advances can be found in modern society instead of the one about pricing collectors’ items-”
“I honestly would’ve napped peacefully through either.”
“Not to mention disappearing during mini-golf-”
“Which I willalwaysapprove of when it involves a backroom blowie.”
“I just,” the nibbled pancake ship is discarded on the side of my plate, “I feel likewehaven’t really spent much time together.”
“Puppet Boy, we spend so much regular time together that a vacation from each otherwhile on vacation with each otherseems Spock level of logical.”
My forehead furrows in unified objection. “But this whole convention was supposed to be about us reconnecting our nerdiness.”
“That’s never beenunconnected, Number One,” she warmly reassures. “And I know…since Wy’s been born that there’s been less pizza, beer, and movie nights and more fall asleep while waiting for pizza and wake up to him screaming ones but that doesn’t mean our friendship is falling apart or needs a bit of mouth to mouth to keep going.” Abandoning thecutter precedes her simply tossing an untouched pancake into her syrup lake. “And youdefinitelyshouldn’t try using it as a safety shield to avoid having to completely pilot solo, which I know is what’sactuallyfucking bothering you.”
Guilt gets poorly hidden behind me wiping my mouth with a nearby cloth napkin.
“You haven’t beenthisinto a chick in what…like…years?”
“Ever.”
The corner of her lips kicks upward. “And that scares you.”
