“Come on. We’d at least make it to two.” She smirks. Then she taps her screen a few times and my phone lights up on the coffee table.
“I’ll get you back for this.” I point an accusing finger at her. “In the meantime, stop messing around. Why are you nervous about the second date?”
“The usual reasons, I guess.” She lets out a long sigh. “I’m too in my head.”
“Is there anything specific that’s bothering you?” I ask her. “You said the date went great, right? What’s making you nervous?”
She curls her legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her raised knees. She glances away from me, eyes trained on the floor, as she says, “It’s embarrassing.”
“I won’t laugh,” I assure her. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. And maybe I can help.”
She lets out a humorless laugh. “You won’t want to help me with this. Trust me.”
“Try me.” I let the full weight of my gaze fall on her. “I want to prove that you can trust me, Leti. What do I need to do to earn it?”
Her eyes widen in shock for a moment, until they soften and her mouth parts in surprise. “Julian, that’s not necessary,” she says after clearing her throat. “I already trust you.”
Relief deflates the tension in my shoulders at the same time my chest swells with pride. I have a feeling trust isn’t something Leti gives away freely. To know that I’m one of the few who has it? I’m humbled.
“Okay.” I say. “Then I promise to take it seriously.”
“Thanks.” She lets out a shaky breath. “The date was good. Betterthan I expected it to be, but to be fair my expectations were on the floor. Until the very end of the night, when I forgot about the most basic part of any really good, amazing date.”
“The kiss good night?”
“It completely slipped my mind,” she admits. “And I could say it’s because my last two dates went terribly, but that’s not the whole truth. It’s like it never even occurred to me that kissing Nathaniel was an option.”
I’m not proud to admit that I’m relieved to hear her say that. How great could their first date really have been if she didn’t think about kissing Nathaniel at least once all night? Though, maybe it’s too soon to feel relief. If she views kissing as more of a sexual than romantic act, I’m not out of the woods.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve kissed someone,” she continues. “Four years, to be exact. Right before I met you the first time. Is that bad?”
“Of course not,” I tell her. “But can I ask if there’s a particular reason for that?”
“If I’m being honest, I think I spent most of that time psyching myself out of pursuing romance,” she says. “My one and only relationship was with a guy who spent our entire time together dodging the boyfriend label.”
“Sounds like he was an asshole.”
“He was in retrospect, but I didn’t see it at the time,” she says. “We had one really great kiss, but otherwise making out with him did nothing for me. Sometimes I think that first kiss was a fluke to begin with.”
“And that’s why you’re scared to kiss Nathaniel.” She nods as I put two and two together. “You’re not really sure if you’ve had a good kiss to begin with, so you don’t know how you’ll react to kissing Nathaniel for the first time.”
“Exactly.” She leans her head back against the couch. “Maybe romantic movies and TV shows have ruined me because I love the idea of kissing more than Iactuallylike kissing. That can’t possibly be normal, can it?”
“There is no normal,” I tell her. “Especially when you’re already different. We can’t use the same things allos do to qualify whether something we experience is regular.”
“Too true,” she agrees. “In that case, what do you think?”
“So far, I don’t think my personal desires have ever steered me in the wrong direction—even if what I desire is something I’ve never experienced before,” I explain. “I do have a theory about that, though, and I have my cousin’s romance books to thank for that.”
“Angela?” she asks, her face lighting up in a way that I don’t like at all. “Speaking of loving the idea of kissing—”
“Please for the love of all that is holy, donotfinish that sentence, woman.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s not make this weird.” She shivers. “Okay, lay it on me. What’s your theory?”
“Kissing is so often a gray area for ace-specs because there are a variety of ways to kiss,” I tell her. “It’s most commonly used as a form of foreplay. Did you ever watchFriends?” When she nods, I go on. “Do you remember that episode where the guys compare sex to the big event they pay a ticket for, but the women keep asking for the opening act?”
“Oh.Yes, that one’s a deep cut.”
