Pete brings my head down to his, and this time, he sticks his tongue right past my lips. Wow, okay, right for the kill, huh? That’s fine, I guess. It took a couple of months to teach Ashton how I like to be kissed—slow and sweet grazes, drawn-out caresses, delicate explorations of each other’s lips. Pete has what, four or five months until graduation? Then the summer, provided he stays on campus. Dartmouth’s far. Way more than a single day road trip for one driver. And plane tickets don’t come cheap for someone on a college budget. Not exactly ideal if we continue this.
Although, as he wiggles his tongue around my mouth—not even attempting to coax mine—I start to think this isn’t going to last the night, let alone a couple of seasons from now. A shame, really. I’ve never been to New Hampshire, and my fall wardrobe is on point.
I tilt my head, determined to slow down the eager thrust of his tongue. Pete switches to kissing my throat—and okay, there, that’s kind of nice. Pleasant, even. One of his hands slips into my hair—
“Ow!” His grasp yanks my hair from the elastic band holding it in place.
“Sorry,” he says with a chaste smile. He untangles his hand and sets it on the back of my neck, then resumes kissing. Only now there’s a crick in my neck from this new angle. One of my older sisters, Deirdre, once pinched a nerve from bending her neck too much. I concentrate on not repeating her injury. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if this makeout landed me in the hospital.
That would make an excellent story to tell our grandchildren one day, though. Am I not giving Pete enough credit? Sloppy kissing skills aside, he’s precisely my type. And who knows, maybe I’ll apply to Yale or Harvard for grad school. The distance wouldn’t be so bad then. We could go apple picking in autumn. Snowshoeing in winter. Visit the Cape once it gets warm.
Girl, you have got to lay off the Hallmark movies.
Just as I envision Pete and me, strolling along some Atlantic boardwalk eating lobster rolls, he groans, crushing our bundled bodies closer as he returns to my mouth with that lizard tongue. The sudden movement jars me back. Pete’s foot slides out. The swing pitches.
I fall right off his lap.
“Shit, Kennedy, are you okay?” Pete asks, helping me up from the porch.
I nod, wind knocked out of me despite the buffer of my winter jacket. “Just peachy,” I tell him once I can breathe. Straightening my coat, I check my phone with numb fingers. “Do you want to go inside? It’s freezing.”
“Actually,” he says, squinting his eyes and pursing his lips. Trying that smolder on for size again. It doesn’t work. “I was hoping we could go back to my place?”
I freeze fixing my hair. Not from the cold.
Oh, no. Absolutely not.
There are things I need to do before reaching that level. There’s shaving. Plucking. Waxing. Exfoliating, moisturizing. Selecting matching underwear. Not to mention wearing something cuter than jeans and a sweater, or using a racier lip shade than ‘Fresh Strawberry’. I hadn’t expected one of my friends to set me up tonight. I’m nowhere near ready to go back to a guy’s place or go any further than kissing.
I mean, Ashton and I had waited until junior prom, six months after our first date. I’d had to teach him how to kiss properly first. If I have to revisit square one with Pete, there’s no way we can skip ahead several steps in just one night. Especially when I’ve had no time for preparation.
“Natalie has my keys,” I point at the front door, which I will have to enter in order to get said keys back from her.
The instant we’d arrived, she’d stolen them, with the caveat she would return them after I’d stayed at the party for a whole hour. Her exact words had been, “Kennedy, you are a beautiful mermaid. Go splash in the ocean. There’s no need to run home before the clock strikes midnight.”
Ignoring that the ocean is closer to Dartmouth than it is to Lakewood University, or that she’d completely mixed up fairy tales, I’d tried to grab my keys, only to have her drop them in her bra.
“One. Hour.” had been her final warning. In the next sentence, “Oh, look, there’s Pete from my sociology class. Let’s say hi.”
Now, Pete shrugs. “I can drive.”
Which would leave Natalie with my car. Natalie, who is no doubt drinking and will continue to drink until Morris has to take her home, where he will carry her to her room and leave a glass of water and ibuprofen on her nightstand. Our other friends at this party will be in similar states. And I refuse to leave my car at an unknown residence overnight. Or go home with a guy I just met.
“This has been nice…” I draw out, looking for a way to smooth out my rejection.
“So let’s continue it elsewhere,” Pete says. “What’s the problem?”
The problem is I barely know him. That I’m not a one night stand kind of girl. That I need time and connection and mutual understanding before rushing into bed. That his kiss didn’t give me goosebumps or make anything south of my neck flutter like it should. That the last time I’d had sex, it had been with a trusted partner in a vested relationship, and having to learn it all over again with someone new scares the zings right out of my girl parts.
“Look, Ash—”
“Who is Ash?” Pete rises from the swing, smolder dissipating.
“He’s my b—” I almost say before cringing. “No one.”
Because Ashton Keeland isn’t my boyfriend. Not anymore.
“Whatever, let’s just go,” Pete says, waving off that I’d obviously called him another guy’s name. He grabs my hand and leads me off the porch. I don’t have a chance to answer, he’s that quick about it.
I jerk my hand out of his and
