Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
He let out a short, beautiful laugh.
“I told you, I know you,” I said. “Stop trying to solve me and just let things be what they are.”
“Easy for you to say,” he replied.
“Hey,” I said, reaching out to clasp one of his hands in mine. His fingers were icy, but mine were too, so fuck it.
He pulled in a long breath. “Hey,” he replied.
“It’s you and me again,” I said. “I’m so fucking happy I’m back.”
7
Evan
Turns out the huge, sweet wet dream of a jock is still a better kisser than anyone in the universe. He kissed me like he wanted to open me right up and fuck me, like his body was made for mine, and he intended to use it.
Of course, that’s all in my head. It has to be.
Fucking tequila.
Prom night, senior year of high school, fifteen years ago.
Mitch and I had sneaked a small plastic bottle of tequila in with us. Of course it was tequila, which apparently had fueled every terrible, wonderful moment of my life so far.
Bringing tequila to school had been insanely risky, especially because it would have gotten Mitch swiftly kicked off the football team and gotten me kicked out of the Mathletes.
But we hadn’t gotten caught. We’d shared sips of that cheap, burning liquor outside the gym, sitting in a little alcove that smelled like old wood polish. We could hear the music and chatter of the dance but nobody could see us, two seventeen-year-olds getting sillier and drunker by the minute. We started playing a game of truth or dare, but both of us just kept picking truth over and over again, asking stupid questions like “have you ever jerked it in public.” Questions that would usually render Mitch a blushing, babbling mess.
But everything was different that night. He was bolder. Uninhibited.
After enough alcohol was in our blood, he’d asked a doozy of a question. He’d asked me what my biggest secret was, and in my state of innocent drunkenness, I didn’t even try to lie to him.
I had admitted to Mitch that I’d had a crush on him for at least a couple of years. Admitted that I’d dreamed about kissing him, even though I’d never kissed anyone before in my life. Admitted that I’d always wished he would be my first kiss.
He’d shrugged while my body had been on fire. I was pretty sure that I was going to have a heart attack.
“It wouldn’t be, like… a big deal, or anything,” he said.
I was stunned into silence.
He shrugged again. “It really wouldn’t.”
“What wouldn’t?”
“If you just want to like, get it over with,” seventeen-year-old Mitch said, having no clue what his crystalline eyes were doing to my heart.
“My first kiss?” Every bone in my body felt like it was electrified.
“It isn’t hard to kiss,” Mitch said. “I’ve done it with a couple of girls. I can teach you. Come here.”
My heart was going to pop. “Right now?!”
The fucker had laughed, his stupid, beautiful lips curling up as he reached out and clasped his hand around my wrist, pulled me closer to him. I was certain I was going to faint.
“Come here, weirdo. It’s just a kiss.”
He smelled so good, and I never fucking wanted him to let go of my arm. As he leaned in, all I could think about was how many times I had jerked off to this, how many times I had come just from thinking about what was actually about to happen.
And then he leaned in, touched his lips to mine, and quietly changed my life forever.
We kissed briefly at first, and then we both backed up and paused for a moment. I felt like I was going to disintegrate into separate molecules immediately until Mitch smiled again, and we both began to laugh our asses off, dissipating all of the tension that had built to this crescendo.
I had no idea what it had meant to him, if anything. All I knew was what it had meant to me, and how this tiny moment in a dirty, half-lit hallway was going to be a memory I held in my mind for the rest of my life, looking back at it like it was a dream.
When we stopped giggling like idiots I was ready for him to back off and say that it was weird as hell.
Instead, he gently pushed me back against the wall and kissed me again. Harder.
If there was any question about how much I belonged to him after the first kiss, it was gone as soon as he did that. Some part of my soul made its way into Mitchell Price’s heart when he leaned in to kiss me that second time, and that part of me had just belonged to him ever since.
This kiss was deeper and more intense. After a moment, he let his tongue slide over my lips, and I hadn’t known what to do. I opened my lips for him, letting him in. Things didn’t feel so much like a joke or an experiment anymore. Mitch had been the only person in school who knew the real me, and accepted me despite how different we were.