But now I really wanted to kiss her, and it was obvious that it meant a lot to Alex. So, I didn’t leave. Instead, I sat beside her on the bed, and my stomach roiled as I scooted closer. I lifted a hand to her face and with my thumb swiped a tear from beneath her eye. My entire body trembled as I leaned forward and pressed my lips against my best friend’s.
Her hands were suddenly on my shoulders and then around my neck. After a few soft pecks, I went in for the kill, poking out my tongue and tracing her salty lips. She opened her mouth, and I shared the wettest, sloppiest, most uncoordinated first kiss there probably ever was with my best friend. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to change something between us. After that kiss, there were times I saw her differently. Lying in the same bed no longer felt as innocent as it had in the past, and as we grew older, there were times that I was outright jealous seeing her with other guys. It was stupid. Alex and I were not together, and we’d never kissed again after my thirteenth birthday. But there were many, many times I’d regretted that kiss over the years. Maybe, if it hadn’t happened, things wouldn’t have changed...
ALEXIS (AGE 15)
“ALLIE, YOU LOOK SO beautiful, baby,” Momma said, lifting her fingers to her lips as tears trickled down her cheeks.
I rolled my eyes and scoffed before mumbling out my thanks and walking past her into the hall.
“I mean it. Colt’s a fool.”
“For the last time, Mom, I don’t like him like that!” I shouted, stomping down the stairs in my heels. I felt like a baby giraffe trying to walk in the damn things.
I finally looked up from my feet when I reached the bottom step, and there he was...Looking like a damned GQ model, in the foyer chewing his lip to keep from laughing at my embarrassment. Great!
My face warmed. “Hey, Colt,” I called as I stepped onto the marble tile. “Where’s Marci?”
He coughed. “She...uh. She’s meeting us there.”
“Us?”
“It’s our first homecoming, Alex. I thought we’d ride together?”
Well, at least he hadn’t completely ditched me. It had been hard having to share my best friend with his new basketball teammates and the girls who fawned all over him at school. Skanky bitches. I felt him slowly slipping away, and I hated it.
“A goddamned fool,” Mr. Fowler agreed as he walked out of the kitchen with my father trailing closely behind. “Alexis, you look lovely, honey.”
I cleared my throat and looked up at Mr. Fowler. “Thank you, sir.” He was a big black teddy bear of a man, and had always treated me like his own.
Then my own father walked over, wrapping me in a tight hug, and whispered, “A damned fool,” into my ear, and I’d had enough.
I glanced over to Colton, whose head was now hanging in embarrassment, and felt my blood begin to boil. “Why do y’all do this to us? Why do you have to make everything so weird just because we’re in high school now? Nothin’s changed! We don’t like each other like that, okay? Stop trying to mess up our friendship. He’s like my brother. It’s gross.” I felt that lie churn in my stomach. “Just...just...stop it, okay?”
All four of our parents mumbled and nodded, and Colt looked like he was about to punch someone. Why’d our parents always have to ruin everything?
I walked over to my best friend and reached for his hand, tickling his palm with my newly manicured fingers. “Sorry, Colt.”
With a tight-lipped smile, he shrugged. “Don’t worry ’bout it, Al. Like you said, it’d be like dating my sister.” He forced a laugh. “Gross,” he agreed, scrunching his nose.
Ouch. That stung. The truth was that I’d slowly been developing feelings for Colton over the last few years and I hadn’t known what to do about them. Our parents teased us endlessly about how we’d been betrothed from the womb. Our mothers thought it would be the coolest thing ever to have their children wed. Our fathers had played ball together in school. They were ridiculously close, all four of them. They’d never monitored the two of us very closely because honestly, I think they’d have been over the moon if a relationship ever formed between us. But one hadn’t. Apart from that one kiss, Colt never showed any interest in me, and I tried for all I was worth to hide the immense attraction I had for him.
I’d always thought Colton was beautiful, with his dark caramel skin and light green eyes. His hair was a mop of silky brown curls, and those dimples could melt the panties right off a nun. His muscles were becoming more defined. Somehow, my friend had turned into a sexy man-boy, and I wanted him. I wanted desperately to be on the receiving end of those flirty smiles he reserved for all of the other girls. Girls who I knew were only my friends to get closer to him. I wanted the stolen kisses and admiring looks. I wanted to be more than one of the guys, and I had to get over it or I’d end up losing my best friend completely.
I dropped his hand, feeling awkward. “Let’s just go.”
Mrs. Fowler drove us, trying to lighten our mood on the way, to no avail. Colt was pressed up against his door behind her seat and me against mine on the passenger side. We didn’t speak to each other. Not one word. I’d never felt so uncomfortable with him in all my life.
As she pulled up behind the line of cars waiting to drop their kids off, his mom glanced at us in the back seat with a toothy smile. “You two lighten up. They were just teasin’ ya. You only get your first homecoming once...Make the most of it, huh? I’ll pick you two up at eleven. Have fun!”
When the car finally rolled to a stop in front of the gym doors, I bolted as fast as humanly possible. Bile churned in my stomach. It felt like we’d just had a huge fight, only we hadn’t. I headed straight for the bathroom, the one place I knew he couldn’t follow, to fix my makeup and dry my eyes, and as luck would have it, bumped right into Marci and her two minions, Jessica and Lacy.
“Hey, Alex,” Marci chimed with feigned excitement. “I take it Colton’s finally here?”
Forcing a smile, I widened my eyes in a lousy attempt to keep the tears from falling in front of her. “Yeah, he’s somewhere around.” I hated that my voice broke.
“Great! You know I love you, right?” she asked, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder. I could sense there was more coming.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, nodded, and smiled. “Mmhmm.”
“Just...don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” she asked, smoothing her poufy pink skirt.
I didn’t even try to hide the eye roll as I crossed my hands on my chest. “What, Marci?”
“Well, he’s my boyfriend...yet he’s always with you. I think maybe it’s time you find a boyfriend of your own...”
Lightbulb. Why hadn’t I thought of that myself?