by Pintip Dunn
“Well, yeah.” Doubt begins to sink in. Did I do it wrong? How is that possible when I wasn’t even moving? “Didn’t you like it? I stayed there for five whole seconds.”
“You counted?” he asks incredulously.
Okay, I’ve definitely messed something up here. Clearly, the kiss wasn’t as torrid as I’ve seen at parties—or even in the school’s corridors—where the participants look like they’re about to climb into each other’s mouths. But this was a first kiss. Even Kavya said they’re awkward as hell. What does he expect?
“I’m sorry it wasn’t up to your usual standards,” I say, my words as stiff as the bench we’re sitting on.
He scrubs a hand down his face, wincing as he brushes against the bruise. “Listen, Winnie. I’d rather have a kiss from you than anyone else on this planet. And I loved it. But you know what they say. Third time’s a charm. Can we try again, on my terms?”
“What terms?” I ask warily.
“For starters, I’d like to be able to move.”
I choke out a laugh. “That was a misunderstanding—”
“A paralyzing one.” His lips twitch. “Come on. What do you say? I promise you’ll like it.”
“Fine,” I say. “But if I don’t like it—”
He leans forward and kisses me.
Holy moly. So this is what… Wow. Okay. This is a kiss. Lips moving. Slowly. Sweetly. So hot, this give-and-take. A hint of teeth. Oh, hello, tongue. I could do this all day. All night. The sun would set. The cold would creep. And we’d stay right here, creating our own warmth.
His hands glide over my shoulders, caressing my back. But he doesn’t need to urge me closer. I move in of my own volition. More. I want more. More kissing. More Mat. More of his orange Tic Tac taste. We used to gobble them by the handfuls when we were kids. I can’t believe he still eats them. It’s been years since I’ve tasted one…until now.
I run my hands up his arms and onto his chest. I have no idea what’s appropriate. If there’s a handbook on what to do with your hands during a kiss, I must’ve missed it. How could my sisters fail to prepare me for this? They have seven months of college dating experience. They should’ve coached me. In the absence of their advice, I decide to do with my hands what I want. Move them where I want.
Mat doesn’t seem to mind.
We’re leaning, so gradually, so steadily that I don’t realize it at first. I must be the driving force, because all of a sudden, he’s on his back, balancing on the narrow bench. I’m sprawled on top of him, listing to one side. He puts his hands on my hips and straightens me.
“Come back here,” he murmurs.
And then we kiss some more.
Minutes or hours later, a wolf whistle slices through the air. I leap off him like he’s on fire—and, well, he kinda is. For one ridiculous second, I don’t know where I am. All I remember is Mat. Forget a single firework. His kiss is like the whole damn finale on the Fourth of July.
And then it registers.
I’m at school. Cutting class. In the courtyard, for anyone to see. Talk about PDA, something I swore I would never do.
My face flaming, I peek in the direction of the whistle. One of Mat’s friends, Ramon, is leaning against the double glass doors, smiling broadly. At least it’s not a teacher. “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he yells. “But that was so hot, I couldn’t help myself.”
Mat sits up on the bench. “Mind your own business,” he calls back good-naturedly.
Ramon gives us a salute and disappears back inside the building.
I perch on the bench, a foot away from Mat. I am dying. Dying. I don’t even like holding hands with a guy in public. And here I am, caught in a horizontal position with Mat on a picnic bench. Oy tai. I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. The gossip will spread faster than our internet connection. What will my classmates say? Even worse, what will my parents think?
Good Thai girls don’t engage in PDA. Well, good girls don’t kiss in the first place, not while they’re in high school. But if they’re going to, then they should at least find a place a hell of a lot more private than the school’s courtyard.
“Hey.” Mat reaches over and taps me on the nose. “Don’t worry.”
I deliberately relax my shoulders. “Why do you think I’m worried?”
“Because I know you. And I know that when you’re stressed, you get a crease…right…there.” He draws a line down my forehead.
I fight back a shiver. Get it together, Winnie. It’s just a single stroke.
But I’ve never been touched so much by any guy before, let alone Mat. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to his casual caresses. I don’t think I want to.
He has a way of making me forget about my parents. Forget what they might say. Forget if they’ll approve.
“Ramon’s a stand-up guy.” Mat holds out his phone, showing me the screen. “I just texted him to keep his mouth shut.” His throat gurgles with a laugh. “Said I would tell everyone that he still sleeps with a stuffed bear named Lightning Storm if he indulged his need to gossip. He won’t be telling anybody anything.”
Oh. My insides get kinda melty. Because Mat’s not stressed about his reputation. His name has probably been linked with four different girls this year alone. He asked Ramon to keep our entanglement quiet for me. Because he knew the talk would bother me.
“Thank you,” I say.
He scans the knotted wood in between us. “Maybe you could tell me again without this foot of space between us?”
I flush. “I can’t, Mat. I’m just not comfortable with PDA. I may have lost my head for a few seconds—”
“Minutes,” he interrupts, checking the time on his phone. “Definitely minutes, and very nearly an hour, since first period is almost over.”
The corners of my mouth curve. “Okay, minutes. But that doesn’t change my point. My parents can be ridiculous, but I’m very much their daughter. As much as I liked the last minutes, we can’t touch each other again. At least not in public.”
The girl who engages in PDA doesn’t fit my parents’ image of me. My image of myself. And if I want to maintain that, I need to be a lot more careful from now on.
He searches my face. “But you did like it?” he asks, young, vulnerable.
I can’t believe it. The cockiest guy in the senior class is suddenly unsure.
Both my heart and my lips ache. I wish I could slide over, negate this space between us, and show him just how much I liked it. But I can hardly break my rule sixty seconds after I set it. Plus, I was lucky today. Next time, someone less innocuous than Ramon might see us. And if that happens…well, I don’t even want to think about the consequences.
Instead, I kiss my fingers and press them on the table, an inch from where his hand is lying. “Yes. I liked it very much.”
He stares at my fingers, as if they might be able to untangle the thoughts in his head. “Okay. I can live with that. But on two conditions.” He lifts his eyes, and they are as deep, as black, as I’ve ever seen then.
“First, I do get to kiss you again when we’re in private.”
I nod, my mouth dry. I shouldn’t say yes. But how can I resist? “I’m counting on it.”
“Second, Taran doesn’t get to kiss you, either,” he says darkly.
Really? After our last minutes, he’s still jealous? But since he is—and maybe, probably, definitely because he’s such a good kisser—I can reassure him.
“Taran who?” I ask sweetly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rest of the week passes in a whirlwind of equal parts flirtation and frustration. Although we haven’t talked about our status, Mat certainly acts like my boyfriend.
He waits by my locker every morning. He sits with Kavya and me at lunch, in the open courtyard, where his gaze drifts, ridiculously often, to a certain spot on the bench. And he
calls every night, so often that I haven’t had time for my weekly conversation with my sisters. Mat and I have four years to catch up on, after all. Four years of jokes and observations and confidences. His voice is the last one I hear before I fall asleep, and his face is the first one I imagine when I wake up.
But we don’t touch. Not a friendly hand on the shoulder. Not the inadvertent bumping of hips. Not even a graze of our fingers.
One day, he grabs the loop on my backpack strap, inches from my collarbone, when we turn the corner and enter an empty corridor.
“Is this private?” he murmurs.
The backpack strap rubs against my shoulder, and I imagine the pressure as his hand. “I wish.”
The look he gives me is so molten that I nearly combust.
Another day, he boxes me against a tree on the edge of the school’s property, my back pressed against the bark, his hands on the trunk on either side of my head. I’m cradled inside his embrace—but we’re not technically touching.
“What about now?” he demands. “Is this private?”
He’s so close that I can feel the warmth emanating from his skin. If I moved my hand an inch, I could feel the softness of his T-shirt against the hardness of his torso. I want—but I refrain.
“I hear people laughing on the other side of this tree,” I say.
“I can’t see them,” he retorts. “So they must not exist.”
Now it’s my turn to giggle. “You don’t see them because you’re only looking at me.”
“Let’s find an empty classroom,” he begs. “A supply closet.”
I regard him sternly, which isn’t easy, because what I really want to do is take his face between my hands and kiss him. “No, Mat. Nowhere at school is private.”
He walks his hands closer to my head, which should make no difference. An inch between us might as well be a hundred if we don’t actually touch. But his fingers brush a few strands of my hair, and the heat flares between us.
“See me outside of school, then,” he suggests.
“You know we can’t.” We’ve been over this a dozen times. My parents can’t know that our dating has crossed the line from fake into real. They can’t suspect that we’re actually interested in each other. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be allowed within a football field of one another—a restraining order à la Mama and Papa Tech.
So we just have to wait patiently until Mama arranges another date.
“Saturday,” I say. “You can wait until Saturday. That’s two days away.”
“If she sets us up then.”
“She will,” I say, more confidently than I feel. “We’ve had pretend dates each of the last two Saturdays. You know how Mama likes her routines.”
Sighing, he drops his hands from the tree, releasing me. “The least you can do is send me photos to get me through the next two days.”
“Um.” This is a new one. I’ve never—and will never—send nudes. No matter what Bunny says. “What do you mean?”
“I want one with your eyes crossed. And flat on your ass in the middle of the sidewalk, after you’ve tripped on nothing. And oh! If you can get one where you’re laughing so hard, you’re squirting milk out your nose, that would be super.”
“You’re such a dork.” I raise my hand to smack him, and he ducks out of range.
“No touching, remember?” he says, his eyes bright.
I shake my head, pretending to be exasperated, but I can’t quite stop my lips from curving. Saturday can’t come soon enough.
…
Saturday morning finally arrives, and we sit down to our monthly Family Breakfast—Mama, Papa, my sisters, and me. Well, my parents and I are at our oval kitchen table, and my sisters are in their dorm room in St. Louis, since they won’t move into their sorority house until next year. Propped at the edge of our table is an iPad, where we’ve set up the video call.
The tradition started when the twins left for college. Mama complained bitterly about missing my sisters, about the absence of family meals, about the split in our lives reflecting the fracture in her heart. So Ari proposed Family Breakfast as a way to appease her—but it’s become my favorite morning of the month.
For starters, Mama always prepares an enormous spread of khao tom (boiled rice soup) and side dishes, and today is no exception. The table is crowded with a Thai omelet, chicken stir-fried with ginger, palo (five-spice stew), deep-fried catfish, pickled mustard greens, kunchieng (Chinese sausage), and sautéed bean sprouts.
On the other side of our call, my sisters have created their own spread, although it’s much less impressive. Just regular steamed rice with various pickled vegetables from the can and a selection of store-bought nam phriks, which are spice mixtures made from chilies, garlic, shallots, lime juice, and either shrimp or fish paste. Mama’s horrified that my sisters are eating the Thai equivalent of rice and condiments, I can tell. But the last time she pointed this out, the conversation ended with Bunny picking up a container of dried chilies and pouring it straight into her mouth.
“So,” Mama chirps instead. “Any marriageable prospects?”
Ari starts choking on her rice, and Bunny whacks her on the back. I don’t know why my sister’s surprised. I mean, we’ve already covered their classes, sleep patterns, and clothes. (Mama’s convinced the twins aren’t dressed warmly enough, even though they’re wearing leggings and a tee, just like me, and there’s only a four-degree temperature difference between Chicago and St. Louis.) We were bound to get to Mama’s favorite subject sooner or later.
Ari recovers, and the twins exchange one of their famous looks. My heart gives a swift, sharp pang. Even on the best days, it’s hard enough to be a spare to their pair. But the distance is only reinforced when we’re three hundred miles apart.
“Yes, Mama,” Bunny says dryly. “I met a guy last night at a frat party. First name, Brian. Never got around to a last name. Not sure about marriageable, but he is a very good kisser.” She waggles her eyebrows.
“Bunny!” Mama gasps. “Show a little respect. You may be in college now, and Papa may blurt out whatever pops into his mind. But that doesn’t mean you have to.”
“You are narrowing the blood vessels in your mother’s heart,” Papa says firmly. Typical Papa. He can’t just refer to a heart attack like a regular person.
“Mama, she’s kidding.” Ari shoves her twin in the shoulder, and Bunny pushes her back. My foot kicks forlornly underneath the table, but there’s no ankle for me to connect with.
“We attended no such party last night,” Ari continues. “In fact, we stayed home and studied. Isn’t that right, Winnie? Didn’t I spend an hour quizzing you on biology?” She finds my gaze through the screen and winks.
We did talk for an hour last night—but our conversation consisted of my sisters shrieking about Mat kissing me. “Finally,” Bunny pronounced, while Ari concluded, “Very impressive, little sister.”
“Did you wink?” Mama demands.
Ari rearranges her smirk into a neutral expression. “Huh?”
“You winked just now,” Mama says. “At Winnie. What does that mean? Are you not telling us the truth?”
“Um. Pretty sure I had dust in my eye.” Ari winks again.
“There!” Mama cries. “I saw it again.” She turns to Papa, who is painstakingly separating the bones from his fish. “Papa. The girls are winking at each other.”
“Better than sharing needles, I suppose,” he says.
Mama huffs out a breath. Her shoulders turn inward, as though the world—or, at least, her world—is banding against her.
“Come now, Mama,” Bunny cajoles. “You know how glitchy these video feeds are. I can assure you, there was no wink, no conspiracy, no plotting whatsoever.” She grins wickedly. “Unless you count me plotting how I’m going to see Brian again. I probably should’ve gotten his number, but we were busy
doing…other things.”
Mama starts hyperventilating, and Papa abandons his fish to guide her head between her knees.
I take the opportunity to text my sisters under the table.
Me: Seriously, Bunny? Whatcha doing? If they keel over and die, I’m gonna have to dispose of their bodies. Maybe wait for this kind of talk until you’re home and can help me?
Bunny: Just setting the stage. If I’m outrageous enough, by the time Ari confesses, it won’t seem so shocking
Me: Confess what? Ari?!
No response appears for an unending minute. Finally:
Ari: I met someone
Me: WHAT? You couldn’t have mentioned this last night?
Ari: Last night was about you
Bunny: *snorts* Right. The truth is, she’s having a hard time telling the family
Me: Hey, I resent being grouped with the rents
Ari: Sorry, Winnie. Of course I’ll tell you. It’s just that this person is not exactly expected
I frown. Expected? What does that mean? It’s not like Mat is expected, either. Or is he?
“Are you texting under the table?” Mama asks.
I look up guiltily, tucking away my questions for Ari. “No?”
“This is Family Breakfast!” she exclaims. “That means you must give your family your full and undivided attention. Texting your friends is not a quality use of this time.”
Somehow, I don’t think explaining that I’m texting my sisters will make her feel any better. “Because breathing with your head between your knees is a quality use?”
“It was a bonding experience between your mother and me.” Papa returns to his fish. “I read an article on how extreme situations can bring two people closer.”
“Do you need any more intimacy?” I tease. “I mean, you already have three children. And that’s not even taking into account the kiss I saw earlier.”
My sisters’ heads snap as Mama’s cheeks flush kunchieng red. “Kiss? What kiss?” Ari demands.
Mama ignores us. “I was just going to tell Winnie about her date today.”
My ears perk up. Finally. A date with Mat. An unintended—but very welcome—side effect of teasing Mama.
