Amelia laughed again. “Devon Lee? You still have a thing for Devon? You know he looks kinda goofy trying to get all scruffy and stuff. He doesn’t have enough beard yet to pull off the look.”
“I don’t ‘have a thing for him.’ I just think he’s cute. He doesn’t do anything for me. Not like—” Raine stopped before she finished her sentence, and I wanted to know what she was going to say. But before I could ask, she continued. “Anyway, if you stop and think about kissing a scruffy face versus kissing a soft, smooth face, well, you’d think there would be a difference.” Raine touched my cheek. Her fingers trembled slightly. “I don’t like the idea of scruffy faces.”
I caught her fingers and kissed them softly. “I agree. I don’t like scruffy faces.”
“I don’t either,” Amelia chimed in.
For a second with Raine right there in my face, I’d almost forgotten about Amelia. I felt bad and turned loose of Raine’s fingers. “You two first.” I touched Raine’s cheek and slowly turned her to face Amelia.
“What? You mean kiss?” asked Raine.
“Yeah, sure. You wanted to know what it was like,” I replied. Wow. This was crazy. Was this really going to happen?
“I wasn’t the one who brought it up,” said Raine. She sounded scared.
Was she going to back out? I had to find out, but I wasn’t going to press too hard. They had to make their own decision.
“You seemed to be curious, that’s all,” I said, hoping it sounded offhand.
“I am,” she admitted.
“So, why don’t you try it. It’s us. You know I’m not going to judge you.”
“Amelia?” Raine turned to Amelia, and she looked so cute with insecurity etched in her expression.
“Are you sure?” Amelia whispered, looking at Raine. She sounded nervous.
“I am if you are,” said Raine. Her eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them. I wished it was me kissing her first, but I knew it needed to be her and Amelia.
“So you want me and Amelia to kiss first?” asked Raine, seeming to look for some sort of final permission.
I nodded. “Definitely. You’ve been friends longer. It’s just right that if we’re all going to kiss tonight, that you two start.”
Raine touched Amelia’s face. “I think I’ve been wanting to do this for a while.”
Amelia pursed her lips. “Me too.” Her hands shook as she put them on Raine’s shoulders and drew them close together.
I felt odd watching their first kiss, like it should be private, but I was so into both of them that I couldn’t tear myself away. There was a sweet awkwardness to them. As I remembered my first kiss with a cute girl from summer camp two years earlier, I felt warm and happy being there with them as they tried to figure out how to turn their faces so their noses wouldn’t bump.
Their kiss didn’t linger long. Then their lips parted.
Amelia sighed. “Wow. That was better than a kiss on the cheek.”
Raine nodded, then ran her hand through Amelia’s hair. “Yes, it was.”
“We can’t forget about Mel,” Amelia said as she looked around Raine’s shoulder at me. “I want you to kiss her. Then I will.”
“Are you sure?” Raine turned toward me. There was a smudge of Amelia’s lipstick on the corner of her mouth.
I touched the smudge and gently wiped it off. “Lipstick is one of the few hazards of kissing girls.”
Amelia giggled, and it sounded more than a little nervous. “If that’s all, I think I can live with it.”
“There are a few other things too.” I ran my fingers through Raine’s hair. I’d wanted to bury my fingers in it since the first time I’d seen her.
Raine leaned into me as I guided her closer with a little pressure on the back of her neck. Her breath was short and excited. I wasn’t sure if it was from kissing Amelia, or if it was in anticipation of kissing me. I didn’t really care. I moved in closer and kissed her. I turned my head so our lips met perfectly. Her lips were soft, and her scent was a mix of hers and Amelia’s. It made my heart pound frantically. Our kiss lingered longer than her kiss with Amelia.
“I think I could definitely get to like this.” Raine pulled back first, and I let her go. She sounded out of breath.
“Kissing is good.” I reached around her and took Amelia’s hand. I pulled her close, so she all but sat on Raine’s lap. “Now it’s your turn, sexy cheerleader. You know I’ve always wanted to kiss a cheerleader.”
“You have?” Amelia sounded a bit confused.
“Yeah.” I ran my hand through her hair like I’d done with Raine. Her long red locks were soft and silky. Without another word, I pulled her close enough to kiss.
Her lips trembled as they touched mine. She sighed heavily and leaned into me.
The door opened.
“Hey, guys!” Colin, Raine’s youngest brother, said. “Ah… ah… pizza.”
“Shit.” Raine moved Amelia out of the way, breaking our kiss.
Colin had turned and started down the hall.
“Colin, come back here.” Raine ran after him.
I couldn’t see exactly what happened, but there was a thud like something hitting the wall out in the hall. I heard Raine’s voice, but I couldn’t hear what she said.
“Not a word, Colin,” Raine growled over her shoulder as she came back to the room a minute later. “Do you understand me?”
I couldn’t hear what he said, but then Raine came back into her room and closed the door behind her. She leaned her back against the door and pushed her dreads over her shoulders. “Okay. He’ll stay quiet. You guys don’t know how lucky you are. It’s got to be better to be an only child.”
We were quiet for a moment. All the tension that had been in the room had been broken when Colin busted in. It was slowly building up again as we looked from one to the other. Amelia broke the silence. “That was nice… no better than nice… awesome.”
“Definitely.” I stood next to Amelia, taking her hand and then Raine’s as she came close enough. “No freaking out from any of us?”
Raine shook her head first, and then Amelia did.
I couldn’t stop myself, I kissed them both again. “Good. Raine, how about your family?”
A cloud passed over her face. “I don’t know for sure. We’re Christian. At least my folks are. I’m not sure what I am. I haven’t figured it out, but organized religion doesn’t seem like my thing. I don’t know how my mom and dad would react to this.”
From the friends I’d had in Texas, I knew all about Christians. Some were accepting, others weren’t. Some of the fundamentalists were downright scary. “Your parents seemed cool from what I saw of them,” I suggested.
“Right.” Raine sighed. “If Colin blabs, I guess we’ll find out.”
We hugged tight.
“I guess we will,” I said.
“We’d probably better go get some pizza before Mom comes looking for us.” Raine stepped away first. “Ames, remember you said you’d eat a piece.”
Amelia nodded. “I know, and I will. As long as you both won’t think I’m hideous.”
I gave her a quick kiss. “Hideous is a word that will never describe you, beautiful girl.” We were going to have to tackle her body issues soon, but right then it didn’t matter. We’d all gotten past the first kisses, and things were going good. All we had to do was hold it together and face Raine’s family for pizza.
Chapter Ten
Raine
I COULDN’T believe I kissed a girl. Not just one girl, but two. And not just any girl, but Amelia!
Mel and Amelia had left a few minutes earlier. I’d said goodbye on my doorstep when Mel’s dad came to pick them up. We’d acted like it was any other day. We’d hugged goodbye and said normal things in front of her dad, but I could see the secret thoughts behind their eyes. They’d been thinking the same things I’d been thinking, I was sure. Things like how good it had felt to feel the soft flutter of lips against mine. How it felt like a warm ru
sh of electricity running through my entire body when Amelia had held me, and then again when Mel had shown me how to take the kiss deeper. It was obvious we’d do it again. We’d started something. I’m not sure what it was, but I was anxious to see where it went. I’d run upstairs after the door shut, and I threw myself on my bed. We had school the next day, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep that night.
The whole evening had been surreal. How had it happened? It seemed like only a few weeks ago life had been ordinary, that things were going along like they’d always gone. I’d known what to expect and how to act, but suddenly everything seemed to have a different slant to it, like we were on the edge of something new, something exciting and maybe a little scary. I ran my hands down my face, stopping to touch my still-tingling lips, and then lowered them to rest them on my fluttering belly. Wow. I wanted to scream, and it was all I could do to keep it in. I had really kissed a girl!
My mind went back to dinner, after the pizza had come and Amelia, Mel, and I had come downstairs. I was positive my mom and dad would see evidence of the kisses on my face. Mel had rubbed Amelia’s lipstick from my mouth, but surely my lips were swollen and my eyes must have shown something, like they were sparkling or dancing or some other way a writer would describe them in one of those romance books. But my parents didn’t comment about it or act like they noticed anything out of the ordinary. They asked Mel and Amelia about school, like it was any other normal discussion, getting caught up with Amelia and getting to know Mel. I’d sat there quietly, listening, trying to figure out if they suspected anything. Colin looked like he was thinking about something too, and I wondered if he was going to say anything. But I’d given him a warning when I chased him down the hall after he’d barged in. I’d grabbed him a little harder than I intended, because he’d banged into the wall when he was trying to get away. I was worried that he’d yell and my parents would come up. But luckily, I don’t think I hurt him. It would kill me if I’d hurt him. He was a pain in the butt sometimes, and I joked that I’d rather be an only child, but he was still my little bug. Anyway, I told him I would never take him down to Little Man Ice Cream ever again if he said anything. Ice cream was our thing. Just like putting together complex Lego sets was me and Teddy’s thing. Ever since Mom and Dad let me drive him places, Colin and I would go down to get ice cream, and then we’d go walk across the overpass and watch cars pass under us on the highway as we ate it. I knew that threatening to take that away would keep him quiet if anything would. I nearly had a heart attack when, after his second slice of pizza, he asked my mom if two girls or two boys should kiss.
“What do you mean, honey? Like how I kiss Raine or Daddy kisses you or Teddy?” she asked as she took a bite of her salad.
“No. Like in the movies. All romantic.”
Mom looked at Dad, and Dad looked back at Mom. My heart stopped, and I wondered if she was going to ask Colin where he might have seen something like that. I couldn’t look at Amelia or Mel. I was afraid I’d give us away.
“Well, sweetie, sometimes a boy can love another boy, or a girl can love another girl, like a boy can love a girl, or a girl can love a boy. It’s perfectly normal. So, when they love each other, they might kiss like that to show each other how they feel,” explained Mom. I wanted to reach across the table and hug her tight. I loved her so much in that moment, and she didn’t even have a clue. I chanced what I hoped looked like a casual look at Amelia and Mel. Relief was raw on Amelia’s face, and a smile brightened Mel’s. I think they were just as worried about the question as I had been. The answer seemed to satisfy Colin too, since he immediately turned his attention to a third slice of pizza, where he peeled each pepperoni off, piled them up, and then ate them all in one bite.
After dinner Mel, Amelia, and I went back to my room. This time we locked the door. The kissing got a little more intense after that, and we didn’t even realize we’d used up our entire time for homework until Mel’s phone rang and it was her dad telling her he was on his way to pick her and Amelia up.
Lying on my bed, I replayed the kissing, and I got a little light-headed. It had been so much better than I ever imagined it would be. I wasn’t ready for it to end that night. I couldn’t wait to do it again. A small part of me wondered if it was weird that I could be so into two people at the same time. I’d always imagined that when I finally got together with someone—always assuming it would be a guy—that it would be me and one other person. But this felt right in an unexpected way. I loved Amelia so much. She was my best friend, and now I knew I loved her as more than a friend. She was a beautiful person, inside and out, and she made me tingle when I was around her. I don’t know when it began, but it had been there for a long time. Only I didn’t know it was romantic. And I felt that way with Mel too. It was a little different, more physical than it was romantic, but it was important to me. I needed Mel to be a guide to being with Amelia, or something. Not as a means to be with only Amelia, but to be part of it too. I’d never heard of any of my friends in a three-way relationship like this. Well, I’d heard of three-ways, but always in a dirty way. This was way different. It’s like we each brought something unique to the situation.
I was already thinking like this could be the beginning of something, not a onetime thing. I wondered if that’s how Amelia and Mel thought about it. Even though we’d promised each other that we wouldn’t freak out, I kind of did, just a little bit, especially if this had only been an experiment for the others. I picked up my phone and dialed Amelia.
“Hey, Ray-Ray,” she said, and I swear it was deeper than normal, kind of sultry.
She had picked up on the first ring, and then I realized I hadn’t figured out what to say. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was feeling yet.
“You there?” she asked. This time she sounded more like herself, maybe even a little concerned.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, Ames. Whatcha doing?”
“I’m trying to get some homework done. I have a paper due soon, and we didn’t get much studying done tonight. But I’m having a hard time concentrating. Thinking about stuff.” She laughed, and it was a little nervous sound I’d rarely heard from her. She’d acknowledged what we’d done without saying it out loud. Yep. She was wondering some of the same things I was.
“Yeah.” I made the decision to jump right in. “It was super intense, right?”
“God, yes,” she sighed, and the tone of her voice gave me goose bumps. “I never thought… I mean, I did think, but I figured that it wouldn’t… that you wouldn’t… I mean….”
“Me too, Ames,” I said, helping her, I hoped. “Lately I’d started thinking that maybe I loved you in a way that was more than just friends. I don’t know when it started. Maybe it was always there, you know?”
“Yeah, I do know. It’s been the same for me. It wasn’t sudden or anything. I started having feelings that I wanted to kiss you and snuggle with you and… and… more.”
We were quiet for a minute, letting it sink in. I could hear her breathing on the other end. It made the little hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
I broke the silence. “I’m glad that Mel happened to us, then. I think we needed her to get us to act on it.”
“I think it would have happened on its own, Ray-Ray. But I think that both of us are into her. And she’s definitely into both of us. I know it’s supposed to be weird, but I kind of like it. Well, I don’t ‘kind of’ like it. I like it. I like it a lot. Is that okay with you?”
“I’m so glad you said that.” My heart fluttered with happiness and anticipation. “I’m more than okay with that. I really like Mel. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. She has this way about her that just makes me happy and excited when I’m around her. I don’t think she will take anything away from me or you with each other. I think she adds to it. Does that make sense?”
“I feel exactly the same way. But….” She paused. I was kind of afraid of what was coming after the “but.” “But I’m worried
about what people will say if they find out. Especially my mom. I’m terrified of that.” Her mom wasn’t an open-minded person, and her dad wasn’t in the picture at all. Never had been. Her mom was one of the most closed-minded people I’d ever met. She had opinions on many things and the whole gay thing was one of them. I’d heard her make comments here and there over the years, mostly being rude to the guys on the cheer squad or waiters in restaurants. I hadn’t liked them, but I hadn’t said anything when she’d done it. It had always been uncomfortable, but it hadn’t been personal to me. I wondered if I’d feel the need to say something now. I thought about Amelia, and I decided I’d try to stay quiet, for her sake.
“Well, no one needs to know if we don’t want them to. Maybe it can stay between the three of us. It’s our business, anyway,” I suggested.
“Do you think we can do that? Do you think anyone will guess?” She sounded relieved, but there was still some worry in her voice. I wished I was there to make her feel better. To hold her for a little while.
“No one has suspected anything between you and me before,” I reminded her.
“There was nothing to suspect.”
“I know, but if we don’t act any different in public, it won’t make anyone suspicious.”
“Are you okay with this, Ray-Ray?”
“I am more than okay with this. I wish I could come over there and show you how okay I am with this. I miss you.” I wanted to curl around her and hold her while she slept.
My phone vibrated with a new text. It was from Mel.
I miss being close to you two. I wish we were together right now in a warm pile of us. Wouldn’t that be great?
I heard Amelia texting back.
That would be heaven. We should try to make it work one night.
Three Times the Charm Page 7
