“Did I look like I was singing to her?” he responded, chuckling.

I frowned. “You were kissing the hell out of her.”

“Absolutely. Can’t blame me.”

I shut my eyes briefly. Why were guys so detached? How could they kiss a girl and toss them aside? I couldn’t understand it.

“Don’t read too much into it,” he then went on to say. “She’s not that good at it. I was pretty disappointed if I’m going to be honest.”

“How could someone not be good at kissing?”

He shrugged, dropping my hand to the side. “Some people don’t move their lips and expect the other person to do all the work.”

Huh. I never thought of that.

“What does kissing feel like?” I then asked him, curiously. “I heard girls at school say kissing an apple is like the same thing.” And I was pretty sure I was one of the very few fifteen year old girls left that hadn’t made out with a guy before.

“Kissing an apple is not the same thing,” he answered swiftly, holding back another round of laughter. “If we’re going to use fruits to compare the feeling – which is dumb as shit – then it’s more like kissing a mashed up banana.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “So… gooey.”

Now he really did laugh – so hard, in fact, he was wheezing. “Oh, fuck, Leah. Holy hell, you make me laugh.”

“Did Pomposa make you laugh too?”

He turned on his side so that he was facing me, his mouth formed into a wide grin. His face was a little red from all that laughter – because apparently my curious mind is that hilarious – and whispered to me, “No girl has ever made me laugh except you.”

And then he did something strange. He took hold of my chin with his hand and turned it to him. My heart sped up at the random touch. He stared into my eyes for a while longer, searching for something with that unreadable look on his face. Then his fingers left my chin, sliding up my cheek to brush a few strands of hair behind my ear.

When he eventually dropped his hand, his eyes never left mine. He did this at times. Just looked at me with a weird thoughtful expression, and then he looked away like nothing happened, returning to his normal, cocky self. God, he wasn’t playing fair. Just when I tried to live with knowing nothing was ever going to happen, he did this. I wondered if he wanted to keep me keen. The cocky bastard had it in him.

I stared at his lips and felt my chest stir. Right then I wanted him to kiss me. To remove my curiosity once and for all so I knew just wonderful mashed-banana-feeling kisses could be. But in the dim light, with the stomach churning music still playing in the background, I saw a bit of glitter on his bottom lip. He’d just ravaged a girl’s mouth minutes ago. I didn’t want that mouth on mine. So I swallowed hard and turned away, focusing back on a random spot.

“So you couldn’t bring a Mindy in here for your last time?” I muttered out playfully. “Or a Christina? Or a Jennifer? It had to be Pomposa? That’s like me taking home a guy named Hannelore.”

He laughed again. “You don’t know when to stop, do you?”

“Not when it comes to you.”

He pursed his lips and pinned his enthralling eyes to mine. We stared at each other for several moments. I hardly breathed the entire time.

“You smell like her, you know,” I muttered, trying to shift this strange atmosphere into a safe one. “Like bubble gum and girly-ness. Is that what you like?”

“She was good for passing the time.”

“Passing the time? You really are an asshole, Carter.”

He shrugged. He didn’t care. I was pretty much considering he didn’t care about anything in this life if he hadn’t been so good to me.

I rolled to my side, facing him, and closed my eyes. There was no point talking about this anymore. I didn’t want to know about his near sexcapade with Pompoodle. I relaxed into the mattress and began dozing when his voice rang out.

“Nobody’s ever really kissed you?”

“No,” I said, wondering why he was suddenly so curious. “Why would I lie about that?”

“Just thought you would have by now and kept it to yourself. I’m not always around you.”

I laughed in disbelief. “I’m not necessarily popular at school, Carter. Thought you knew that by now. The guy’s aren’t crawling through glass for me like they are over those stick-thin bitches that talk behind my back.”

“They would be if you went out. How about actually coming out to the parties I go to then? I invite you how many times and you keep saying no?”

“I’m not going to be around people that hate me.”

“If anyone said something to you, I’d bust their fucking face up, you know that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Solving every issue with violence isn’t really the right way to go about it.”

“But ignoring them is? Admit that you just don’t want to go. You’d rather spend that time with Rome.” He said Rome’s name on a sneer.

“Rome’s my best friend.”

“I thought I was your best friend,” he retorted irritably.

“You are.”

He didn’t respond for some time, and when he did, it was a lot calmer. “But you don’t have feelings for Rome, do you? He’s a weird guy. I personally wouldn’t get it if you do.”

I was completely taken aback. Carter had never taken an interest in my friendship with Rome. I didn’t answer him and I knew that would just make him even more curious. I wanted him to sweat about it just a little bit. I was almost convinced right then and there that he was jealous. Hope emerged in my heart as I considered that possibility.

“He might be your first kiss, you know,” Carter carried on. “And if he hurts you, you don’t want to look back at your first kiss and regret it.”

“Not really,” I replied, knowingly winding him up. “He could be really good at it. He actually might be the best, and if he is the best then maybe I won’t care if he hurts me later on.”

The vein at the base of his neck twitched as he tensed his jaw. In hindsight, looking back at this moment, I regret taking great joy in watching him lose it. I suppose I was desperate to feel cared about, and I was willing to take it even if it was in a negative manner.

“So you don’t care that your first kiss might belong to a complete asshole that might ruin your trust later on,” he stated. “You only care about what it’ll feel like.”