Contrary to what her friends thought, Rikki vividly remembered her first kiss with Zane. She never told them though, they would have asked if she remembered it from her first full moon affair. She didn't remember that one but that wasn't their first kiss. She wouldn't dare let them know it had been at Emma's sleepover.

"Your parents are out, right, Em?" A girl with bright pink feathers in her hair questioned Emma who stood beside Cleo and Rikki in her family's kitchen. The girl and every other one at the party were flocking Zane as if he were the first boy they had ever seen.

"Yeah, why?" Emma asked, eyebrows furrowed. Rikki could tell the rule-follower that Emma was didn't like where this question was heading.

"We could play seven minutes in heaven." The girl suggested, turning her eyes back to Zane. His smile lit up wider than Rikki had seen to that point. It was all she could do to keep her lunch down.

"What fun is that?" Cleo chimed in.

"Speak for yourself." Zane said. "Who wants to go first, ladies?"

The girls started screaming and raising their hands as if a male pop star had just entered the party.

"Zane, this is out of hand." Emma said. "I'm going to have to throw you out if you keep this up."

"Throw out the life of the party?" Zane asked. "Good luck with the rest of the evening if you do."

"What am I supposed to do?" Emma asked the other two girls. "I don't want to get in trouble."

"All right, I think I know of a way to settle this." Zane said.

"Right, I should go first." Miriam chimed in. Zane looked at her as if a tuna had volunteered to kiss him.

"I think we should make this fair." Zane said as he reached for a piece of paper and a marker behind his girlfriend. Or whatever the hell Miriam was to him.

"All right, ladies," he started as he drew something on the paper. "I wrote a number between one and twenty on this paper. The first one to guess the number gets to go first."

Rikki saw the piece of paper he placed on the counter. Although he had flipped the paper upside down, she could still see the number.

"Seventeen." Rikki answered before any of the other girls could.

"You don't want to play seven minutes in heaven with me." Zane told her as he turned to face her.

"I don't but…" Rikki started as she picked up his paper to reveal the number seventeen he had written. "It's your rules."

The other girls groaned and Zane looked as if he was trying to solve a very complicated math problem in his head.

"You don't want to play." Was all he could come up with.

"I've changed my mind." Rikki said with a shrug. She moved around the counter to pull Zane into the lien closet at Emma's house. Both girls thanked her to no end before she grabbed him.

"Rikki, what the hell?!" Zane exclaimed. "I could be in here with a girl who actually wants to kiss me, you know."

"I think you've ruined my friend's party enough." Rikki stated and she pulled out her phone and set a timer. She didn't want to be in here a second longer than she needed to but she didn't want the other girls in the party to think she was bluffing.

"'Ruined?'" Zane repeated. "Ha, good one. The only reason everyone else hasn't left is because I'm here."

"I didn't know Emma's friends had never seen a boy before." Rikki retorted. "Otherwise I never would have let you cross the threshold of this home."

"I'm sure they've seen boys before." Zane said.

"And they choose to flock you?" Rikki asked. "Pity for them."

"Oh, come on I'm a catch!" Zane said. "I'm funny, rich, handsome-"

Rikki cut him off as she started to pretend she needed to vomit. The closet was dark but she could feel Zane roll his eyes.

"This is pointless." Zane sighed.

"Yeah, sure." Rikki said. "Go ahead and run off because I'm not giving you positive attention. I bet your parents just worship you."

Zane froze in his tracks. "What did you say?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Rikki replied. "I bet daddy's never told you 'no' and mummy was always there to clean your wounds with cash."

"You don't know anything about me, Rikki." Zane told her now he had turned from the door back to her.

"Really?" Rikki scoffed, still not fully convinced. "What all did I get wrong? Did I forget the lawsuit your parents would file on the kid who's bike accidentally scraped yours?"

"My family doesn't give a shit about me, okay?!" Zane exclaimed. He exclaimed it so loud, Rikki was surprised she didn't hear footsteps coming their way after a few moments. She only heard the introduction to that Britney Spears song.

"Forget it, I'm leaving." Zane sighed as he grabbed the doorknob for the second time.

"My family doesn't give a shit about me either." Rikki said, quietly and solemnly. "I'm sorry."

Zane sighed as he looked down at Rikki. She looked like a homeless puppy that approached him in the rain. He couldn't resist her.

"It's okay." He said. "You didn't know. I'm sorry your family doesn't care about you either."

"I'm sure yours cares more about you then you think." Rikki said. "We're not even friends but I've seen your dad at your events and stuff at school."

"Yeah, do you know what he says to me after them?" Zane asked. "He asks why I couldn't have done better. He asks why my A+'s aren't A++'s. If I win a race, he asks why I wasn't a second faster. I bet you don't know what that's like."

Rikki waited a few moments before speaking. "I don't know what that's like."

She glanced down at her phone. Five more minutes. It was going to be the most awkward five minutes of her life. She didn't mean to bring that up. She was just making a comment is all.

"I'm sorry." She said again.

"Rikki," he started. "Just drop it. Once I get out of here, I want to have fun. I don't need to think about how shitty my life is."

"At least you have money." Rikki said quietly. If Zane heard her, he didn't give any signal he did. They just said in silence, the only noise being the iconic violin blaring below.

"What about your mum?" Rikki asked.

"She ditched my dad and I years ago." Zane scoffed.

"That makes two of us." Rikki said.

"Really?" Zane asked.

"Yep." Rikki said. "She and my dad were fighting late at night when she decided to leave. I begged her to stay, she was by best friend. I begged her to take me with her. It's been me and my dad ever since."

"Oh." Zane said. Rikki cursed herself for being on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Rikki said. "You didn't know."

"Do-do Cleo and Emma know?" Zane asked.

"No." Rikki sighed after a moment.

"Why tell me?" Zane asked.

"I don't know." Rikki shrugged. "I just brought it up on accident I suppose."

"Well, I won't tell anyone about your mum if you don't tell anyone about my dad." Zane told her, bumping his shoulder gently into hers.

Rikki smiled despite herself. Something about this version of Zane wasn't grossing her out at all. Something about him was, dare she say, charming her. She would have to let this go in… two minutes.

She felt a gentle hand on her cheek. It forced her to look up at him. She felt herself lean into him and him mirror her. What the hell was happening?

"You're eyes are very blue." He mumbled, his lips mere millimeters from hers.

"Yes." She whispered back before their lips closed the gap between them.

The thought of kissing Zane Bennett only moments ago would have made her vomit. She had only kissed one guy before and that had been on a dare. Kissing Zane was very different than kissing that other guy. His lips had been chapped and something about it made her want to hide and run away. Zane's lips were soft and inviting. He made her feel at home. He made her want to stay.

Rikki's phone went off before she knew it. The pair flung apart from each other, each out of breath and looking disheveled.

"What was that?" Zane asked. Rikki was unsure if he was talking about her phone or their kiss. She ignored him, pulled her phone out and shut it off.

"No one can know what just happened." Rikki told him.

"Right." Zane agreed. "Everything goes back to normal. I hate you, you hate me."

Before Rikki could make the suggestion that they should catch their breath and fix their overall appearance, the door flew open. To her horror all the girls from the party, including Emma, Cleo and Miriam stood on the other side. Rikki felt like she was seeing the light for the first time.

"Whoa, you guys actually made out." One girl said.

Rikki took only a moment to compose herself. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't deny their makeout session now. "Of course we did."

"I thought you didn't want to kiss him, Rikki." Another girl said.

Rikki shrugged again before walking out of the closet. "I changed my mind."

Rikki walked through the sea of girls. She didn't know most of them that well but they turned their attention back to Zane, begging him to pick another number.

"I don't want to play anymore." He said before he was met with groans.

Rikki continued through the crowd. She passed Miriam who looked like she wanted to kill the blonde mermaid. Rikki ducked her head and ignored the school's mean girl. She only lifted it when she saw Cleo and Emma's shoes in front of hers.

"You actually… kissed him?" Cleo asked. Rikki let a smile creep on her face.

"Don't be ridiculous." Rikki replied with a mischievous smile. "They only think I did. I just convinced him not to play anymore."

"How'd you do that?" Emma asked.

"It's a secret." Rikki replied. "Come on, do we want to keep whispering up here or have a party downstairs?"

Emma and Cleo agreed to go downstairs and Rikki and Zane agreed to never speak of the events that happened in the Gilbert's lien closet.

That was until the two former were sitting on a secluded sand dune almost a year later. They laid in their bathing suits, enjoying the sunshine after they had spent the morning doing much worse than their kiss in the lien closet.

"Do you remember what song was playing when we had our first kiss?" Zane asked her.

"I don't remember our first kiss." Rikki said.

"What?"

"I don't remember anything when I'm moonstruck, Zane. I've told you this." She said, flipping onto her stomach.

"You don't remember?" Zane asked. "Rikki, Mako Island wasn't our first kiss."

Suddenly, memories of a sleepover and cotton towels entered her mind. They had vowed to keep it a secret, she had forgotten that was their first kiss.

"Oh, right." Rikki said. "Emma's sleepover."

"Yeah," Zane said. "I know there was a song playing, I just couldn't remember what it was."

"Wasn't it that Britney Spears song?" Rikki said. "'Toxic', I think?"

"Right, yeah." Zane nodded.

"Why do you ask?" Rikki questioned. He didn't usually leave conversations that open-ended.

"No reason." He replied.

He gave her the iPod the very next day.