Whenever people asked Vanya when and where her first kiss with Diego was, she always silently wished she could have had it any other place.
Vanya Katerina Petrov and Diego Esteban Perez had their first kiss at their friend Allison's fourteenth birthday party.
Allison Ella Anderson and Vanya had been best friends since kindergarten, so it came as no surprise when she was the very first person to be invited to her BFF's fourteenth birthday party. While Diego's invitation was the very last one to be, begrudgingly, handed out.
Diego's mother and Allison's mother used to be best friends when they were younger but when they went their separate ways for college they grew apart. Anyway Allison's mother, Elizabeth Aria Anderson, practically forced her daughter to invite Diego to her birthday party; purely because their mothers had recently reconnected and rekindled their friendship.
Regardless, this is what led to Vanya and Diego's extremely awkward first kiss.
One of Allison's other friends, Vanya didn't know her, had suggested they play spin the bottle. Vanya had wanted to say no but Allison managed to get her to do it anyway. Allison always had that effect on people, she has always been able to get people to do what she wants for as long as Vanya has known her. Anyway, much like Vanya most of the boys Allison had invited to her party seemed to be reluctant to play. And, like Vanya, Allison had somehow convinced them all to play anyway.
There were two problems Vanya had when they were playing spin the bottle. 1. Even though Vanya knew just about all of Allison's friends, she only knew three of the boys that Allison had invited to her party and they were all fourteen or fifteen, while Vanya had turned thirteen two months ago. And 2. Vanya had never kissed anyone; well besides her parents when she was younger but that doesn't count anyway.
It was basically social suicide to say no to anything Allison Anderson said. And in this case it was getting close to thirty thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen year olds to play spin the bottle. Since they had so many people playing Allison added a rule to their game, once you've either kissed someone or been kissed by someone then you're out.
Fast forward almost twenty minutes, Vanya was one of the seven girls still in and Diego was one of the two guys her age that were still in. Allison had gone first so she had been, we'll say preoccupied, for the past twenty minutes with Zach Bradley, fifteen year old, high school football player, while Vanya had been internally freaking out about having to kiss some guy she really didn't know.
The bottle had been passed to Diego at some point, in the midst of Vanya's internal panic. He had also spun the bottle and it had landed on her. She'd realized none of that had occurred until Diego was seated in front of her. Vanya's attention snapped back in when Diego was holding the sides of her face. And before Vanya truly knew what was happening until Diego's lips had been chastely pressed against hers for a brief moment before he hastily retreated back to where he'd previously been sitting; before moving to, presumably, talk to some of the other guys at the party that were already out. Vanya quickly got out of her seat and set off to try and find where her best friend had wandered off to.
After not being able to find Allison anywhere in the room that her party was being held, Vanya slipped into the hallway. Vanya was trying to be as quiet as possible, as to not alert Mrs. Anderson that anything was amiss. That is until someone's hand grabbed her shoulder as their other hand covered her mouth.
And of course it had to be Diego. "Where are you going?" He scared the absolute shit out of her, and he has the audacity to ask her where she was going?
Instead of snapping back at him, like she really wanted to, she hissed back at him, "I'm trying to find Allison."
"Why?"
"Why do you care?"
"I asked you first."
Rolling her eyes, Vanya bit back "She disappeared at some point, so I'm just trying to find her."
"Why do you have to find her?"
"I asked you first."
"Touché Petrov," Diego almost looked impressed or amused before his typical scowl found its spot on his face. "I'm bored as shit as this party, wanna go?"
"What?" There was no feasible way that Diego Perez is actually suggesting they leave the biggest party of the year.
"Come on, don't you ever do anything without Allison?" Vanya could hear it in his voice that he was making fun of her, but she couldn't get over what he was saying. "We all know she does plenty of things without you." He's right you know. She does stuff without you all the time. Well not all the time but a lot of the time.
Fuck it. "Let's go." Vanya grabbed Diego's wrist and pulled him down the stairs and out the backdoor of the Anderson's house.
"Seriously? I knew you were a pushover," Diego mocked, barely being able to fight off a laugh as he did, "but I thought you'd put up more of a fight."
"Shut up."
And he did. For about 5 seconds. "Where are we going anyway?"
At this point Vanya dropped Diego's hand, turning towards him but not looking at him. "I don't know Diego. This was your idea."
"I mean yeah, but I didn't think you'd actually do it." Diego had started walking towards the street, so Vanya followed.
She was barely able to keep up with him, "What's that supposed to mean?" Vanya kept trying to keep one eye on Diego and the other trying to figure out where he, they, were going.
They ended up going to some rundown, abandoned house that Diego knew of; because of course he does. But in the end, that was one of the last times that Vanya Katerina Petrov saw Diego Esteban Perez again until college. Diego had gotten into another fight with some kid from their school and his stepfather had decided to ship him off to some military boarding school, so Vanya hadn't seen or heard anything from him for almost eight years. That is until she got a match with him on a dating app Allison had recommended to her, and the rest is history.