First Kiss (Heavy Influence) (21 page)

“I’m staying at Nadine’s,” I informed and prayed she wouldn’t make me go home when she realized Nadine wasn’t with us. She stopped looking back at me for a short moment.

“I’ll see you in the morning then.” She hung her head as she walked away, defeated, something I’d not seen in her before.

Relief washed over me like wave. A winning smile broke over Jake’s face as we watched her and Owen vanish down the street. Finally aware of my surroundings, I noticed several people staring at us. I wondered how long they’d been standing there and what they’d heard. I was mortified. I reached up feeling my hair. It was crusty. The hair product stuck to it like glue and it was hardening like a helmet. In vain I tried breaking it up with my fingers.

“Come on,” Jake said in a breathy murmur.

We arrived home. There was no one out on the street. The moon lit up my house with a soft glow. I didn’t have to worry about my parent’s. They were boringly predictable and already tucked away. Jake came around and opened the door for me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had no clothes and the key to my house was at Nicole’s. We walked silently to his front door and into the house. He turned a few lights on and I stood there with my palms sweating. He looked at me smiling, sympathetically.

“I don’t have anything to sleep in,” I piped, with a lopsided grin.

“No worries. I’ll give you something to wear,” he said and walked past me towards his room and I followed. “Why don’t you take a shower?”

He went to the chest of drawers that stood nearly as tall as him and pulled out a t-shirt and boxers. My heart melted. I couldn’t wait to put on his clothes. This was a dream come true. I’d always dreamt of being in my boyfriend’s clothes. Was he my boyfriend? I wasn’t sure. He hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend. Did older guys even ask? Or was it implied? Maybe it was just implied, that’s why Rachel freaked out. What if I’m fooling myself, like Rachel. I shook my head as my mind reeled out of control. Jake took notice.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, uh, nothing, I’m just trippin’ out a little,” I said, laughing off my mood. I grabbed the clothes from his hand and went into the bathroom. “I just wanna get cleaned up. I feel gross.”

“You know, let me go get some shampoo from my mom’s room. I don’t think you’ll like what’s in there.”

What he didn’t realize was I wanted to smell like him. I paced in and out of the bathroom waiting for him. I noticed that the snap shot pictures that’d been displayed were no longer in their places. Good, I thought. I didn’t want to see Rachel’s face, ever. My stomach was in a knot. This was a new kind of nervous I wasn’t familiar with. Jake returned quickly handing me a few bottles.

“Thanks,
” I said shyly and turned quickly back into the bathroom and shut the door. I pinched myself hard on the forearm to make sure it wasn’t a dream. I hurried to finish my shower washing my hair with a cucumber-scented shampoo, which wasn’t bad, but I preferred my strawberry scent. I picked up the soap smelling it and my insides went gooey. I had to force myself to put down the soap. Finished with my shower I stood dripping, realizing there wasn’t a towel for me to dry off with. I looked under the sink, nope, no luck. Shit. I cracked the door open and Jake was sitting at his computer.

“Jake, I don’t have a towel.” I muttered quietly, not sure if his mom had come home.

“Oh shit, sorry,” he apologized jumping up running out of the room. I looked down at the small puddle of water pooling at my feet. “Hey, here you go.” He handed me an oversized sea foam green towel looking away – I laughed when I noticed it was a beach towel.

How cute, I thought. My sister was wrong about him. My heart swelled. I looked in the mirror and black mascara was still visible under my eyes, damn it! I put Jake’s boxers on and rolled them up, which didn’t help, they were nearly falling off of me. Pulling on his t-shirt, I stared at myself in the mirror. I was swimming in his clothes. I wrapped my head in a towel and opened the door walking out with my wet clothes in hand.

“Hey, can I lay these outside to dry?”

I didn’t want to look at him. I felt ugly.

“What’s wrong with your eyes, are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “I tried using the hair conditioner as eye make-up remover.”

“Ah...do you need anything else?”

“Do you have lotion or does Kate have any eye-makeup remover?”

“Yep.” He dashed off once more leaving me to wonder what to do with my clothes.

I opened the back door and it was like an oasis. I could hear the water falling into the pool form the Jacuzzi. The back wall was covered with tropical looking ivy and it had little white flowers blooming all through it. A million white Christmas lights wove through it illuminating the backyard. The air was warm and smelled sweet. It reminded me of Hawaii. I started to daydream that I lived there, that it was my back yard. I walked over to a lounge chair and laid out my clothes. I closed my eyes inhaling deeply and I turned and he was standing right next to me. My heart thudded rapidly. I hadn’t heard him approach.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said coming up behind me wrapping his arms around my waist. The side of his face pressed against my ear. My breathing accelerated and I grew self-conscious about it. I tried to calm myself but it was futile, he made my blood pump when he touched me, there was no way of hiding it. He whispered in my ear. “I like the strawberry scent better.”

“Me too,” I whispered. I leaned my head back onto his chest and pictured being frozen in polar ice with his arms wrapped around me.

“Why are we whispering?” he said with a chuckle.

I giggled softly. “I guess I’m afraid they’ll here me. Their bedroom window is right there,” I ans
wered, pointing up to the right. “They have their windows open, you know. Dad is too cheap to run the air-conditioning, so we suffer, sweltering like we’re in Africa.”

Jake laughed under his breath. “You have a way with words.”

“You must be rubbing off on me,” I replied.

We stood there for a long moment. Jake nuzzled my ear and it sent chills up and down my body. I wanted it now more than ever. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was going to ask him to kiss me. I wanted Jake to be my first real kiss.

“Jake, I want you to kiss me.”

I could barely breathe. He didn’t answer for a long moment. I could feel his chest rise as he took in a deep breath and held it. I turned my face up towards his so I could see his reaction. He stared at me for another short moment and without saying a word he touched my face and brought his lips gently to mine. I was paralyzed. He let go of my waist, moving away slightly. I opened my eyes. He was going to stop -
No. Don’t stop -
went through my mind, then the words spilled out of my mouth before I realized it.

“Jake,” I said breathless, “Please
don’t stop.”

He remained speechless. I could feel the warmth of his breath flash over my face and I closed my eyes hoping he’d continue. He brought his lips to mine, open, and I melted when I felt the warmth of his smooth moist tongue touch my lips, without thinking I mimicked his motions. He looked at me with dreamy eyes I hadn’t seen before and this time it was me who went in. I wrapped my hand around his neck and weav
ed my fingers through his hair. I was lost in a dream I never wanted to end.

21

Alyssa

A pulsing sensation ran through me from the top of my head to my fingers all the way to my toes. Suddenly, Jake spun me around pushing me away. He forced me to sit on the lounge chair. He crouched down and his hands remained on my hips. He hung his head.

“What’s wrong?
” I tried to catch my breath.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, looking up at me. “Aly, this is, uh. I can’t. We need to cool it.” He hesitated and moved sitting down next to me. His forehead rested in his hands.

“Did I do something wrong?” I started to babble. “I’m sorry, did I totally suck? Did I get it all wrong? I just couldn’t control myself, I…”

He softly pressed
his finger to my lips.

“Hey, hey,
naw hardly. You, uh, you make me…you make me crazy, like…” he stammered nervously and sighed deeply. “Aw man, maybe someday I’ll be able to explain to you.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because I had to, Aly, right now it has to be this way.”

“Do you want me to leave?” My mood went completely flat. My first make out session went up in a puff of smoke.

“No, I don’t,” he answered reaching over taking my hand. “Aly, when I saw you tonight, it was like lighting hit me. I’ve never felt like I wanted to hang with anyone more than I want to hang with you.”

His eyes burned into mine, making me look away. “I feel the same way, I think, I mean, yeah, I do.” I confessed, “I’m mad about you. That’s how I feel right now, at this moment and I don’t want you to stop kissing me.”

“Aly,” he stalled and stood up. “Seriously, you have no idea what you do to me. Right now I think we need to just go in and put on a movie. I need to regroup.”

Back in his room I threw myself onto the bed while he tooled around with the TV. He chose an old schoo
l flick I’d never seen and said I’d be sure to like it. He turned off the lights and hopped in behind me. He pulled me close and all I could think about was our kiss. It took everything in me to not flip over and suck his face off. His smell, his taste, I was consumed by him. Thinking again of Allison’s words, my stomach sunk – “
He’s never going to be home Aly…”
What was I going to do when he left? I would die like grass in a drought. What if he did meet someone else? Someone who would give him what he would eventually want from me? I knew he thought I didn’t know too much about sex.

Jake didn’t know about all of my late nights with Nadine and Nicole’s sexually active teenage cousin, Stacey. She filled our heads with all sorts of first hand information. She shared her encounters with her boyfriend in detail. I wanted Jake to know that I wasn’t as naïve as he thought I was. I knew about
those
things and those things weren’t something I was ready to graduate to no matter how heated it got. I just wanted to make out with him.

             
I thought of my sister, I wondered how far she’s gone with a guy. I knew Owen was in her room from time to time without my parent’s knowledge. They kept the music blaring as a distraction, but I knew he was in there. I caught him sneaking into the bathroom late one night and I was so freaked out I just shut my bedroom door. I use to think she was crazy, until now. Here I was, lying in some guy’s bed, thinking about naughty things.

             
Jake’s voice echoed in my head – “
I’ve never wanted to hang with anyone more than I want to hang with you…”
– What did that really mean anyway? Like a sick heave the question flew out of my mouth.

             
“Jake, how old were you when you had your first kiss and did you have sex with the same person?” His eyes rolled back and he rubbed his forehead.

Bewilderment plastered his face.

              “Aly, why, why does stuff like this matter you?”

             
“I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I wanna know, because what I feel is pretty intense. What happened back there wasn’t lame or awkward for me at all.”

             
“Ha, yeah, well, my first kiss was lame and awkward and so was my first time having sex. I would rather not talk about it with you either.” He shifted uncomfortably moving away from me.

             
“Why not talk about it. You said you wanted to be the one, and now you are. Tell me.” I pulled at his t-shirt trying to convince him to open up. “Come on, Jake, share with me.”

             
“Alright,” he huffed, reluctant. “My first kiss was when I played truth or dare with a bunch of girls in the 7
th
grade. I picked dare, and my dare was to French kiss a girl named Katie. She was in 8
th
grade. It was stupid and stiff.”

             
“Ok, after that, when was it that you thought you knew what you were doing?”

             
“In ninth grade, I had a girlfriend and that’s when it felt more natural.”

“Why did you break up?”

              “Because she moved.”

             
“Were you sad?”

             
“Nope, I mean, I was bummed, but I didn’t give it too much thought.”

“Ok, when was your first time doing it.”

I was riveted waiting for his answer.

             
“Aly, why is it important for you to know this?”

             
“Because, I know you think I don’t know anything about it, but I do, and I know why you stopped kissing me. So I just want you to know that I get it. I understand how one thing leads to another.”

             
“Now I’m curious as to how you know anything if I’m the first guy you’ve really kissed.”

             
“Well, we, Nadine, Nicole and I, have a friend who’s a senior, and she shares stories with us.”