by Sarah Tork
I turned to an intense-looking Tom and tried to shake off my bewilderment by taking lungfuls of air. It wasn’t working, so it was time to bounce. “Thanks for walking me home, but… um… err… yeah. What? Okay, wow… this just happened.”
Without another glance at him, I made my way to the front door, unlocked it quickly, and stepped inside using every ounce of willpower I had not to turn back and lock eyes with the blue gaze that had the power to disarm me. The ability to disarm me, Jenna “The Rocket” Sabini, was a power I didn’t think existed till tonight. But then again, it could have been the alcohol.
Yeah… that’s it.
That.
Had.
To.
Be.
It!
Thankful for a parentless house, but still frazzled from what had happened, I tiptoed through the darkness up the stairs, heading straight for the bathroom to examine… what? I had no idea. But for some reason, since it was the biggest thing to ever happen to me, maybe I looked different.
Does kissing make you look different?
I’ll have to ask Annabelle!
Aw, Annabelle will be happy, me asking her for advice.
Wait a minute, I can’t tell her what just happened! I’m not supposed to do crazy crap like this, especially with a baseball player. A jock just in my way!
I switched the bathroom light on and took my spot in front of the mirror. Holding the white vanity table tightly, I gasped at my reflection. I was in a standoff with it, wanting the real Jenna, the snarky, sarcastic, take-no-crap, all-boys-are–ew girl to come out and slap the cluelessness out of me. But she didn’t come out. I caressed the tip of my lip and accompanied with every single memory, every single feeling from the last ten minutes, I whispered. “My first… kiss.”
CHAPTER 6
*TOM*
Saturday November 3, 2012
Sunshine burned my eyelids while yells and screams ruptured my ears. Not how I thought today would go, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Waking up this morning, my fingers instinctively brushed across my lips. There was a grin there, and maybe it was content because I was at ease, because for starters my mind and body weren’t trembling in the after affects of a horrible nightmare. I dreamt last night and it was wonderful. My uncle noticed right away during breakfast and throughout the day while we moved boxes from a client’s house to their new home.
“That grin, son.” He kept saying like a broken record, sporting a cocky grin.
Back in real time, good vibes were gone completely, like a volcano erupting with lava destroying everything around. James was that volcano and his mood changed what should have been an easy afternoon chilling with the boys at Thompsons Park.
Having James around these last few months, there’d been a lot more fights. Which was fun sometimes, but right now I wasn’t in the mood. But I wouldn’t lay all the blame on him right now, this was our territory and these idiots from Pleasant View High were trying to start something by being jackasses with a bone to pick –usually with James.
It was funny in a predictable kind of way. That guy was a genius at pissing people off. But he was a bud and being loyal went without saying. I took my place and our side formed almost instantly, facing the same amount on the other side. We knew our places. And I’m sure from afar it’d looked like a battle of titans, but I judged those guys and they weren’t as big or tall as us, maybe like three of them were okay, the three that were trying to take James on I mean. I remembered awhile back, it was the same guys from O’Reilly’s Park. James started that too, but fought back easily taking on two of them.
I guess they were back for another beating?
Later that evening and without a scratch because no one actually fought, just some shit talk about who the real loser was before going our separate ways, I had dinner with Roy at Brucey’s. While I grinned like a fool, eating chicken nuggets with barbeque sauce, Roy vented about Dana and her jealousy issues, but I was barely listening, my mind was somewhere else.
All right, the cat was out of the bag. I was thinking about Jenna and what she might have been doing right now, or if she was thinking about me?
I wanted to text her, but my uncle told me to play it cool and give her some space, that whatever happened last night might have freaked her out and me texting her a billion times would send her running… again.
Please god, say it isn’t so….
I’d have to wait until Monday or until she texted me first.... but damn – it was hard.
Bro, turn in your man card right now. You’re whipped! And she’s not even your girl… yet.
Roy snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Bro, earth to Tom? Wake up, princess!”
I popped the last nugget in my mouth and smirked at him. “I’m here, sugar plum, there’s no need to cry. Now tell Uncle Tom what’s making you sad and maybe he can fix it.”
“Fuck off,” Roy sneered, throwing a cold fry at me. “I’m here trying to figure shit out and you’re in space, day dreaming about… Jenna Sabini? Bro, count your blessings she blew you off, and stay far away. She’s ice cold.”
They were all idiots. None of them saw what I did, a girl who respected herself and took no shit from nobody. And she was smoking hot. And she loved to swim….
I rested further inside the booth and sighed contently. “Then call me Dr. Freeze, sugar plum. She’s what I want.”
*~*~*
*JENNA*
Monday November 5, 2012
“Good morning, Orlando. It’s six thirty in the morning and you’re waking up to Jane, Lane, and Shane and the top twenty hits from 1998 right here on Light 102.5 FM. Let’s start off six thirty with a tune that’s sure to put the spice back in your life… it’s… ‘The Day I Met You,’ by Repeat Offenders.”
“Baby… kiss you… love you forever… always… the day… I… met… you,” played the clock radio until I slapped that thing off with extreme prejudice.
Enough of the flipping love enchantments bringing pain to my sleepy body on a day where there was no morning swim practice.
I repeat, no morning swim practice!
It equaled more time to sleep!
Anyway… half an hour later… ahem! Jenna Sabini… yeah you, the girl with one pajama pant up her leg, sleeping sideways on the verge of falling from her bed… it’s time to wake up and face the music. Girrrllll, you know what you did last Friday night. WAKE UP!
My eyes popped open to a star-filled sky and for a moment I smiled as the tranquility of my ceiling brought some semblance of sanity back to my life again. But then I remembered what I’d been trying my absolute best to forget. The girl who’d dedicated her teen years to swim team morale and getting As and Bs in her classes had kissed a freaking—
“It didn’t happen!” I kicked my blanket off and stared at the mirror across the room. It reflected a girl who’d never been so confused by… her own actions!
This is about letting go, Jenna, for once in your life. Are you going to let yourself have this?
“Mumbo jumbo, that’s all it is.” My face probably mimicked Annabelle’s after walking into the girls’ change room last August. It made so much sense now… because as my face reflected the result of boys and their stupid ways, I cursed the ability to remember heated touches and soft kisses. My sanity would pay for the lack of sense until the end of time, or at least until the end of senior year.
“Good morning, Jenna.”
My heart started to pound as I glanced up at my dad. He was eyeing me as he drank his double-cream, three-tablespoons-of-sugar coffee. Could he tell? Could my mom tell? I panned over to the refrigerator where she stood, angrily rearranging items inside.
“I told you not to mess with the order, Tony!”
Dad placed his coffee down and gasped in his exaggerated goofball way. “Woman, for the millionth time, it wasn’t me!”
“Oh, please,” Mom shouted, grabbing out a bottle of orange juice and a block of new butter, still wrapped. She held them over her head.
“I found these two things next to one another, and this… this is something you would do!”
My parents went back and forth while I laughed at their antics, and just like over the weekend, they were oblivious to their daughter experiencing a monumental, traumatizing, cringe-worthy, jaw-dropping…. Ugh… was it the alcohol?
I didn’t have much, and whatever buzz I’d had barely lasted the walk to Brucey’s, so blaming my actions on my inability to think straight wouldn’t work. My mind was working just fine and I chose to go out with Tom Colleto and let him buy me chicken nuggets.
Back to reality, breakfast went on with my parents finishing their fight with a hug and a kiss, and then Dad dropped me off in front of school where I met up with Annabelle at our usual spot in front of the steps. Being face-to-face with Annabelle was going to be another test.
After the kiss on Friday night, I’d been a nervous wreck for the rest of the weekend. Even training at the Y on Saturday and Sunday hadn’t helped cool off the memories of that night. Annabelle’s eyes narrowed as I approached her, as if she noticed something different about me.
“You okay? You look sick,” Annabelle assessed, scanning me from head to toe. I’d worn blue skinny jeans and a black tank top with black flip-flops. This was usually Annabelle’s uniform to school, and I usually did the whole colorful t-shirt and shorts thing, but today, today these clothes just seemed to pick me.
I shook my head, hugging myself. “I’m fine. You ready to go inside?” She nodded and we headed up the busy cement stairs to the entrance.
How was I going to look at this guy after what happened on Friday? And it’s not like it was going to go anywhere, so why was I worrying about all this stuff anyway? I had way more important things to worry about than Tom Colleto kissing me. I had swimming scholarships to worry about, and whether or not I was going to get one with all the crap being thrown at me.
This girl right here, she had bigger things to worry about than some guy she didn’t even have anything in common with. The cherry on top was that he hated spicy mustard sauce. If that wasn’t game over, then what was?
Spicy mustard sauce! I stopped moving once we were in the hallway. “Anna!”
She stopped and faced me, looking confused. “What?”
My heart pounded like crazy. This was all her fault. If she’d been by my side last Friday instead of locking lips with James, I would have gone to Brucey’s with her instead of Tom. I pointed at her and gritted my teeth. “Spicy. Mustard. Sauce.”
“Spicy mustard sauce?” She looked even more confused as she fixed her ponytail.
“Yeah, spicy mustard sauce.” I rolled my eyes and placed a hand to my hip. It was about to go down. “Dude, you totally ditched me on Friday. I had to go to Brucey’s with Tom. He walked me home and then we made out… errrrr crap.”
Her eyes bulged out and her jaw dropped. “Huh… you did what?”
I could feel my face heating to a temperature way past danger zone. I backed away, knocking into people trying to enter their classes. “Will you look at that, class is about to start, see you later!”
“Come back here—” Annabelle began, but James’s arm came out of nowhere and pulled her away. Saved by Boy Wonder… who would have thought? Whew! That was crazy. Everything was going crazy. I was going to have to do some serious explaining later to her.
What could I say?
It was so out of character for me.
So the tables had turned. Would it be Annabelle’s turn to give me crap for making a bonehead move? The one time my brain turned off and I had my first kiss….
“I gave my first kiss to… Tom Colleto?” I murmured on my way to my locker, shell-shocked as it hit me all over again.
It didn’t make sense.
*~*~*
*JENNA*
On the bright side, we got word that the school board had caved and called in the professionals to come and fix the pipe problems. This was done on Saturday and we got the e-mail from Coach on Sunday saying all was okay. Now that one problem was fixed, on to annihilating another one.
Tom.
It was lunchtime.
I did the whole “Tom Colleto, I need to speak to you in private!” thing while he and his friends were waiting in line. Stacey Two and Latisha were sitting at a table with the rest of the “hot” girls, right next to the baseball team’s table. Our eyes met and they shot off their benches, heading straight for the guys in line. I had a ten-second lead on them and would need every second to do what I needed to do.
Claim or Eliminate.
The restaurant’s door popped open with the lunch attendant holding it. “Next ten,” she yelled.
I felt someone grab me. I turned my head and Tom had his hands on my shoulders. “Come with me,” he murmured, ushering me easily into the restaurant. “We can talk in here too?”
As everyone else who was let through headed toward the hot station and refrigerators, Tom dropped his arms and I turned, tilting my head back, meeting his smiling eyes. Silently, we stood in the center of the room, oblivious of our surroundings.
“Listen, I get it,” I told him, trying not to fidget from nerves. His close proximity had my heart beating like crazy. My breaths quickly turned shallow.
“Get what?” He gave me a side smile that I wanted to kiss away.
“That you’re crazy about me,” I answered, and exhaled. He opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off. “No… no, let me say what I need to. I don’t blame you. I’d like me too if I wasn’t me. So… yeah.”
“Are you done?” He shook his head, looking at me like I was unstable in a cute way.
I grinned, feeling goofy. “For now.”
His fingertips found their way to my jawline, coarse skin tickling my cheeks, sending deep shivers down my spine that I fought to suppress, but then his arm wrapped around my waist and I was touching fronts with him, my hands holding on to his firm chest, feeling his crazy heartbeat rival my own.
“You wanna be with me?” I asked him quietly, mesmerized by blue eyes that had the power to disarm me in ways I’d been convinced until recently was impossible.
“For a while now,” he whispered, taking deep breaths.
“I’m not supposed to feel like this.” I cleared my throat and kept going. “I thought feeling like this was impossible for me. I’m supposed to be the strong one. I’m supposed to be strong.”
“You think if you’re with me it’ll make you weak?” He grimaced.
I exhaled a shallow breath, feeling sick to the point where I might throw up. “Affected in ways that still don’t make sense to me. I’m not supposed to be like this, Tom.”
“Tough,” he whispered, leaning down and stopping less than inch from my lips. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
His warm breath slowly covered my lips and it made every part of me feel electric. My breathing hitched as I prepared to concede whole-heartedly. “If you must.”
What was happening to me!
He chuckled and leaned in that fraction of an inch, pressing his lips to mine, moving them slowly… kissing me in public, unashamedly. After a few seconds he pulled away, grinning from ear to ear. I matched his expression.
I guess… I’d just claimed?
Yep!
Hey, I’d tried to fend off his advances, but sometimes the body wants what the body wants. My body screamed, “Thank You.”
You’re welcome, old friend. You’re welcome.
I wished liking him was entirely superficial, but it wasn’t. He was an easy person to talk to and spending time with him last Friday at Brucey’s had been a stress reliever. I could get used to doing more things like that with him. It was nice being the center of someone’s focus…. Ugh, gooey feelings.
“Ugh… you’re turning me into a giggly girl in….” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
His face went serious. “In what?”
I cleared my throat, looking down for a second before meeting his amused eyes again. “Ugh, in… happy-happy lan
d.”
“Spend lunch with me?” He brought my willing hand to his beautiful mouth and kissed my thumb with warm lips, which even if I had been at 100 percent, there was no way I could explain how it had me feeling.
Foreign in the best way possible, which I’d happily experience again, but perhaps behind closed doors that didn’t include my fellow classmates.
“What about the swim team?” I muttered, barely coherent.
He gasped loudly, like what I’d said was crazy. “What about the team? You’re sitting with your boyfriend from now on during lunch.”
My jaw dropped. “My boyfriend?”
Woah, how’d we get that far?
I mean… a few kisses and caresses and I was already in a relationship? I opened my mouth to say something but he dived in quickly and pecked me on the lips.
“Don’t,” he whispered, pleading with his puppy-dog eyes. “I like you, Jenna. Have for a while now.”
“You could at least ask me first.” I raised an eyebrow and shook my head. My head was telling me to tell him to shove it and that he couldn’t just declare something like that.
Especially with me.
I was the boss.
I controlled what I was and wasn’t participating in.
“Jenna Sabini?” Tom’s face went straight. “Will you be my first girlfriend?”
Okay wow, news flash, take out a front-page ad, holy cannoli, I did not expect him to actually ask that.
