#10: Sweet 16

Princess Serenity's eyes reflected the hot, flickering glow of the sixteen candles Endymion had fixed into the cake's butter cream frosting. The prince had presented the pastry to her with a bow and a flourish, but though she clapped in delight, she had raised a questioning look at him. She didn't understand what she was to do with the candles and their flames.

"Why, you make a wish and blow them out," he explained. "That's what we do on Earth."

"Oh, I see." The corners of her pink mouth lifted as she looked at the prince once more; his handsome, smiling face was bent close to hers and she could see the slivers of the shadows his dark lashes cast on his cheek. She abruptly turned her golden head back to the cake, closed her eyes, and allowed a huge gust of her breath to extinguish the candles."Did I do it right?"

"Like a true Earthling," he assured her, the midnight blue of his eyes laughing and glimmering in the only light now available to them--that of the stars and Earth. Both young royals had their legs tucked beneath them, backs to a cluster of lilac bushes. The gauze of Serenity's skirts was cast along the garden lawn, shining like an iridescent peacock feather.

The truth was that Endymion desperately wanted to ask what the princess had wished for. Wistfully, he wondered if it came anywhere near his own very strong wishes. But he didn't pose the question, not even suspecting that Serenity was wriggling on the inside, dying for him to ask. Wondering why he wasn't asking that same question. Is he frightened of what my answer will be?

Perhaps, they really were destined to be just friends, she thought to herself—not without some heart-clenching disappointment.

"Serenity?" he broke the silence all of a sudden.

"Y-yes?"

For some reason, the prince was not quite meeting her eyes now. Before she could make heads or tails of this behavior, an unexpected question had rushed out of his mouth. "Would you like to know of another tradition we have on Earth? It's performed especially on a girl's sixteenth birthday."

Serenity nodded, smile appearing on her face again, and excitement rising into it as well.

"She...she gets a kiss for every year she's been alive."

Now Serenity understood why he hadn't met her eye. She suddenly felt her heart beating, fluttering in her chest as if desperate to escape. She clasped her hands together, bright pink blush flooding her cheeks. "Endymion, that's...that's silly..." she said, albeit unconvincingly. "What an odd custom..."

The dark-haired young man appeared to be uncertain as well, but after a moment, another smile filled his face and he approached her. She had begun to back away along the grass until she was almost lost in the sweet-smelling lilac and leaves. And had nowhere to go.

"You can't be serious," she said. "Sixteen kisses is so...excessive!" she exclaimed in a trembling voice.

"Oh, not sixteen kisses to the mouth," he countered, waving that notion aside.

"No?"

Was that disappointment he'd heard in her voice just then?

"No," Endymion assured her. "Here—I shall demonstrate." He took hold of her soft ,white hand and dropped a perfunctory kiss onto her fingers. "One."

She didn't have the chance to speculate whether all these "kisses" were to be prim kisses to the hand, because before she knew it, his warm body had drawn closer to hers and his even warmer, gentle hands had come to rest lightly on either side of her face. "Endymion..."

He bent his head over hers, face approaching her, and she felt her mouth go dry. Involuntarily, her eyes fluttered shut, lips raised expectantly. But again, she was robbed of "the" kiss. He'd kissed her forehead. "Two," he chirped out.

She nearly growled. Her grandmama kissed her head like that.

But his hands were still holding her face in their firm, yet gentle grasp. Again he descended upon her, again her eyelids fell, and this time his lips pressed reverently to each shut eye. "Three and four," he breathed. Whatever she'd thought at first, those last two kisses had not been those of a grandmother or of just a friend.

She turned wide round blue eyes to him and his own eyes crinkled at the corners. He gave her a smacking kiss on the nose. "Five. D'you know, I wish you were turning 82?"

In spite of her hot, flushed skin and erratic heartbeat, Serenity laughed shakily. "I will be by the time you've done," she informed him saucily.

"Six and seven," he announced as he tried to kiss away the twin blushes on of her cheeks. They only bloomed into a darker crimson.

"This isn't really an Earth tradition, is it?" Serenity whispered as his lips finally came achingly close to her own.

"Mm, it should be."

And with that, he closed the space in between their mouths and they were really kissing this time. His fingers automatically curled into her tendrils of silver-gold hair and his mouth on hers was even softer and sweeter than she'd realized it could be. He angled his face to allow for better access and she wondered if she would ever see another birthday because she felt as if she would die with all the emotion and—was it love?—swelling into her.

"Sweet 16, indeed," she thought she heard him murmur when they'd broken apart. "Have you, by chance, had your wish come true in the past few minutes?" he asked with a jaunty smile.

She sniffed, though her shallow breaths had already betrayed her. "You know Endy, you think much too highly of yourself. Thinking you could lie like that about the "custom" too. And besides, for all you know, I could have wished for a new dress." She nodded with an air of superiority.

"You would have done better to have wished for a better head for mathematics."

Affronted, Serenity drew back. "What do you mean by that!"

He shrugged slightly. "Only that I'm rather annoyed you haven't realized that 16 minus 8...leaves another eight left."

She couldn't help it: she smiled and allowed him to amend that little math error.

Please review :)