First Time for Everything (20 page)

“God, boys are so immature,” Ellie says.

“Talking about boys, won’t Zac be missing you?”

Ellie sighs and picks at a piece of grass. “We’re only keeping up appearances,” she says. This takes me by surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“Zac and I broke up during the September holidays. He doesn’t want to lose face with his mates, so I told him we’ll make it official after the formal.”

“Wow,” I say. “I’m sorry, El.”

Ellie shrugs. “See? You’re not the only one keeping secrets,” she says.

“So, you’re okay with pretending to be his girlfriend?”

“I guess so. I mean, it’s just easier this way.”

“How is it easier?”

“I just don’t want to answer everybody’s questions, and it just made it easier to get through exams. Plus, Shelley and Mel will be devastated when they find out. They think Zac and I are the perfect couple.”

“Everyone thinks you’re the perfect couple,” I say.

“But you don’t,” Ellie says. It’s a statement more than a question, but I feel like I have to answer it.

“He’s such a dick, El. He always has been.”

“And me?” she asks.

“You’re not a dick,” I reply. She smiles.

“Nice to know what you really think of me,” she says. What I really think is that she’s too good for Zac. What I really think is that she’s gorgeous and smart and funny, and that I’d love for her to be my girlfriend instead of pretending to be Zac’s. What I want to say is that what I said by the bonfire is true. But I don’t say any of that. It hangs in the air between us.

Ellie lies down on her back and I stretch out beside her. We lie in silence, listening to the horseplay and music going on down at the bonfire. Ellie says, “Is it true?”

“What?” I know what she’s talking about, but I want to stall for time. I feel buzzed from the Cruiser, but it’s not enough to make me relax and want to spill my guts to her.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she says.

I sigh.

“It’s okay if it is. I mean, I won’t see you any different.”

I take a deep breath and say, “Yes.”

“Okay” is what Ellie says in reply. That’s it. Just “okay.” We lie there for a while, and I can feel Ellie picking at the grass beside me. I cross my arms so I don’t accidentally touch her. I’m wondering what I should say or do next when Ellie turns to me, props her head up on her hand, and says, “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” I turn my head, and our faces are so close I can feel her breath on my lips.

She fiddles with the empty bottle and says, “Kissing a girl. What’s it like?”

I’m not sure how to answer in a way that doesn’t reveal I’ve never done it, so I close my eyes and think of what it might feel like to have her lips on mine. “Soft,” I say, “and awesome.”

When I open my eyes, Ellie seems to have moved closer. Her lips are parted slightly, and just thinking about kissing her makes me tingle. Does she want me to kiss her? I mean, she’s close enough for me to kiss her, and she seems like she wants me to. Before I can make up my mind, Ellie leans toward me. Our lips brush, and I feel light-headed. My heart pounds as I push my lips onto hers, and I relax a little when she kisses me back. Her lips part slightly, and our tongues touch. She gasps quietly and then pulls away.

I’m anxious for her reaction. I desperately want to know that it was okay. She lays her head beside me, our foreheads almost touching, her eyes closed. Then she smiles and says, “Wow.”

I have to agree with her sentiment. It’s exactly what I hoped my first kiss would be like.

SR S
ILCOX
grew up in small town Australia. A child of the ’80s and a teen of the ’90s, it was a multicolored, fun-filled time of hypercolor T-shirts, Slip’N Slides, outrageously teased fringes, MC Hammer, and Dunlop Volleys.

She played cricket in the summer and soccer in the winter, all while wearing shorts and T-shirts with a cap glued firmly to her head.

She’s passionate about team sports, barracks for the underdog, and believes that everyone makes the right choices given the right set of circumstances. Most of all she believes that remaking movies from the ’80s should be made illegal.

She writes fiction in various genres, with lesbian main characters.

You can find her on her website (http://srsilcox.com/), ask her anything on Tumblr (http://srsilcox.tumblr.com/), or e-mail her at selena@ srsilcox.com.

J. L
EIGH
B
AILEY

I. The First Kiss

I
GASPED
and jerked back as a man in a white mask jumped out of a dark corner wielding a hunting knife the length of my forearm. Blood dripped from the silvery blade and stained the man’s denim overalls. He stopped short at the thin-linked chain that separated his room of the haunted house from the path we took.

Laughing like a hyena, my best friend Carter poked my back. “Pussy.”

It’s not that I was afraid some mass-murdering psycho would hack me into little pieces. The old farmhouse someone had converted into a haunted house for the Halloween season echoed with shrieks and shouts of attendees, the hiss of fog machines, and the creepy wails and muttering of the cheesy soundtrack piped throughout. Not like I could forget where I was. But when someone jumped at you with a bloody knife, you reacted. It was instinct. Standing at the front of the line, I got hit up first. Luckily, it was the last “scare” of the house, and we could escape.

Carter’s girlfriend Megan giggled and looped her arm through his. They’d been a couple for all of three weeks and were completely inseparable. It was sickening. When they were together, which was always, they were locked at the lips. Apparently marathon tonsil hockey was a new Olympic sport, and they intended to win the gold.

“Isn’t this a great way to celebrate your birthday, Joey?” Megan gushed. “It must be awesome to have your birthday so close to Halloween. So many fun things to do.”

I checked my phone. I had exactly one hour and forty-eight minutes until I turned sixteen. Yeah, a November 1 birthday meant I had my pick of “spooktacular” events leading up to it. Most of the time that was cool, but tonight, playing third wheel to my best friend and his girl while they made eyes at each was more trick than treat.

“We’re doing the corn maze, right?” Carter looked across the packed parking area around the farmhouse and eyed the entrance to the eight-foot stalks.

“Of course.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket. The haunted house might have been a bit cheesy, but this place did a hell of a corn maze. The field of corn stretched a full four acres, and the designers made sure the walls between the various aisles were thick enough a person couldn’t cheat and force his way through. They also went all out in decorations. Freaky-looking scarecrows lurked in corners and small lights made it appear animals watched from the stalks. The map at the entrance didn’t help much, especially for the late-night excursions. Remembering that the correct path created an outline of a lumbering zombie didn’t mean anything after the first time someone met a dead end and had to backtrack.

Scary as it could be to wander the corn in the middle of the night, emergency lights were scattered throughout to flood the maze and made sure everyone who came in went out at the end of the night. Also, there were bells set up here and there so that if someone got lost or scared, a staff person would go in and rescue them. I knew this because Mom tended to forget I was almost sixteen, and she made me find out these kinds of details before agreeing to let me go to the corn maze with Carter. Ever since I’d told her I was gay, she’d become superprotective. As if being attracted to other boys would somehow hinder my sense of direction.

Carter nudged me as we approached the maze’s entrance. “Look who’s on duty.”

Blake Richards. Even his name was enough to make me sigh like a thirteen-year-old girl. Tall, gorgeous, talented. I’d practically stalked him through freshman biology last year. He sat behind me, and I’d obsessed over his shaggy blond hair and changeable light eyes. I swore his eyes changed color depending on what he wore. In true scientific form, I conducted a study. Every day I would log the color of his shirt and the color of his eyes to find out the correlation. Less scientifically, I tried to
determine which hue I liked better. After months of careful documentation,
I discovered that there was no correlation between the color of his shirt and the color of his eyes. It was all about his mood. When he seemed happy, his eyes were a pretty shade of blue that reminded me of summer skies. When he was upset, they turned a stormy gray. Sometimes, when I couldn’t identify his emotional state, his eyes shone green. I barely learned enough about biology to pass the class, but I knew every facet of his eyes.

I doubt he knew who I was, though. I mean, sure, he knew my name and that we’d had a couple of classes together over the years, but he probably didn’t think about me in any real way. For sure he didn’t think about me the same way I thought about him. Compared to him, I was decidedly uninteresting. I had a few friends, but I wasn’t popular. I got decent grades, but I wasn’t one of the smart kids. I had no talent for sports, though I could at least run a mile in gym class without passing out. No big highs, no big lows, just solidly in the middle. And Blake? Blake was the apex, the ultimate. The golden king of the school to my commoner.

I knew everything about him, down to the brand of deodorant he preferred. Everything, that was, except the one detail that would make or break my future happiness. I had no idea if Blake was gay. The evidence was inconclusive. He seemed equally flirty with boys and girls. As far as I knew, he never dated anyone. He chided his buddies for using words like
faggot
or
fag
, but he wasn’t a member of the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance. None of which confirmed his sexual orientation one way or another, much to my frustration.

“You’re drooling.” Carter nudged me.

My hand touched my chin before I could stop it. Carter laughed.

“Hey, look, it’s Jared and Margo!” Megan gripped Carter’s arm, using it to brace herself as she waved like a maniac at someone across the parking lot. Her dark curls bobbed with the motion. Carter grinned at her like a lovesick moose, his braces glinting in the moonlight.

If Blake was the golden king of the school, Jared was the dark rebel, battling his claim. Jared was tall and sleek with a sarcastic wit and an artistic flair. His black bangs usually covered at least one of his eyes, and he’d recently dyed a strip of his hair a bold red. Now Jared, I knew, was gay. That was all he and I had in common, though. He was the president of the GSA and was always ready to take action—whether it was a fund-raiser benefiting homeless LGBT youth or pushing for an education and acceptance campaign for the school.

Jared and Blake in the same room was like Loki and Thor in a battle of wills. Sexy, dangerous, and completely combustible.

Margo returned Megan’s wave, and she and Jared walked toward us. “I’m so excited,” Margo said when they’d reached us. “I’ve been waiting to do this for the last two years. Dad finally agreed to let me do the midnight maze run. I don’t think he would have if Jared hadn’t already gone through it a couple of times.” Margo’s dad had married Jared’s mom a couple of years ago.

“He should have talked to my mom. She made me verify all the safety precautions before she agreed to let me go.” I don’t know why I told them that. Did I want to come off as pathetic? No one laughed, though.

“I know, right?” Margo shook her head in obvious exasperation. “I had to do the same thing. It’s not like we’re kids anymore. Speaking of which,” she said, changing gears at the speed of thought, “it’s your birthday tomorrow, right, Joey? Sixteen?”

“Sweet sixteen and never been kissed!” Carter crowed and punched my arm. My cheeks burned as I tried to glare lasers into Carter’s oblivious face. I glanced around, hoping nobody overheard. My eyes caught Blake’s, and I wanted to die. He was going to think I was such a loser!

When did sixteen become about kissing? Wasn’t it supposed be about cars and driving? He would totally deserve it if I pointed out that, until Megan, Carter
had never been kissed either, and he’d turned sixteen three days
before
he and she had started going out. But I was too nice for that. Or, at least, too nice to say it in front of others.

“Happy birthday,” Jared said, ignoring Carter’s comment.

“Thanks,” I muttered. There was no reason for the warm and fuzzy feelings his words caused. So what if he was a junior and at the top of the social ladder at school and I was a middle-of-the-pack sophomore?

“You guys want to go through with us?” Megan asked.

“Totally!” Margo bounced in excitement.

“Whatever.” Jared shrugged.

Margo and Megan immediately started talking, and the two other guys and I shrugged and followed behind them. We got in line at the entrance. My arm shook and my face burned as I stood next to Blake and exchanged cash for a glow-in-the-dark orange wristband.

The maze was pretty cool. The dark, the shadows, and the creepy light effects all kept things at the edge, just this side of scary. Voices could be heard from somewhere out of sight. Once we ran into another group at one of the intersections. They went right, we went left. It was no fun if we all made a giant train. Carter disappeared at one point, only to jump out minutes later and drag a squealing Megan into a dark corner to kiss some more. I rolled my eyes. Seriously.

This time I followed the group rather than leading the way. If something was going to jump out, Carter could be the one to deal with the knee-jerk reaction.

Jared played it cool, not getting involved in the debates about which way to go whenever we came to an intersection. He claimed it wouldn’t be fair since he’d been through it enough to know the best way. “Besides,” he added, “it’s more fun to watch you guys stumble around.” In his dark wool coat and scarf, he reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch in
Sherlock.
Sexy and mysterious. His knowing smirk whenever we hit a dead end only added to the resemblance.