#Kissing (Rock and Romance #1) (14 page)

Chapter 38

In the morning, my head pounds out the rhythm to a Halos song. I pull an earbud out of my ear. I don't remember putting their album on repeat before I fell asleep. I click off at the last notes of
Not Bored
. My lips feel like my mother injected them with one of her fountain of youth concoctions, all swollen and puffy. I glance in the mirror. So are my eyes. When I roll over my pillow is damp as though I'd been crying.

Kissing all those guys last night wasn't the same as if I'd kissed JQ or Niko or anything coming close to fitting the definition of the word
meaningful
. In addition to being puffy and swollen, I also feel hollow and brittle. The kisses were mostly unpleasant, wanting, and cuspate—that was an AP English word. Not the same as Niko and nothing compared to that long ago and singular, dream-like kiss I shared with JQ. The time I kissed Casper doesn't count.

My phone explodes with texts and requests to be next in line. Someone must have shared my number—probably Lizzy. I never changed it. I scroll through and laugh at the requests.

Is your tongue lonely would it like to meet mine?

Do you like chocolate or vanilla? Then you should taste my lips.

Can I borrow a kiss? I promise to give it back.

Gag.

My head throbs. In the #Kissing soup of texts, there's a note from Niko.

Sorry about Kat. I don't know what happened between you two, but I don't get why you sent me that text. Maybe you meant it for her. I just want you back.

I scroll up to the previous message. There's a photo of me, after who knows how much booze, actually flipping Kat off. In my drunken stupor, I made the point myself in addition to the cartoonish emoji from earlier.

Surely, Niko must have been swept into the tumbleweed of gossip—and living with the guilt of having cheated. If not, Slade would have explained; he certainly has his ear to the ground.

Whatever. Niko didn't stop Kat. I walked away from countless guys who hit on me and the potential for kisses while we were together: guys and girls at clubs, concerts, parties, and festivals. I never cheated; I never kissed anyone's lip but his.

Not. Any. More.

Penny texted me a few screen shots of the video from last night. I post them to Instagram and then continue to scroll, catching a few super-saccharine quotes about looking at the sunny side of life and not letting anything shake you. It's all bokeh and inspirational. I toss my phone onto the bed and roll over, squeezing my eyes shut against the tears blurring the truth.

There's Niko and JQ. Kat and Lizzy…The present and past colliding. And I went ahead and added a steady stream of boys and lips. It's meaningless. It means less to me than it did to Niko that night. It means less to me than it did to Lizzy with her lips on JQ's. It means nothing.

Maybe it's good to shake things up, to let life rock you so hard you no longer know which way is up or who you are. Maybe that's what it takes to forge a new kind self, an updated version, even stronger and more solid than before.

I post numerous photos, captured at just the right angle so it's clear that my lips dominate those belonging to strangers and not the other way around. I include
#Kissing
with each one.

Then I take my medicine like a big girl, like someone who cares about herself. I have coffee and toast with Mrs. Quaid's jam.

Computer keys click from the direction of my mother's office. I lean in the doorway, letting my crumbs drop to the floor. "Good morning, mother," I say with a mouthful.

She spins in her ergonomic, leather executive series swivel chair. She wears her work-from-home coordinating separates in a barf-inducing print—standard attire when she's not at the office.

"So nice to see you up, at—" She taps the slim watch around her wrist. "Noon. It's a shame, Josephine. You really could have done something more with your life."

Something other than blood hardens between my bones and skin. I want to smash something. I slam her office door, frames rattling off the wall and onto her floor. I pick a vase up off the table in the hall and smash her magic mirror. The explosion of shards almost satisfies, but not quite.

Chapter 39

I drive fast and hard away from her perfect house and her perfect life devoid of the real, raw grit of humanity, of mistakes, and lessons and learning and growing. Instead of planting herself in soil and lifting her smile toward the sun, it's like she's bleached and polished everything inside and out. Nothing I do will ever be enough. No amount of Botox or house sales or achievements will ever be enough for her either.

I jerk the Toyota to a stop in front of the coffee shop. Penny stacks cups inside, a private smile nearly hidden behind her abundance of hair.

"What are you smiling about?" I ask when I reach the counter.

She startles. "I didn't hear you come in."

"I need caffeine," I say at the same time my lips turn up in a knowing smile. "Did he come in yet today?"

"Who?" she asks, pausing.

I let my smile bloom because I like Penny. Aside from an invitation to the party last night, I get the sense she doesn't want or expect anything from me other than kindness. When I want to be, I'm generous with it. "Braden?"

She fusses with a display of muffins.

"He did, didn't he?" I ask.

She answers with a smile as she makes me a dirty chai as though to avoid further inquisition. I scroll through my phone at the images from the night before. "Whoa. #Kissing is live, and it's everywhere."

Penny passes me the steaming, cinnamon and nutmeg scented drink with hints of espresso.

"When are you done here?"

She glances over her shoulder at the clock. "Ten minutes."

"Good. I'll wait. You and I have work to do."

A scrawny guy with thick glasses and a T-shirt that says
Ironic Hipster
relieves Penny from her shift before I'm done with my chai.

I whisper to her, "Should I kiss him?"

She shakes her head, appalled. "I thought last night was just…"

"The beginning. So what about him? I assume he's eighteen since he's not in school."

"His breath smells like eggs."

I laugh. "Thanks for looking out for me."

Outside, Penny and I get in the car. I crank up the heat. "So, you can film and edit, right?"

She nods.

"Can you create a website? Nothing fancy."

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'm building an empire. Just kidding. Check your phone. Oh, wait. You're not following me on my socials." I swipe her phone and type in my username on Instagram. "Oh, you are."

She glances at her phone. "The #Kissing photos are quite popular," she says with a little cough. "Wow."

"Thousands and thousands of likes and we're just getting started. #Kissing here we come."

"I thought you were drunk last night."

"I have some of my best ideas when I'm under the influence."

She shakes her head.

"Do you have more footage?"

"Tons."

"We'll release a kiss every few hours, and we'll keep filming new ones."

"Josie, do you really think this is a good idea?" she asks.

Of course I don't, but I've dug myself in a hole and the only thing I know how to do is keep digging. I say, "It isn't a good idea. It's brilliant." As I speak, the concept of a worldwide call to action takes shape. "It's about revenge and spreading goodwill and kissing away the past and hurt and letting lips erase the marks left by betrayal and leaving a new stain."

"I don't think revenge and goodwill quite go together." Penny wrings her hands.

I shrug. "Trust me, it works. Tell me how to get to your house."

She gets out of the car.

"Where are you going?"

She points to a window on the second floor and a few shops over from the cafe. "My aunt owns the building and rented me out the studio apartment. Well, rented it out in theory. I'm saving for school, and I guess she thought some independence would be good for me."

"What about your parents' house?"

She doesn't answer as I follow her up a narrow stairwell. The sesame and soy smell of the Chinese restaurant below filters into the tidy, but tiny apartment. Band posters cover one wall. I spot a Halos silhouette with the four of them with their arms stretched overhead on the stage.

I sink into a chair. As much as I wanted to immerse myself in that world, to be a part of the music, sitting on the other side innocently like Penny, keeps the rock and roll mythology alive and the music meaningful.

"Does your aunt have another place like this for rent?" I couldn't afford it yet, but go on to explain the hellishness that is my mother's dwelling.

Penny shrugs. "Not right now."

I shift to our project. "So #Kissing, the website. Are you in?"

"Yeah. We can set you up with a free account on a blog server." She balances her laptop on her knees and clicks, showing me options.

"Let's just keep it simple."

Penny sets everything up and then we go about mocking up a logo and banner. I opt for a rocker-chic style in black and pink with white and gray accents. Then we start editing the videos. I might puke at the sober thought of swapping so much spit. Meanwhile, Penny's expression casts somewhere in the proximity of dreamy, but I don't imagine it's because she's secretly in love with me or any of the guys I laid my lips on. Maybe it's the blue-gray fading light of day washing over her. A few people in the coffee shop speculated about a storm coming this way. Or it could be her passion for cinematography. Or it could be Braden. I didn't kiss him last night.

"You like him, huh?"

"Who?"

"If you're worried I'll kiss him like I did Casper, don't—I never meant to upset Lizzy. I wouldn't do something like that. I promise."

She doesn't glance away from the screen. "I've never kissed anyone." She clears her throat. "I've never been kissed."

"Oh." If Penny were my sister, I'd be all kinds of protective right now, but she's not so I don't know what to say.

"I'm just afraid," she whispers.

On the screen, I loosely wrap my arms around the neck of a guy who's shorter than I am. I throw my head back, laugh, and then plant my mouth on his. "I'm certainly not," I say, pealing with self-deprecating laughter.

"It's just that now, there's so much pressure and expectation. I could explode. I mean yeah, I'd totally kiss Braden, but what if I do it wrong? What if I mess up or he doesn't like it? What if I don't? Do you know another twenty-two-year old who's never even kissed?"

I lean in close, summoning warmth to my lips and heart. As soft as a whisper my lips brush hers. For a moment, we're both still, possibly shocked, and then my lips move as though asking if this is ok. Hers mimic the movement. Then I open my mouth slightly and close it. She does the same. I take her lower lip between mine for a moment before slowly pulling away. There's no tongue, but it's intimate, and I'm nearly breathless. It doesn't excite me in the same way Niko's kisses did and it doesn't reveal my soul the way JQ's did, but it was sweet and not meaningless the way all the kisses last night were.

"How was that?" I ask. "Pressure off? Look! You didn't explode. Now you've had your first kiss. Was it ok?"

"Has anyone ever said you're bonkers?"

"Bonkers? No. Crazy? Out of my mind? Nuts? Wild?" I nod and then laugh.

She joins me and softens as though relieved.

When I catch my breath I say, "First kisses don't really count. Second kisses are where it's at." My eyes flit to the Halos poster. "I was a late bloomer too. Now you're ready for Braden."

Except I know first kisses do count. Lizzy wasn't wrong; every set of lips that meets mine fails to stand up against the first pair I knew for too brief a time.

Chapter 40

Penny and my laughter dissolves the boundaries of merely being acquaintances. Maybe the kiss helped too. Perhaps she would take a road trip with me someday. We could take #Kissing on a citywide tour.

We edit and tinker with the website until my phone buzzes with a call, interrupting my growling stomach. Penny points toward the floor, indicating she's getting takeout from the Chinese restaurant downstairs. I nod vigorously as she sweeps out the door. I take a deep breath and answer.

"Babe." Niko's usual melodic voice peels with agony.

I part my lips, but words don't form.

"Are you there? Please be there. No, I mean please be here." The slur in his voice tells me he's been drinking. "Say something. No, I'll say something. I'm sorry. Please come back."

"Hashtag kissing dot com." I hang up.

I want to dart out the door, run down the street, and let the wind in my ears play me a tune of forgetting. However, the slideshow of shots of me kissing lips that don't belong to Niko quell the agony of how his one stupid decision changed everything.

I fill his text feed with images, captioning each with the website and #Kissing until Penny returns with a few cartons of food and a handful of fortune cookies.

We sit on the floor with her coffee table between us as I swallow Chow Mein and the growing lump in my throat.

"So, that kiss, it's not going to make things weird between us?" Penny asks after our joint silence lapses into awkward.

"No. Sorry. The call. It was—" I almost can't say his name.

"Niko?" she fills in for me.

"Yeah." I angle our text page toward her, displaying my cruelty.

"So I take it you're open to kissing girls too?"

I shrug. "Why not?"

"Remind me never to date you or cheat on you," she jokes. "You're—"

This time I finish for her. "A bitch, harsh, cruel…bonkers?"

"You said it, not me."

I'd like to insert laughter here, but can't bring myself to do it.

I take a few more bites of Chow Mein, but my appetite has dwindled. "He cheated on me. It was a weird set up. Major dramatics with this other girl, Kat. I thought he and I were the real thing. Something outrageous. We were crazy about each other. And also crazy."

The memories of us practically devouring each other with lust, the wild, hot, fast passion burning between us, it all slips through the cracks of my rough exterior.

"When it was good, it was really good. But when it was bad—let's just say we're banned from several restaurants, hotels, and airlines."

Penny raises her eyebrows.

"Let all my stories serve as cautionary tales. Don't leave school, throw away scholarships, involve yourself with famous musicians, or make your mother cry." I'm pretty sure if Coralee McCord allowed herself, her pillow would be tear-soaked since my return. After all, my eyes are still puffy. I take one more mouthful and then ask, "Hey, how much do I owe you?" I fold up the white carton.

"No worries. They give it to me for free." Her voice is small.

"Free?"

"I clean the restaurant; sometimes answer the phone, stuff like that."

"When?"

"Monday through Wednesday. It's usually slow, but it's minimum wage and all the food I can eat."

"You have two jobs?"

"Three. I walk dogs too."

"Is this for film school?"

She nods.

"Aren't your parents willing to help out?"

Her head moves swiftly to the left and right. The grim expression on her face tells me to leave it for a day when our kiss is behind us and our friendship is a bigger, brighter, and more certain thing.

We spend the rest of the evening working on the website before we go out, looking for trouble, by which I mean material for #Kissing.