night after I left.”
“Oh. We broke up.”
“You broke up,” he repeats, his face blank.
That’s when I notice Kitty lurking in the doorway like a little spy. “What do you want, Kitty?”
“Um... is there any red pepper hummus left?” she asks.
“I don’t know—go check.”
John is wide-eyed. “This is your little sister?” To Kitty he says, “The last time I saw you, you
were still a little kid.”
“Yeah, I grew up,” she says, not even a little bit nicely.
I throw her a look. “Be polite to our guest.” Kitty turns on her heels and runs upstairs. “Sorry about
my sister. She’s really close with Peter and she gets crazy ideas... .”
“Crazy ideas?” John repeats.
I could slap myself. “Yeah, I mean, she thinks that something’s going on with us. But obviously
there isn’t, and you don’t, like, like me like that, so, yeah, it’s crazy.” Like, why do I speak? Why did
God give me a mouth if I’m just going to say dumb stuff with it?
It’s so quiet I open my mouth to say more dumb stuff, but then he says, “Well... it’s not that
crazy.”
“Right! I mean, I didn’t mean crazy—” My mouth snaps shut, and I stare straight ahead.
“Do you remember that time we played spin the bottle in my basement?”
I nod.
“I was nervous to kiss you, because I’d never kissed a girl before,” he says, and picks up the glass
of sweet tea again. He takes a swig, but there’s no tea left, just ice. His eyes meet mine, and he grins.
“All the guys gave me such a hard time afterward for whiffing it.”
“You didn’t whiff it,” I say.
“I think that was around when Trevor’s old brother told us he made a girl.. .” John hesitates, and I
nod eagerly so he’ll go on. “He claimed he gave a girl an orgasm just by kissing her.”
I let out a shrieky laugh and clap my hands to my mouth. “That’s the biggest lie I ever heard! I
never saw him talk to even one girl. Besides, I don’t think that’s even possible. And if it was
possible, I highly doubt Sean Pike was capable of it.”
John laughs too. “Well, I know it’s a lie now, but at the time we all believed him.”
“I mean, was it a great kiss? No, it wasn’t.” John winces and I quickly continue. “But it wasn’t an
altogether terrible one. I swear. And listen, it’s not like I’m an expert on kissing anyway. Who am I to
say?”
“Okay okay, you can stop trying to make me feel better.” He sets down his glass. “I’ve gotten much
better at it. That’s what the girls tell me.”
This conversation has taken a strange and confessional turn, and I’m nervous but not in a bad way.
I like sharing secrets, being coconspirators. “Oh, so you’ve kissed that many, huh?”
He laughs again. “A respectable number.” He pauses. “I’m surprised you even remember that day.
You were so into Kavinsky, I don’t think you even noticed who else was there.”
I push him in the shoulder. “I was not ‘so into Kavinsky’!”
“Yes you were. You kept your eyes on that bottle the whole game, like this.” John picks up the
bottle and lasers his eyes at it. “Waiting for your moment.”
I’m bright red, I know I am. “Oh, be quiet.”
singke
(singke)
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