Jamie watched the empty glass soda bottle spin from the center of the rug in his friend's parents' basement. Managing a nervous swallow, he glanced over at the collection of people around the perimeter. Four other guys from his class, two girls from down the block, and two girls he'd never met before - the ones from public school - occupied the rest of the circle. One of those girls, the blonde who made him nervous, had just taken her turn as she crawled to the middle of the floor and flicked her wrist to send the bottle flying.
Eventually, it slowed to a stop, the rim pointed directly at him.
"Nice," Jamie's friend Mike approved beside him.
Jamie shifted and looked up to see the girl sit back on her heels, a teasing smirk on her lips across from him. Her eyes glittered a reassuring blue as she took a moment to study him, then got to her feet.
"Come on," she beckoned
"Reagan…" his friends taunted, followed by the unavoidable wooo…
"Alright!" Mike announced, the coordinator of this whole affair. He looked down to push the buttons on his digital watch and it beeped a few times. "Jamie and Eddie - in the closet you go."
One of the other girls jumped up and headed to the stereo in the corner to turn up the radio when the beginning acoustic guitar of Linger by The Cranberries filled the room.
Jamie moved to stand up and let his gaze settle on her, his partner for the next round of Seven Minutes in Heaven, apparently.
All of the guys joined in. "Jamie! Jamie! Jamie-"
"Shut up!" Eddie called out, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She made her way to the center of the circle, reached down for Jamie's limp arm, and tugged him away. "Come on," she repeated.
He coughed out a surprised laugh and let his footsteps fall behind hers as he followed her across the room. There, she led him inside the storage closet.
He heard Mike shout "Seven minutes!" before he closed the door.
Jamie blinked as he adjusted to the confined space. "Look-" he started, with another nervous swallow as he stood face to face - well, sort of. She was a good head shorter than him - with this girl he'd only just met. "We don't have to… you know, do anything-"
"I'm not kissing you," she stated, matter-of-factly.
"Oh." Jamie nodded and glanced up at the winter coats that surrounded them, a collection of board games on the shelf, along with Mike's snowboard and a bunch of old baseball mitts. He concentrated on the smell of wool and old leather in the musty basement closet as he slid his hands into his pockets. "Okay."
"I have a boyfriend."
He pressed his lips together and offered a nod.
"You're Reagan?"
"Hm? Oh, uh… I'm Jamie," he told her. "Reagan's my last name."
"I like Reagan better."
"Okay," he laughed.
"I'm Eddie."
He glanced away, somewhat confused but didn't question it.
"It's a nickname. Don't ask."
"Okay."
"Okay," she echoed playfully. "Do you say anything else?"
With a helpless shrug, he exhaled another soft laugh. "Uh… What's up?" He managed.
"Yikes," Eddie muttered and had to shake her head in amusement. "So… you go to St. Gabriel's?"
"Yeah."
She nodded and backed herself up against the opposite wall, folding her arms over her chest. "Isn't that an all boy's school?"
"Yeah."
"Hm…" She hummed and he couldn't help notice the mischievous sparkle that lit up her eyes at that admission. "So where do you meet girls?"
"There's a sister school across the street, Sacred Heart," he explained. "We have like, dances with them sometimes. So… I guess there."
She leaned her head back against the wall, a smirk curving along her lips. "How tragic."
His gaze fell along the length of her neck and down the curve of her shoulder, tanned and freckled from summer, the thin strap of her white tank top on the verge of slipping off of it, but magically seemed to stay put right there. For some reason, his eyes were fixated on it.
"What school do you go to?" He asked.
"I live upstate," she answered. "But my parents are in the south of France for the summer, so-" And then she averted her eyes as if to scoff at that fact. "I'm staying with my cousin."
She didn't look like the girls from the school across the street. Something about the way she looked at him, like she had a secret or a promise, was dangerous. It made his heart feel like it was slamming inside his ribcage, and he didn't realize it until the heat of his pulse seemed to spread up his neck, between his ears.
"Oh." Was all he could manage as he glanced away.
"You ever kissed a girl before?"
His brow furrowed and he looked at her again. "Yes."
That quirk at her lips teased him and she narrowed her eyes as if to determine his honesty.
But he had. Theresa Mancini, last year in seventh grade. He kissed her on the ferris wheel at Coney Island. And then later that night, she informed him he wasn't her type - whatever that meant - and told him to buy her cotton candy.
"You seem nervous!" Eddie grinned at him and stepped forward before she reached out and took hold of his shoulders. "Why are you nervous?"
With a chuckle, his gaze flicked over to her hands on him. Her touch seemed to unwind him, but at the same time, halt his heartbeat altogether.
"I don't know. It's weird," he finally said. "It's weird to stand in a closet with someone."
"We're supposed to be making out." She arched a coy eyebrow at him.
He tilted his head. "You have a boyfriend."
Her tongue flicked over her own bottom lip and it lured his gaze there. He found himself suddenly craving whatever it tasted like.
"True," she murmured.
"So…" Jamie trailed off before clearing his throat.
"If I didn't, would you?"
"Would I what?"
Her head fell to one side and she dropped her hands to her hips. "Kiss me."
"Well…" He exhaled nervously and glanced away while he considered his answer. "I mean, those are the rules."
"The rules? She laughed and he admired the way her nose scrunched with her amusement. "You look like a rule follower."
He got that a lot. "Well. My dad's a cop, so…"
"He is?" Her brows lifted.
He nodded. "Yeah."
Eddie inhaled deeply and crossed her arms over her chest once more. "Jeez. Catholic school, dad's a cop…"
"I know." He shrugged as he glanced down to kick his shoe absently into the carpet.
"You'll probably be like, in a motorcycle gang or rob banks when you grow up or something," she teased. "Just to be a rebel."
He sniffed a soft laugh. "Doubtful."
"No?"
"No." He felt himself smile as he glances up.
"A nice boy?"
His shoulders rose again. "I'm just… I don't know. Sure. What's wrong with that?"
A hint of a smile perked up her cheek. "Nothing."
Jamie twisted his lips, biting the inside of his cheek while a quiet moment fell between them. He listened to the muffled guitar from the radio outside the door, recognizing 'Til I Hear It From You by the Gin Blossoms as it crooned the soundtrack to their awkwardness. Seven minutes was a really long time.
"What about you, huh?" He eventually questioned.
"What about me?"
"Rich girl from the suburbs," he reasoned, squinting one eye at her. "You do whatever you want?"
"Who said anything about being a rich girl?"
"Parents in the south of France."
"Ah."
"Just a guess."
"Well." Eddie looked down and tucked her hair behind her ear. "It's not my money."
Exhaling a quiet laugh, he tilted his head like he'd never thought of it that way.
She drew in a deep breath and slipped her hands into the back pockets of her shorts. "If it was, I'd be there too," she mused. "And not… spending my whole summer in Brooklyn."
"What's wrong with Brooklyn?"
She lifted her lashes and that half smile coasted along her lips once more. "I'm in someone's coat closet in a basement, not making out with a really cute guy. Where should I start with what's wrong with it?"
Jamie felt the grin light up his face before he dropped his head with an easy chuckle. "You're the one who said we're not going to makeout in here."
"We're not," she insisted.
"Okay."
"Okay!"
She pressed her lips together and a finger went to the gold circle pendant around her neck. She played with it thoughtfully before she glanced back up at him. "But technically there are rules to this game."
His throat clenched and he felt the twinge between his brows as he wondered what that was supposed to mean. "Well yeah."
"It's a stupid game," she murmured as a step carried her closer to him.
"Yeah," he agreed, and he swore he heard his voice crack. He had to close his eyes before his jumpy nerves made him disintegrate. "It's pretty stupid."
When he opened his eyes, he saw her lift up on her toes and she eased toward him. Gently, her hands rested on his shoulders and he drew a surprised inhale through his nose as he peered down at her.
He got lost for a second in the heat that surrounded him, the coconut smell of her suntan lotion, and the feeling of her against his chest.
"I thought-" he started, and he paused with a hard swallow. He watched her lashes flit as her gaze connected with his and he tried to tell himself to breathe. "I thought you said we weren't-"
And then she looked at his lips, but bypassed them entirely as her head moved closer and she softly touched her mouth to the side of his neck.
A heavy breath escaped him and this time he knew something cracked in his throat as it squeaked out. He thought consciousness might escape him for a moment as he felt his head tip back. But before he could fully grasp what was happening, Eddie pressed one more light kiss there, exactly on the urgent flare of his pulse and then her lips left him.
Just then, the door was pulled away from behind his back. "Jamie Reagan, your time is up!" Mike shouted. He nearly lost his balance, but Eddie shifted him by the shoulders so that she could walk out around him.
His friends in the room seemed unfazed, clueless about what had just transpired, but he knew the look on his face had to give him away. He couldn't focus on it, though, because his brain was a cloudy fog. And that was a feeling he wasn't used to.
Scratching the back of his head, he made his way back out into the room, trailing Eddie to reclaim their seats around the circle.
And as he glanced across at her, he caught her eye, a secret exchange that lingered there for only a moment. But long enough to convince him that one day, he would meet that girl again.