The International Kissing Club

by Ivy Adams

  “Why?”

  “Because you look like you’ve just lived through the most miserable six weeks of your life. I think you could use a little fun.”

  “Playing guitar is fun. Shopping is fun. Acing a test is really fun. Getting on that death trap, not so much.”

  “Fine. Tell me the last time you did any of those things and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “I’ll have you know I bought a very nice belt a few weeks ago,” she answered.

  “Wow. A belt. Big spender,” he teased.

  “I play guitar every day,” she said.

  “Okay, then. What I meant was, when was the last time you tried something new?”

  When she didn’t immediately answer, Guiran’s smile grew wider. “See, you need a challenge. That’s what keeps life interesting.” He stepped off the skateboard. “Try it. If you don’t have fun, I promise I won’t ask again.”

  She wasn’t sure if she was happy about that promise or not. It had gotten to the point that her time with Guiran was the complete highlight of her day, so much so that she found herself watching the clock—and the grounds outside her dorm room window—at least an hour before he was supposed to show up. The practical side of Mei was a little worried about her dependence on him. After all, it was never good to put all your eggs in one basket, and if this friendship didn’t work out between them, then she’d be totally screwed. Without his wicked good translating skills, she didn’t know if she was ready to tackle the four and a half hours of public transportation required to get from Shenyang to Dalian. The journey had seemed shorter when she was back home planning her trip.

  At the same time, though, the impractical side of herself—the one that dreamed of running off with a rock band instead of going to MIT—refused to be concerned. Guiran was a good guy, it told her. She should just relax and enjoy the time she got to spend with him.

  That didn’t mean she had to like skateboarding, but if it would make him happy …

  “All right, fine,” she said ungraciously. “I’ll try it. Once. If you do something for me in return.”

  “Name it.”

  “Let me teach you how to play a few chords on my guitar, so you can experience something I love as much as you love your skateboarding.”

  “That’s not a favor.” Guiran laughed. “Why would I say no to a chance to spend time with you and an electric guitar?” he asked, a sparkle in his eye.

  As the days had worn on, Guiran had been getting more and more flirty, until Mei didn’t have a clue where she stood with him. Back home, she would have sworn he was interested, because, as Izzy had said, if a guy offered to teach you something, it was because he had a thing for you. And the more he got to touch you, the better. But other than the flirting, nothing had happened. So she had no clue if he liked her in that way or not.

  Shaking off the girly-girl thoughts, Mei stepped up to the skateboard, determined to get her humiliation over quickly. The last time she’d been on one of these things she was in fifth grade and had ended up flat on her back in front of every kid in her neighborhood. She was not looking forward to repeating the experience now.

  Sure enough, she was fine as long as she had one foot on the ground. But the second she started to push off, she tottered wildly. Convinced she was going to fall, she was shocked when she found herself leaning against Guiran’s warm, hard chest.

  “Here, let me help.”

  Like she was going to turn down that offer? Not when he came up behind her and placed an arm on either side of her waist.

  He was talking, telling her what to do, and she knew she should be paying attention. But for the first time in her life, Mei was a lot less interested in mastering a new concept than she was in simply reveling in the feel of the hottest guy she had ever met pressed against her.

  He smelled good—really good—like the spiced oranges her mother made in the winter mixed with the dark, earthy scent of the tilled fields she, Piper, and Cassidy had played in as children. She had loved that place, loved the smell of it, and the fact that Guiran reminded her of those times did nothing to calm the chills racing up and down her spine.

  “So, are you ready to try on your own?” he asked, and she realized, belatedly, that he’d been talking to her the entire time she’d been taking a trip to la-la land. Nice, Mei, she told herself with a grimace. Now she was going to look like the world’s biggest idiot when she tried to board.

  But he was looking at her so expectantly that she couldn’t back out—no matter how much she wanted to. So Mei forced herself to push off a few times, gathering speed, before she brought her left foot up behind her right. She moved along for a minute, whipping through the cold air like she was born to do it—or, at least, born not to make a total moron of herself. When she didn’t fall, her confidence increased—perhaps a little too much, because she started to push herself faster on the board.

  She could see why Guiran liked the thing. It was kind of fun to breeze along, rolling through a world where everyone else was a few steps behind. In fact, maybe he could teach her a trick or two—

  Mei lost focus and suddenly was wobbling, convinced she was going to hit the ground hard. But just as she started to fall, Guiran was there to catch her, his arms wrapping around her as he pulled her to his chest.

  “Hey, you okay there?” he asked. His voice was a little huskier than normal.

  “Uh, yeah. I’m fine,” she answered. But she didn’t feel fine. She felt dizzy, like she couldn’t catch her breath and the entire world was spinning around her. She focused on his face, tried to stop the whirling sensation, but looking into his deep, black eyes only made the sensation worse.

  “Mei.”

  “Yes?” she whispered, doing her best to ignore the erratic beating of her heart. Is he going to kiss me? she wondered frantically as his mouth got a little closer to hers. He is! her dazed brain cried. He really is. Take that, Piper and Cassidy. The look in his eyes said she was about to rack up some serious points herself.

  Guiran’s mouth was only an inch or two away from hers, and coming closer with every second that passed. Mei tilted her chin, leaned forward, but didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t want to miss a second of this—

  Her stomach growled, loudly, and Guiran pulled away with a laugh.

  Seriously? she demanded of the universe. The first time a guy had tried to kiss her in over a year and her body had to go and betray her? So what if she hadn’t eaten anything all day—that so wasn’t an excuse for ruining the best thing that had happened to her since she’d gotten to this godforsaken country.

  “You’ve been skipping meals again?” he demanded, brushing a few strands of hair out of her eyes. “I thought you were done with that.”

  “I was. I am.” She cursed herself as she stumbled over the words. But how could she tell him that she’d come to dread the cafeteria when he wasn’t with her? How she hated to walk through the full tables and hear the whispers that followed her wherever she went? When they were together it wasn’t so bad—they were usually talking to each other and besides, she wasn’t sure why, but no one messed with her when she was with Guiran. Ever.

  “Really?” He eyed her skeptically.

  “I was just busy. I spent most of today in my room, studying. Mandarin is kicking my butt.”

  “I told you I’d practice with you.” He said something in Mandarin, and though he spoke slowly, Mei was only able to understand two words: “go” and “eat.”

  “We can’t,” she said in English, not even willing to attempt the other language. “The cafeteria’s about to close.”

  “Amazingly enough, there are other food sources in this city besides the school’s lousy cafeteria. Come on,” he said, picking up his skateboard.

  “We’re going out?” she asked, glancing down at her jeans and thick hoodie. “I’m not exactly dressed—”

  “You look great.” He led her toward the huge gates that marked the front of campus.

  “Where are we going?” she aske
d as they exited the grounds.

  “Somewhere I can be guaranteed you’ll actually eat.”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that it probably wasn’t going to happen. She’d been in China long enough to know that most of the food just wasn’t her thing.

  Still, she felt a thrill of excitement to be going into the city again. She’d almost ventured past the gates on her own earlier that day, but had chickened out at the last minute. In the city, everything was chaotic and messy and frenzied and fast. She’d been born Chinese, but she was finding more and more that she was small-town Texan to the core. Slow and steady was more her pace.

  They walked for about ten minutes, Guiran holding her hand with his free one as they strolled down the sidewalk. All around them, the world was a mixed-up blur of colored lights and speeding cars, honking and squealing brakes, and motors revving. And everywhere there were people, the streets crowded with rows and rows of bodies, as if the four million people in Shenyang had given up trying to house themselves and were just spilling onto the streets.

  She thought of Paris, of the lazy tree-lined streets that were more often empty than not. She’d never realized how much she liked the solitude of it, the quiet of being alone with her own thoughts. Here, it seemed the only place she was ever alone was in her dorm room.

  Suddenly, Guiran started tugging her inside a restaurant. She glanced up at the sign right before they went in the door, and she started to laugh. Hard. Guiran had brought her to Pizza Hut.

  She found a table as he ordered a large pizza and a couple of Cokes. As she sank into her chair, she drew the scent of spicy tomato sauce deep into her lungs. Her mouth watered.

  Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Maybe she could handle leaving the school on her own. She might not speak Mandarin, but surely even she could manage to point at the menu and order a cheese pizza.

  They spent the next hour talking and laughing and eating until their stomachs were on the verge of exploding. Mei finished off her fourth slice of pizza and reached for a fifth, even though she was completely full for the first time in weeks. There was something about being here, about sharing pizza with Guiran, that made her happier than she had been in a long time. She didn’t want the feeling to end, and if it meant she had to eat until she was about to puke, she was more than okay with that.

  But eventually their cups were empty and the last slice was gone. Guiran stood up, looking as reluctant as she felt. “So, are you ready to go?” Again, he offered her his hand.

  “Yeah.” Her hand slid neatly into his, their palms nestling together. “Can we walk for a while, though? I’m stuffed.”

  “Sure. Where should we go?”

  She thought of the long list of places she still wanted to see, started to tell him Beijing Park, then paused. The guy had fed her pizza. He’d earned a little trust. “Surprise me.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said with a wink, and Mei tried not to obsess over the words as they strolled down the street, hand in hand.

  It’s just an expression, she told herself as he regaled her with stories about some of the points of interest they passed.

  He hadn’t meant it.

  They’d never even kissed.

  That didn’t seem to matter, though, as they walked through some of the back streets of Shenyang, talking about anything and everything. It was strange, really, how comfortable it felt being with him. How right it felt being with him.

  They paused in front of an ice-cream place and even though Mei’d eaten a ton of pizza, she let Guiran talk her into getting a cone.

  “What flavors do they have?” she asked, staring at the Chinese characters in frustration.

  “A bunch you’ve probably never even heard of.”

  “They must have vanilla, right?”

  “I don’t think so.” Guiran scanned the list posted on the wall, then turned to her with a sly glint in his eye. “Let me order for you?”

  Mei looked at him warily. There was trust and then there was trust. Back home, her ice-cream order was sacred. “Well, that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not any of those flavors will kill me. The electric purple one is a little concerning.” Not to mention the puce-colored one and the one with the unidentifiable chunks in it.

  “Aww, come on, loosen up. Live a little,” he prodded.

  “I just did—I got on that stupid board and almost killed myself.”

  “Well, you’re not dead yet. And admit it: you had fun. I could tell you liked it. So, trust me now, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed, though still a little wary.

  Guiran turned to the person behind the counter and spoke in rapid-fire Mandarin. Within a minute or two, Mei held a double-decker icecream cone in her hand. As Guiran ordered for himself, she looked at the thing suspiciously. He’d ordered her black ice cream. Black ice cream. She didn’t even know such a thing existed. Or if it should.

  She sniffed it. It didn’t smell like licorice, but what else could possibly turn ice cream that color? She decided to start on the green mint scoop first and work her way around to the black. If it was some kind of funky chocolate, she wasn’t sure she could stomach it.

  Her eyes started watering with her first lick, and she swallowed quickly. “You got me wasabi ice cream?”

  “Do you like it?”

  Did she like it? What kind of question was that? Who on earth actually ate wasabi ice cream? She could barely stomach the Japanese horseradish on her mother’s homemade sushi, let alone on a waffle cone.

  Still, she didn’t want to hurt Guiran’s feelings, especially when he was looking at her so expectantly. Bracing herself, she cautiously took another lick. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t been expecting it to taste like mint.

  “It’s … interesting.”

  He laughed, before shouldering the ice-cream parlor’s door open. “Now there’s a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “So shoot me. I’m used to my ice cream being made of flavors I would eat in a cake. Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, Cherry Garcia.”

  “Ahh, the boring flavors.”

  “You mean classic, don’t you?” She narrowed her eyes at him playfully.

  “No. I meant boring.” He took a long lick of his own wasabi ice cream. “So, have you tried the black-sesame scoop yet?”

  Seriously? Black sesame? Had she skipped China and landed on a totally different planet altogether? One where people didn’t have taste buds? “Uh, no. I haven’t.”

  “And you’re not going to, are you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He bumped her with his shoulder. “It’s written all over your face. You’re a control freak.”

  “You make me sound so boring.”

  “Not boring. Classic.”

  His words hit her the wrong way. “I’m not boring!”

  “I’m just joking, Mei.” He laughed. “There’s nothing boring about you.”

  “Not boring, then. Just unadventurous. Anal-retentive,” she said.

  He didn’t answer this time and Mei could feel herself getting more and more worked up. It was stupid, she knew, to let Guiran push her buttons like this—especially over a stupid ice-cream cone—but she couldn’t help it. John, her ex, used to give her a hard time about how she planned everything out, how she was never spontaneous. How she always had to control things. The fact that Guiran was suddenly doing the same thing really bothered her. Strange, though, how it wasn’t him she was annoyed at, but herself.

  Looking around, she tried to find a way to prove to him that she wasn’t as staid, as predictable, as he seemed to think she was. It had gotten late, and since it was the middle of the week, the earlier crowds had thinned to almost nothing. So it wasn’t as if she could just walk up to someone and do something crazy, like kiss them and finally get on the IKC point chart. But maybe there was something else …

  Her eyes fell on the fountain in
the middle of the square and an idea started to form. It was crazy, ridiculous, especially since it felt like it was about forty degrees outside, but once the idea was in her head, she couldn’t get it out. A quick glance around told her that the earlier crowd had all but disappeared.

  She turned to Guiran, shoved her ice-cream cone at him. “Here, hold this for a minute.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, following her as she started toward the center of the square. “I was just joking, Mei. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t leave.”

  She didn’t answer him. She wasn’t leaving, not by a long shot, but after his teasing, he deserved to suffer a little. Refusing to give herself time to think, Mei stripped off her jacket and dropped it in the center of the square. Next she ripped off her shirt and jeans, until she was dressed in nothing but the black stretchy lace camisole and matching panties Piper had given her for the trip. Thank God she’d decided to wear them today as an extra layer of warmth, but now for the extra confidence boost as well. Somehow, she doubted this would have the same effect if she was wearing her regular underwear. ’Cause nothing said wild and crazy like plain white cotton.

  And then, with a quick glance at Guiran to make sure he was watching (he was, with his mouth hanging open), she jumped straight into the huge stone fountain and plunged into the water.

  Cold. Oh God, was it cold! Siberia cold. South-Pole-penguin cold.

  But it was too late to back out now. The only thing worse than freezing to death in this stupid fountain would be seeing the look on Guiran’s face when she wimped out. No way. She was staying put in the waist-deep water for the duration.

  “Mei, are you crazy? Get out of there!”

  “Why? It’s nice.” She prayed he couldn’t hear her teeth chattering.

  “It’s got to be like five degrees above freezing. I’m sure ‘nice’ is not the proper adjective.” He was shrugging out of his jacket even as he was telling her to get out, dropping it on the rim of the fountain. “Plus, it’s against the law to be in there. You can get a major fine.”

  She looked around. “Do you see any police here?”

  “No. They’re smart enough to be inside, bundled up. For now.” He shrugged out of his shirt, stripped off his jeans. Mei tried not to stare, but he was even better looking with his clothes off. “Unlike us.”