Chapter One
It's a heady thing, standing in a tiny, cramped alcove with another boy's lips so close my vision is blurring trying to look at them. It's stuffy in here and there's barely three inches of space between us and I don't know what to do with my hands. As it is there's only two thin layers of damp swimsuit material standing between us. I'm one ill-timed boner away from permanent humiliation.
"I'm gonna count to three," he says, his voice raspy and sexy and trouble-making in the way that watching an R-rated movie with your grandma is trouble-making, "and then I'm gonna kiss you."
"What!" It blurts out of me, all high-voiced and screechy, like I've never been kissed by a boy in a tiny, cramped alcove. Full disclosure: I haven't.
"One."
He moves closer and I jump like a scared rabbit. I'm totally irresistible. Obviously. Boys will be lining up outside the alcove to take a crack at these amateur lips. "I don't even know your name."
"Two."
He puts his hot hands (both temperature hot and sexy hot - a winning combination) on the waistband of my swim trunks and his thumbs brush against my skin. His mouth is so close to mine our noses touch. He must be standing on his tiptoes.
"Three."
I first noticed him in Rachel's outdoor kitchen. Rachel's got one of those insane mega-mansions that are peppered all around Nashville complete with massive pool and hot tub, outdoor kitchen, pool house big enough to house a family of four…you get the picture. He was trying to get ice from the refrigerator door. He kept pushing the button for cubed ice and when only crushed ice came out his lips screwed up into the cutest little jagged line. He's the most beautiful boy I've ever seen in real life and that's saying something because I've met Zac Efron in person. Twice.
"The cubed ice function is busted," I said, leaning against the fridge trying to look cool while hoping I didn't look like I was trying to look cool.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Crushed only."
He peered up at me through a tangle of eyelashes so thick they weighed down his eyelids in that sexy/sleepy kinda way, so thick he blinked in slow-mo.
"I don't like crush ice. It always falls down in clumps and lands on your face and goes up your nose."
"Totally."
"Yeah."
The whole thing started earlier, even before the fascinating ice cube discussion. He'd been circling the party all night, leaning on things and generally looking gorgeous. I usually know everyone at Rachel's SOS parties so it surprised me to see A) a stranger and B) a stranger so hot I feared my body hair would catch on fire.
When I finally worked up the nerve to talk to him about ice cubes, Rachel pulled me away to play chicken in the pool.
I lost track of him after that (like I said, big house) and was standing by the rock wall waterfall with Rachel when I spotted him.
"Who are you staring at," she said, trying to figure out where my eyes were glued.
"No one. I'm not staring."
But I so was. I was supposed to be listening to Rachel talk about how Finn Hudson showed up to the party with Quinn Fabray thus amping up her hot pursuit of Finn Hudson. Instead, I was scanning the party looking for Eyelash Boy. (Seriously, you should see these things. They flutter in the wind.).
Rachel smacked a mosquito that landed on my arm. "You're not even listening to me."
"I'm totally listening to you."
"Then what did I just say?"
"You said your destiny, Finn Hudson, will rue the day he dissed you for someone so basic as Quinn Fabray and who cares anyway because it's summer and then junior year and you'll be so amazing at every assigned task that Teen Vogue will write an article about you and you'll skip senior year because you're on a PR tour telling the masses about the benefits of being so young and so brilliant."
"I'm being serious."
I gasped and threw my hand across my heart. "You don't think you're are young, genius ingenue ready to take over the world? At least you won't be slinging pad thai at the Smiling Elephant for every hipster in Berry Hill."
"Kurt."
"Rachel."
"Why does this always happen to me?"
"Hold that thought, I gotta pee. I'll be right back and we will discuss a detailed plan to win back your destiny."
It was a lie, I didn't have to pee. I had to go look for him, my Eyelash Prince. Rachel's house is massive but not so much that a tiny, gorgeous boy would go missing. I was walking back over to the outdoor kitchen where I first saw him when a crush of soon-to-be freshman girls pushed me into the alcove between the kitchen and the path down to the backyard fire pit. The very same alcove where he was standing. Is standing. Where he is currently counting down to kiss me.
"Sorry," I squeaked out.
"What is this thing anyway," he said, looking up and around, trying to figure out the point of an outdoor alcove. He didn't seem to notice that we were both wedged in so tight it would take a Costco-sized can of WD-40 to de-wedge us.
"I think it's an alcove."
"An alcove?" His right eyebrow arched so high I wanted to laugh but doing so would cause my nakedness to touch his nakedness. I've never been the kind of guy to shy away from a shirtless pool situation but all this closeness was taxing on my sweat glands. Who walks around a party with no shirt on? What fashion icon decided it was okay for men to be all breast-positive but women have to cover up? It's sexist, if you ask me. We should all be obligated to wear nipple-coverings. Level the playing field.
"Yeah, alcove, like, a decorative space. They're usually for things like bookshelves or a giant vase or something. I'm not sure what this one is for; I've never seen anything in it. It's just always been here, empty. Well, I guess until now. Who knew two people could fit in here? Not me." I said all of this because I get chatty when I'm nervous. And I was very nervous.
He smiled, a slow upturn of the corners of his mouth, like I said the exact thing he was hoping I would say. Like he rubbed a magic lamp and a genie popped out (the genie is me in this metaphor) and fulfilled his one and only wish. That's the kind of grin he was grinning at me.
He ran the tip of his finger down my left forearm and stopped at my wrist. Every neuron in my body shot sparks through the pours of my skin. Does the body have neurons? Is this a thing? Note: Must pay more attention in Biology
"Do you come here often?"
Yes, that is literally what he said. He's probably one of those overly confident douche-nozzles who thinks they can just deliver a ridiculous line like do you come here often and dudes everywhere will drop their panties, so to speak. Boys this ridiculously attractive can get away with saying ridiculous things. The problem is, it totally worked on me.
"What, you mean like this alcove? Or this house? This party? The answer to all three is yes. Rachel's been having the SOS party since we were like, six."
"What's SOS?"
"Start of summer. You know, end of school and all that. It's a tradition."
"Rachel. Is that your girlfriend?" He said this as his fingertip rubbed circles into my wrist. I wanted to laugh but again, our bare chests were so close his chest hair was touching my skin which made me wonder if I liked dudes with chest hair and if I didn't maybe he could shave it off or something even though I've read the stubble can be hell.
"One of her dads is big time friends with my dad and we've known each other since we were zygotes. Our friendship was inevitable. As much as a more-than-friends relationship is the fervent and committed prayer of both of our parents, no, she is not my girlfriend. I am decidedly playing for the other team."
"And what team might that be?" he asked with a smirk that could medal in the Olympics.
He was doing it again. The douche-nozzle grin that was both annoying and leveling me to my grave. The only way he couldn't hear my actual heartbeat was if he'd suffered from temporary hearing loss due to the insanely loud country music blaring from strategically placed Bose speakers around the pool.
"The one that hates this music."
His fingertip stopped circling. "You don't like country music?"
"I know, it's like a sin to live in Nashville and hate country music. To make matters worse, my dad is super in the scene and fully expects me to follow in his footsteps."
He looked up at me through his eyelash forest. "I'm gonna count to three."
It's hot. The muggy night air and our mingling breath has raised the air temperature in the alcove one million degrees. A bead of sweat rolls down my neck. I open my mouth to say something else, unable to shut-up for even a millisecond, but then his lips are on my lips. His hand is on my jaw and his other hand is on my bicep. Our bare chests are for sure touching and he smells like nachos and oh God.
Oh.
My God.
Can a kiss reformat your brain? I haven't kissed many guys, okay I've kissed two guys, but this guy…this guy.
We break apart and I say, "I'm Kurt," needing to ground myself in something real.
"You're cute," he says, and then he's kissing me again, with purpose. There's hands and full body leaning and skin on skin and this is going to be the best….summer…EVER.
The alcove feels exposed and it's also five million degrees being crammed in here so I suggest a new location.
"Hey, you wanna go hang out in the basement?"
"The basement?"
"Not to like, get too crazy or anything, just to get out of this alcove. I mean, if you wanted to get crazy I might be okay with it. I mean, whatever." I am not okay with it.
He grins that genie-lamp grin and unsticks himself from me, sliding out onto the stone pathway up to the house. I go and stand next to him, already feeling cooler and the tiniest bit more clear headed.
"It's this way," I say, leading him up the pathway.
It feels weird to walk beside him after we just totally made out like two hornball dudes who've only ever had a conversation about ice cubes and alcoves. I also get a true sense of how much shorter he is then me.
As we're walking I'm noticing he's not saying anything. I mean, I'm not either but isn't he the one who instigated this whole ordeal? Or did I instigate it with all my leering and suggestive ice talk?
"There's another fridge in the basement. You could get some cubed ice."
He laughs, like I'm super charming which, I'm not. We walk underneath the deck and I open the basement door and flip on the light switch. He reaches across me and turns it off. And then
it
is
on.
I'd like to tell you we're talking, learning about each other, exchanging intellectual quips about the state of the world economy, but we are just full on making out. I have never in my life imagined kissing someone, and being kissed by someone, this thoroughly. I may not know his name but I have an intimate knowledge of the inside of his mouth.
We make our way to the sectional couch covered in a hideous floral print and end up horizontal. I worry things might get spicier than I'm ready for, but he maintains a healthy, hands-above-the-equator situation. And I am living for every second of it.