Quickly, I hid the book I secretly took to the party, just in case I was bored out of my skull, in my purse. It was an old, beat up copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that Joey had bought for me at a yard sale for a quarter, and I’d been reading it to the guys out loud in the tree house every night that week.
As I slid my hands out of my purse, they started to sweat. I was so nervous. Would I actually get kissed? Would it be a romantic, closed-mouth kiss? Or would his tongue touch mine? How long should we do it for? Do we use the full seven minutes, or talk a bit before and after? Would I run out of breath? How would I breathe if he’s sucking the air out of my lungs? Where would my hands go? WHAT IF I BIT HIM? Did my breath stink? I slathered on a bit of my watermelon lip-gloss. Oh, God, would his lips slide right off mine? What if I burped? Or sneezed? What if he bit me? What if I did it all wrong?
What if he didn’t want to kiss me?
Thousands, no, millions, of thoughts flooded my brain. Insane. All kinds of crazy. So crazy that I started mumbling to myself as I sat between Jase and Joey, both of them looking at me like I was full of crazy.
Who was I going to kiss?
Oh, my God, the anticipation was going to give me a frigging heart attack, and I was going to die NEVER KISSED. My first kiss would end up being with the big, stinky, old paramedic that would come to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! He’d probably even have a long, hairy mustache. And a beer gut.
While I sat hyperventilating, Ava Marie handed each girl in the room a different colored balloon, and when you popped your balloon, it contained a folded up piece of paper with a boy's name on it.
I popped mine, and Joey jumped a million feet in the air from the sound. I laughed so much from my nerves, Jase had to unfold my paper for me.
Aaron Henley.
Oh my GOD! I was going to have seven minutes in Heaven with Aaron Henley!
Black spots formed in front of my eyes; I had a sudden fear of eating his entire mouth off his face. Okay fine, that wasn’t likely to happen, but what if we had one of those freaky accidents and somehow my mouth got stuck on his and we COULDN’T separate?
Aaron Henley?
I had never even spoken to Aaron Henley. I mean, maybe I said hello to him if I saw him outside of school with his mom or something, but I didn’t remember ever talking to him in school. And, I only had one class with him in our middle school, Advanced Placement Mathematics, so it’s not like I could talk or flirt with him during that intense class. Oh, who was I kidding? My idea of flirting was peeking at a cute boy millions of times, like I had some sort of nervous tic, and then hoping that he had more guts than me to talk to me first.
My sort of flirting hadn’t been working for me.
Ava Marie quietly walked up to Joey and showed him her paper with his name all swirly with hearts all over it. Oh cheese-and-crackers, this had to be a set up! On the other side of me, Rachel Jenson showed Jase his name on her folded up piece of paper. There were no hearts on hers, just Jase’s name with a giant pair of red lip prints, as if she kissed the paper herself. Yep, that was the taste of vomit I was swallowing back down.
I looked down at my paper again. It just said Aaron Henley, with nothing else on it.
As I stood up on my wobbly legs to walk over to Aaron to show him my paper, I watched a strange look pass between my two best friends. Jase ripped the paper out of my hands and shoved it into Rachel Jenson’s hands. Then, Jase took her folded piece of paper with his name on it and shoved it into mine. “Sorry, I think there’s been a mistake in your little set up,” he smirked. Then standing up, he gently walked me into one of the empty rooms with a sign on the door that read HEAVEN and had cotton balls for clouds decorated all over it. Ava shoved Joey into the one next to us and slammed the door closed.
A small table lamp in the corner dimly lit the room. Inside was a washing machine and dryer, but no place to sit. In the middle of the floor there was a basket full of dirty laundry we had to climb over. The smell of decaying socks surrounded us. The laundry room; how romantic. Heaven, my butt.
I shoved him on the shoulder. “Why the heck did you do that, Jase?”
“I was saving your life! Aaron Henley has razor-sharp braces; he’ll scar your mouth for life.”
“Really, dork? That’s what you’re going with?” I pulled myself up to sit on the edge of the washing machine and hung my legs off the sides, swinging them slowly back and forth. Ugh. Now I’d have to wait and see what name I’d get next. I hoped like mad there was another round to this game. I was not leaving this party without kissing someone.
Jase’s face reddened and he looked down at something on his shoes. “No. That’s not what I’m going with,” he said, combing his fingers through his hair. Lifting his eyes to mine, he slowly stepped closer to me, brushing the front of his shirt against my knees. The warmth of his body seeped into my skin.
My heart skipped a beat then just stopped. I think I may have died a little. What was Jase Delaney thinking?
He moved his body in between my legs and leaned the palms of his hands on the edge of the machine on either side of me. He lowered his face two inches from mine, and I was lost, floating somewhere helplessly in the soft blue waters of the Bermuda Triangle in his eyes. Then he smiled, a spark of something so honest and true, so utterly Jase, it completely stole my breath away. “Come on, Charlie, come with me down the rabbit hole,” he squeaked in an unsteady voice.
His words, whispered so dark and beautifully, caused my heart to stutter wildly in my chest. Then I thought to myself, this–this feeling right here–was what grownups wrote those great love stories about. That one breathtakingly beautiful moment that you will remember forever is happening right now. I mean, come on, my best friend just asked me to kiss him with a quote from one of my favorite books!
Before I could think another thought, Jase's trembling fingers were cupping my chin. With the lightest of pressure, he tilted my head gently back and slowly lowered his face closer to mine. “I want to be your first kiss, Charlie,” My belly filled with fire, and my cheeks flushed with heat. I could barely breathe from his whispered words.
“Then kiss me,” I whispered nervously.
As if a breeze, his warm lips brushed against mine. Jase’s hand trailed feather-soft fingers down my neck, making my skin tingle with what felt like flames. The outside sounds of the party grew faint, and all I could hear was our quick, shallow breaths as his mouth moved against mine. Heat traveled down my neck and across my chest, tightening my skin and coiling my muscles. I never knew such a feeling existed in such a simple touch of lips. The heat from his body up against mine, the smell of the shampoo he used, the press of his lips against mine, and there was nothing and no one else in the world, but us. In my head, the written words of Lewis Carroll whispered in my ears, “In another moment, down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
When the tip of his tongue hesitantly brushed over my lips, I lost myself in his taste and his touch. Warm and wet, soft and sweet, our hearts were crashing and pounding together like a thunderstorm beneath our chests. I could feel his heart beneath his shirt, pounding so hard and fast against me that I imagined it bursting right out to meet mine.
I reached my hand up and softly curved my fingers around the back of his neck and threaded them through the silky strands of his hair. It was one of those touches that I had read about in a few young adult books, and I’d always wanted to see how it felt. Whoa...it felt good...it felt really good. He moaned quietly, and his fingers pressed into my skin, fisting into the material of my shirt.
It felt…beautiful.
“Time's up!” Rachel Jenson’s voice screeched from the other side of the door.
Both of us jerked away from each other, eyes wide. Seven minutes was way too short of an amount of time.
“Crap-on-a-celery-stick,” I whispered.
He shook his head, “Hell no. Uh-uh. No way. Curse if you have t
o, Charlie, but don’t pull that crappity-crap shit with me. Tell me.”
“Oh, my God. That was awesome,” I giggled.
He leaned in and kissed me again on the lips. “Yeah, Charlie, it was. Just like I always thought it would be,” he murmured softly to me before walking out the door. And slowly, like I was made completely of jelly, I slid down the side of the washing machine until my butt hit the floor, and I completely melted into a puddle of Jase Delaney goop.
Of all the kisses in the history of first kisses, that had to be the most perfect one—it just had to be.
Rachel Jenson came stomping into the laundry room, dragging a crazy-eyed Drake Fischer. “Charlotte, it’s my turn for seven minutes now!” she giggled.
Drake Fischer? I thought she was supposed to go to heaven with Aaron Henley.
Wait a minute.
If Drake Stupid Fischer was here, that meant…
So was Slate.
Jumping to my feet, I ran out of the laundry room and slammed chest-first into Slate Marshall. Stumbling backward, I (like a brainless dork) grabbed onto Slate’s shirt to try to steady myself. Instantly, I realized I had broken Slate’s “No One Comes Ten Feet Near Me” rule when he smiled that evil, satanic smile of his and pressed his body closer to mine.
Immediately, I let go of his shirt and dropped my hands away from his chest.
He flicked a folded up piece of paper in front of my face and opened it for me to read.
Charlotte Stone.
My body went numb. Could someone get paralyzed from a look that someone is giving you? Because, I swore that Slate’s look was freezing me to the spot. Heavily, he dropped both his hands on my shoulders; the stupid folded paper fluttered silently to the floor.
His ugly, evil lips curled up higher, “I just popped a balloon with your name on it.” Lowering his face closer to mine, he whispered, “Now, I’m going to pop your cherry in seven minutes.”
Shrugging his hands off me, I stepped back, but only managed to back myself into the wall behind me. I looked around for help, but everyone seemed paired off, kissing or talking or living.
Me? I was dying in the corner.
I moved closer to the other kids in the room, sliding myself along the wall. I only made it about a foot before Slate’s arms were blocking my way to safety.
“Slate, there is no way I’m going anywhere with you for seven minutes!” I hissed.
“Those are the rules of the game, Charlotte,” he replied, wrapping his hands around my wrists and pulling me closer to a room with a “HEAVEN” sign hanging on the door.
I leaned back away from him, but he just dragged me harder, my sneakers sliding along the floor.
“Let me go!” I yelled, twisting my body away from his.
Slate was stronger than me, though, and his hands still stayed clamped around my wrists as I tried to break free. My bones bent in ways they shouldn’t as I tried to yank my hands back from him.
“Let go of her,” Joey’s voice growled next to me.
One of his arms swung around my waist, while his other pushed against Slate’s chest. “I said let go of her. She doesn’t want you to touch her,” he hissed.
Slate dropped my hands, laughing. “Relax, Piss Pants. I was just playing around with her.” He stepped closer to Joey and laughed louder in his face. Spittle flew everywhere and Joey flinched back, blinking it out of his eyes. “What were you going to do about it, anyway?”
“Whatever it takes to keep your hands off her,” Joey said.
Oh. Crudcakes.
Ava Marie chose that moment to run upstairs to get her parents, or the police or whomever. At the same time, Jase slammed his body in between Slate and Joey. “Okay, enough. This is a party, and Charlie doesn’t want to play the game anymore. Get over it.”
Thank God Ava Marie’s father came downstairs then and herded us all out into the backyard to cool off.
Swinging my arms around both of my best friends’ shoulders, I squeezed them tightly against me. What girl in the world had two real-life superheroes, huh?
Joey knocked his head against mine, “Let’s just get out of here and go hang out in the tree house,” he whispered, shakily.
So we did.
And right after we walked into the tree house, Jase picked a thick black marker from my Fantastical Cup O’ Markers and carefully climbed on a stack of my hardcover books to write the words Rabbit Hole above the door.
Joey read the phrase with a raised brow. “What’s Rabbit Hole mean?”
Jase’s eyes grazed past Joey and landed on mine. “From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you know…down the rabbit hole, where there’s a whole different world. And it’s only ours. Our safe place to go from the jerks like Slate.”
He jumped off the books and swept his hand through his hair, throwing the marker back into the Fantastical Cup O’ Markers. It landed perfectly inside the cup. “Oh, and tomorrow…the both of you are coming to Sensei Satuo’s dojo with me. You’re going to learn how to defend yourselves.”
“Dowho?” Joey chuckled.
“Dojo, Piss Pants. It means ‘training hall’ in Japanese.”
I shook my head at Jase. “You know my mom doesn’t have any extra money for me to take fighting lessons. She barely has enough money to feed me,” I complained. I may have sounded like a whiny brat, but it was true. Since my dad left us, my mom had to get a job working in an office all day answering phones and napping. I knew this because I had visited her office a total of nineteen times so far, and every time I had to wake her up! The job was okay she said, but it only paid her minimum wage and had no benefits (whatever that was). She couldn’t get anything better, because she never went to college. Her second job was going out every night to a singles’ bar, dressed like one of the Jenson sisters, looking for the next guy who could help pay the mortgage. Her second job seemed really important to her, because she was really good at bringing new friends home and keeping me up all night with their loud music and nasty smelling cigarettes. It was so annoying that I just started sleeping in the tree house every night. Her weekends were spent on dates, or I-Need-To-Get-Married-Like-Yesterday.com sites, searching for someone who could give her a sense of stability instead of just finding it in herself.
I tried to help her by getting her a college application from my counselor at school, but she told me that was too much work for her. She wanted to do it the fun way, like my father had.
I didn’t understand.
So, I just left her to do whatever she did and ate lots of SpaghettiOs and ice cream. Ice cream always makes you feel better anyway.
“Sensei takes donations, he’s the real deal. Just come and I’ll handle everything," Jase said.
And the next thing I could remember was wearing a stiff white Gi and walking barefoot into a large room where I had to bow, submissively, to some old Mr. Miyagi looking character. Joey chuckled next to me and whispered, “Ah, Danielson, you must wax on and wax off.”
Jase stood next to the Sensei in a black Gi and a purple belt. His smile was infectious, and I got really excited about learning lots of ninja moves.
Yeah, excited.
I was giddy with stupid, ignorant anticipation, until I found myself sweating like a fountain and stuck in a headlock under the smelly armpits of another student. Jase was trying to help me, telling me how to bend my knees and fall forward to get myself out of the hold, but I was seriously passing out because of the kid’s armpit stench.
The kid finally let go of me, raising his hands in surrender, and Jase took over. Walking behind me, Jase placed his right hand around the front of my chest, right under my neck, and pulled me close against his body. His left hand gripped tightly onto my hip. It was the same exact headlock that I was just in, but with Jase’s body flushed up behind mine it felt…different.
Why would that make my insides tingle?
“Okay, first you need to bring up your right hand and grip onto the collar of my Gi.”
I slid my hand up and a
ccidently mushed him in the nose.
“Holy ninja-crap, I didn’t mean to do that,” I laughed.
“Yeah, sure you didn’t. Doesn’t matter, try it again, and grab my collar tight. Get a good grip on it.” He pulled me tighter against him, but this time leaning his cheek softly against my ear—so close that all I could hear and feel were the soft, warm sounds of his breaths.
He slowly went over the steps and movements for me, but the only thing I could think about was how warm his body felt up against the back of mine.
How tall he was compared to me.
How softly his fingers slid over my skin.
How hot his breath felt, blowing against my skin.
The smell of his soap and whatever laundry detergent his father used on his clothes.
Turning my head slightly, all I could see were his lips so close to me. So close to my lips. The sound of his voice just rumbled against my skin; none of his words made sense to me when all I could see were his lips. They were confusing me. This was Jase; we’d hugged millions of times and wrestled and played. But, in that moment, I felt every inch of his body against mine, and I tingled from head to toe. My scalp even burned. What the heck was that about?
Then, my feet were airborne, and he was slamming me down on the mats that covered the floor. “Charlie, if you don’t try to do the moves, someone will be able to take you down,” he said, hovering over me. All I could think about was him hovering over me.
Okay. I had to focus.
Jase was one of my best friends. Yes. He kissed me. And God, it was the most perfect kiss in the world, like, I could still feel his lips on mine a day AFTER! But, and this is a huge BUT, Jase didn’t like me like that. We were best friends. Best friends; forever. He went into Heaven with me for seven minutes so he wouldn’t have to go with Rachel Jenson…and I wouldn't get mouth massacred by Aaron Henley's braces.
“Come on, Charlie, get up. Let’s try again.”
I stood up and brushed my uniform pants off, and without even giving me a minute, he looped his arm around my neck and pressed his body hard against my back. “Come on, Charlie. Kneel on one leg and pull me over with your…”