Note: More ZackxSummer fluff just like the doctor ordered... in celebration of SOR being picked up for a third season. 20 episodes - woo!
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Never Been Kissed.
It all started when Tomika got her first kiss. Summer knew she had to be happy for her, but now Summer was behind in everything! Freddy and Lawrence had had girlfriends for months now... and she was afraid of seeming like the inexperienced one in the band.
Never been kissed.
And Summer felt like everyone she knew was staring at her. Laughing at her behind her back because they all knew. She flinched every time anyone laughed all day, thinking automatically it would be at her until she stood corrected. Maybe no one was laughing out loud at her, but they were laughing in their head.
"You comin'?" Tomika asked, stopping by her desk as the bell had rung and Mr Finn had lead the way by bolting out of the classroom immediately at the bell.
"Nah, I think I'll just catch up on some things here. Important things. That sort of stuff. It's really important."
Tomika looked at her disbelievingly but then shrugged and said "Suit yourself." before making her exit.
Summer's head thudded on the desk in front of her. She hated feeling like this. Tomika was her best friend. But now everything was wrong. Everything always seemed to come so easy for Tomika: singing, getting along with people, school and now kissing.
Tears stung her eyes. She should be happy for her friend, but now all she felt was this incredible wave of self-pity.
And just then when she thought she was alone, Summer heard the door open and footsteps.
"Hey, I'm just getting my-"
Silence. It was Zack. Summer knew that voice and he was one of the last people that she wanted to see when she was like this. She wiped her eyes and sat up.
"Um, nevermind." He sat in the seat next to her. Tomika's seat usually. "Summer, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." A new wave of tears hit her. She was not fine.
"Really?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Not fine," she gurgled.
Zack frowned at her. "You want to talk about it?"
With him? Not particularly. But Summer took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of herself, and then gave a little hiccup through her tears. Zack kept looking at her, as if coaxing her to get it out there... probably so he could go.
"Tomika kissed someone."
Zack blinked a couple of times, letting it register. It didn't compute. "So?"
"She got her first kiss first - as in, before me." Summer sighed and dried her eyes. "I've never kissed anyone."
"..." Zack looked blankly back at her. "Still not getting the real problem here."
"I'm the last one!" Summer wailed. "Everyone else has had their first kiss but me!"
"Are you sure that Mr Finn's had his yet?" Zack grinned.
Summer glared.
"I'm kidding. Besides, you're not the only one."
"Then who?"
"Um." Zack looked at Summer as if she'd lost the plot. "Me?"
Oh. That should have been obvious to her. Zack had never had a girlfriend, and he was always too busy with business ideas to really persue girls normally... she guessed.
"Oh... you." she said it with finality. Now that made sense.
"See? You're not alone here." Literally or figuratively.
"So don't you want to?"
"Um," Zack was gobsmacked. "Now?"
That wasn't what she meant. "No, in general! Doesn't it bother you?"
"I haven't really thought about it." He frowned again, clearly thinking about it now was bothering him. "Besides, who cares?"
"Everybody cares Zack. Everybody! I feel like everybody can read it on my face. There goes Summer; the girl who has never been kissed."
Zack gave a slight eyeroll. She was overreacting. Nobody could even tell. And anyway, it could easily be fixed.
"What?" Summer snapped at him, noticing his dismissal.
"Just kiss me."
Summer's eyes grew wide. "What?" Summer shrieked.
"You want it fixed don't you? Just kiss me. Problem solved."
"Why should I kiss you? Maybe I don't want it solved that badly. Maybe I'm happy staying unkissed." Summer crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.
"And yet you're here crying about it. Something doesn't add up."
He was so infuriating! But he was right. His proposal did seem to make sense. Except he wasn't Freddy or dreamy or anything... and weren't first kisses supposed to be magical?
"Come on Summer. I have places to be. Just kiss me and get it over with." Zack got up from the chair and glanced over at his desk behind her as if to prove his point.
She'd punch him and get it over with if he kept being so presumptuous. She stood up at her desk as well, giving him her best exasperated look. "I'm trying to have a crisis here Zack and if you can't-"
If he couldn't understand that.
Except he had grabbed her shoulder and closed the gap between them.
Every rational thought flew out of Summer's mind. Zack was kissing her. She was having her first kiss. Somewhere deep inside her let out a 'sqeee!'. She just about melted, and it was from Zack of all people.
When Zack pulled back again, all of her insecurities overwhelmed her. Did he not like it? Was she a terrible kisser? Was there a reason she had remained unkissed all these years? The only thing she could read in his eyes was a smug sense of self-satisfaction.
"If you- if- yeah! You take that kiss and you do something with it!" Summer put a hand to her hip and drew herself up full height, cheeks flushed. She wanted to kiss him again. It was nice.
Zack grinned even wider. "I will," he said cheerily and went around his desk, extracting some contraption from it.
"Glad you're better," he quipped and then left the room.
Her cheeks lit up again, embarrassingly. Summer's mind was spinning. Although she was thrilled to have her first kiss, and her lips were still tingling, it wasn't lost on her that the experience was taken by Zack. Not her longtime crush Freddy who was off kissing other girls.
In the end she realized she had to accept it, even if she didn't like the fact. Should she tell Tomika she had her first kiss? Only if she didn't tell her who it was with. Instead it could be some mysterious stranger who swooped in to save the day... who she didn't even see the face of.
That made it a much better story.
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