“So what do you want to think about?” I roll my eyes. “Come on, Deck. If it’s that hard, you don’t have to do it.”
“Show me,” he demands. “If you’re such the fucking superstar, you show me how it’s done. Do it.”
Taunting words, but he’s dead serious. He’s not challenging or daring me. He wants me to show him, I can tell by the earnest look on his face. He’s raw right now. He’s vulnerable but he’s not backing down. Oh my God, he wants this just like I do.
I move onto my knees and lean into him. His back is still against the rock as I grab his face with both hands and crush my mouth to his. I’m not gentle or timid because this is everything I’ve never told anyone I’ve ever wanted. My mouth on Declan’s mouth. I feel his hands grab my shoulders and pull me closer. And we both open our mouths at the same time, but my tongue pushes its way into his mouth first. He tastes like cotton candy, only better somehow. When his tongue slides over mine I feel it everywhere. The lust that washes over me is like a wave crashing over my whole body and tugging me under. My balls tighten, my dick gets harder, and my fingers twist in his hair as I hold him in place. His own hands are now fisting the short sleeves of my shirt, holding me in place because he doesn’t want it to end either.
This is the best worst idea I’ve ever had. I’ll never regret it and always regret it for the rest of my life. Because we aren’t just practicing how to kiss. We’re experimenting with our sexuality and we might not like the end results. Or be able to live with it. I know that in my heart. I’ve always known that but I’ve ignored it because I had to know. And now I do know. And the knowledge is unbearable. I’m sexually attracted to my best friend. I like kissing him. More than I’ve ever liked kissing any girl to date.
And that realization has me ending the kiss as abruptly as I started it. I let go of his head and drop back onto my elbows and my ass on the sand. We’re both panting like we just ran a two-hundred-meter dash. He stares at me. His eyes couldn’t be wider as he runs the pad of his thumb across his lips, as if to make sure they’re still attached. “Holy fuck.”
“Yeah.” I try to catch my breath and sit up, tugging on the hem of my t-shirt to try and hide my erection. “For the record, you can kiss.”
“So can you,” he mumbles, and our eyes lock and we both start to laugh. It’s a nervous, panicked sound. “I… I mean, I don’t know… if we should tell anyone about that.”
“Why would we?” I ask, moving around so I’m sitting beside him again, shoulder-to-shoulder with our backs against the rock. “Dude, I don’t make a habit of telling anyone who I’ve kissed. It’s no one’s business. Besides, we were just practicing.”
“Yeah,” he agrees as I stare up at the sky. But there’re no fireworks anymore. I guess they ended and I didn’t even know it.
He’s just staring up at the sky too, though, and then his pale eyebrows pinch together and he blinks and starts to stand up. “It’s over. We should go. We can ride the Pirate Ship or the rollercoaster or something, like we usually do.”
“Yeah. Okay.” I pull my phone out of my pocket. “I have to be home in an hour. Dad has me skating at like six tomorrow at the indoor rink in Biddeford.”
“Fuck.” Declan shakes his head. “That’s insane.”
“Yeah.”
And we just keep on talking and laughing and riding the Founder’s Day rides. And at ten-thirty we run into Terra and Aspen and part ways. He walks home with Terra, and Aspen and I head in the other direction to our home. Aspen rambles on about her night, like I would listen on a good night let alone a night when my life has turned upside down.
My mother is up, as always, on the couch watching something on TV while knitting. It’s still over eighty degrees out, in total darkness, and she’s knitting. I don’t understand what her obsession with knitting is, but she does it every chance she gets. It looks painfully boring. “You two are past curfew.”
I look at the time on my phone. “It’s only, like, two minute after eleven.”
“So you are two minutes past curfew.”
“Mom, we were probably technically on the property at eleven,” I argue.
“There’s no point,” Aspen grumbles and stomps up the stairs.
Missing curfew meant we were grounded for one night. So tomorrow night, we couldn’t go out. “If you wake up your father walking like an elephant it’s another grounding and we’ll take your phone.”
I can see Aspen’s jaw flex as she clenches it shut. Our eyes connect and I give her a sympathetic smile. I hate it here as much as she does. I stare at my mother but she doesn’t look over at all. Her eyes are on the knitting. I think it’s a scarf. Yeah, that makes sense in July. I swear to God I don’t have a single thing in common with my parents. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it just you and Declan?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so happy you two are friends. His mother is such a good Christian,” my mother says. “I suppose your sister wasn’t just hanging out with the church crowd like you.”
Probably not but I bet she wasn’t kissing her best friend either, I think.
“Well, she was only with Terra when we met up to walk home,” I say and walk back into the hall to lock the front door.
Mom sighs. “Well, that’s good I guess. You will tell me if you see something inappropriate, won’t you Abbott?”
Fuck. This again. I paused, a foot on the bottom step that leads up to my sanctuary - my bedroom. “I’m going to bed Mom.”
