The Kiss
As he pulled me into a kiss, I'm sure the look on my face was pure surprise mixed with confusion. He wrapped his hand around my waist and mine snaked up to his hair. I had never had a kiss this intense before, and the longer we kissed the deeper and more lustful it got. His mouth tasted like Kool Aid and cinnimon. Tommy pulled back for a moment and looked at me, but before I could say a word, his lips crashed back onto mine more ardent than the first time. He spun me around and pushed me up against the wall, pinning me as we kissed. I tugged at his jacket finally pulling it off while he untucked my shirt and slid his hand up my back. Finally I realized that I hadn't been breathing and I pulled back from him, breathless and excited.
"What are we doing?" I breathed heavily. Tommy looked like he wanted to say a million different things, but he just couldn't find the words.
"I...uh...something we probably shouldn't be" he said finally.
"Probably..." I replied. The sad part is that I knew that I would end up getting hurt over this, but in the moment I did not care. I'm a teenager, ok? Making out with someone who looks like Tommy is like a banana split after a week of being on the Zone. No, a MONTH of being on the Zone. It's that good. My eyes met his and like magnets we pulled back together and continued kissing. He was so warm and smelled so good, I never wanted it to end. I kissed him with everything that I had, in case this was the last time we kissed I wanted it to be a good one and I wanted him to remember it.
A knock at the door jerked us back into reality. We quickly separated just in time to see the door knob turning. Then Kwest was there standing in the doorway.
"Hey, Are you two ok? I heard you fighting." Kwest asked looking genuinely concerned. How cute.
"Uhh yeah, all's normal on the homefront." Tommy replied looking guilty. He glanced at me briefly and then looked back at Kwest.
"Are you sure? Things sounded pretty heated in here." Kwest eyed us suspiciously.
"Heated!" Tommy asked Kwest, looking panicked.
"Yeah, it sounded like a pretty angry fight." Kwest explained. A small smile crept across my face, thinking of how cute Tommy looked when he was nervous. I need to be careful to keep myself from jumping him in front of Kwest. But I played it cool, which felt new to me. Tommy just looked relieved that Kwest did not mean "heated" another way.
"You know, artists can be so tempermental. I think we're ok now. Jude?" he said, silently asking me to confirm his story.
"Yeah we're best of friends. Quincy and I disagree about stuff like that all of the time. It's just usually in the middle of the night so no one hears us arguing." I elaborated.
Kwest seemed to accept that and he left the room, shaking his head as he went. Tommy looked at me and exhaled heavily.
"That was close. Nice work, Harrison." he looked so relieved it actually annoyed me a little. Would it really be that horrible for someone to have seen us? I don't even think Kwest would care that much. I'm sure Tommy did a lot worse things in his youth than kiss an underage girl. It wasn't even illegal, just "frowned upon."
"Yeah, well, you know me...professional liar. So, I'm going to start practicing for my performance tomorrow." I started to leave.
"What? You're still performing that song? What about..." Tommy looked genuinely surprised, like he was used to kissing girls and having them bend to his will. Well, that's not me, it never has been. It's virtually impossible to me to give in if I have my mind set on something.
"I'm not changing my mind just because you turned on that Quincy charm and gave me an amazing kiss." I replied casually. Actually it was more than a kiss. More like an amazing make-out. But I thought that sounded childish, and the last thing I wanted to do was remind Tommy of how young I am. That leads to denials and ultimatums.
"Amazing, huh?" Tommy grinned at me, "Well, I try"
"Ok, Tom, don't let it go to your head." I said as I pushed past him to grab my guitar and leave.
"Don't you think we should talk about what happened?" he asked me, looking nervous. His blue eyes sparkled, and my heart kind of danced at the thought of talking about my feelings with him. But as I said, I'm trying to play it cool so I don't end up the damn sucker again, getting my hopes up and having them come crashing down. I wanted to enjoy this feeling just as it was.
"Nah, you'll ruin it. Just let it be, Quincy." I told him honestly and I left with him watching me go, which is how it should always be.
I got home feeling exhausted physically and emotionally. I never knew how tiring fighting with Tommy was! Other things with Tommy were, of course, less tiring and more breathtaking and spine-tingling. I sat on the couch and zoned out for a few moments, playing the whole scene with Tommy in my head. Wow. What a kiss. There is certainly a reason the guy gets so much tail. Ok, I had to stop thinking about that and work.
I opened my guitar case and started playing but the chords were just not coming out right. I couldn't decide if I wanted to play the guitar myself or have Spied do it while I focused on singing. Although without a guitar I'm never sure what to do with myself. Especially with this song...sexy dancing? Who am I, Britney Spears? That would be too humiliating. Well that settles it, I'm going to play guitar. I guess I just need to play it until my fingers bleed for practice.
Once my fingers were sufficiently raw, I put my guitar away and tried to make some other decisions about tomorrow. What to wear? Maybe I should go all Marylin Monroe and wear a white dress and curl my newly blonde hair. Nevermind, that would look rediculous on me. I decided to track down Sadie and see if she had any ideas. She was generally good for that sort of thing. I found her sitting in her room listening to music.
"Hey Sades, do you have a couple minutes?" I asked politely. I always found being super sweet and polite before asking for a favor buttered people up a little.
"Sure, what is going on?" Then Sadie's brow furrowed and she gave me a good once over. I started explaining to her that I needed some clothes, something other than my usual ripped jeans, t-shirt and guitar pick necklace. She continued to give me a strange look, and I decided she wasn't listening to me at all.
"What are you looking at me like that for?" I inquired, just a tiny bit annoyed.
"You look...different...did something happen?" She asked. Right away I turned beet red and I wondered how she could tell. Was my lipstick smeared? Was the excitement and joy written all over my face? Was Sadie psychic?
"I don't know what you're talking about." Deny, deny, deny. As much as I wanted to tell Sadie all about it, it hadn't been that long since she and Tommy broke up and I didn't want to upset her. She and I had gotten really close lately and I didn't want to ruin it. It's too bad I'm such an awful liar. But apparently she decided not to press it because she let it go.
"Ok, Jude, I found just the thing. Mature, sexy not skanky." I looked at the dress Sadie had picked out. It was a silver cocktail dress with beading throughout. I tried it on and it came to a little above my knee. Sexy, not skanky just like Sadie said. I thanked Sadie for her stellar choice and thought maybe it was time for bed.
I dreamed about Tommy and our kiss and all sorts of scenarios that were both good and bad. When I woke up I did not feel very rested due to the emotionally charged dreams I had all night. I hung around the house all morning and rehearsed a little more. By 4 O'Clock I started to get ready. My makeup didn't take very long. I went heavy on the eyes and light on the lips. I wanted the dress to stand out anyway, because it was beautiful. My hair was down with a few curls, and then I was ready to go. I jumped in my car and about halfway to the venue I started to get nervous. It was November, and dark already at 5, and getting very cold out. I only had on my dress and a small jacket over it. After all, I didn't want to ruin the effect of the dress by having a rediculous parka over it. There was already a line outside the building so I parked and went in the back door.
Tommy was waiting for me in the dressing room so we could talk over some last minute details. Also, I guessed he wanted to try one more time to convince me not to do this song. I walked in and removed my jacket.
"Ok, let's get this over with." I said with a smile. Tommy finally glanced up at me and his eyes widened. He gave me a quick once-over and smiled. My heart started thumping into my ears with Tom looking at me like that and I tried my hardest to look indifferent.
"Tom, I'm ready to go on." I said, trying to get some kind of reaction out of him.
"Uhh, yeah." He continued to space out for a second and then snapped out of it, "You look gorgeous by the way."
I gave him a little half smile and said, "Ok let's do it." My smile widened as I brushed past him.