My first kiss tasted like pizza rolls. And faintly of Mountain Dew, but I remember the pizza rolls the most.
'Do you want something to eat?' He asked, placing the bowl of pizza rolls down in front of us.
'Sure, I'll have a few.' I said, and he folded himself down on the floor, crossing his legs, drinking the Mountain Dew.
'Aren't you going to sit?' He asked, looking quizzically up at me, before scrambling to his feet.
'Um'' I looked down at my bare feet, suddenly aware of their odd shape. I had worn a dress to school today, and I hadn't had time to change before we went over to his apartment.
'What's wrong?' Nick asked, peeping down at me through his dark brown bangs. 'Do you not want to watch the movie or something?'
The movie. The Hitcher. It was the remake of it, and since I had seen both versions of the movie before, I was trying to remember whether it was the girl or the guy who got ripped apart by the truck in the end.
'Oh, no, no'I do, I'm just wearing a dress, and it's pretty short and I just don't know how it will hold up if I sit on the floor.' I offered up a slim grin, and he smiled back, his eyes widening in relief.
'Do you want some shorts or something?' He asked, leaving me to grab a pair of red basketball shorts off of his bed.
'Yeah,' I took a deep breath to steady myself, 'sure.' He tossed them to me.
'I'll turn around,' he said, his gorgeous cheeks turning red. But the shorts were already on. I had been moving in hyperspeed all day, excited about hanging out with my first real boyfriend, at least, the first one that had introduced me as his girlfriend and not as 'um'er'this is McAllister.' I had never been in a guy's room alone with him before, and my heart was pounding already.
Nick's mom was in the kitchen and had given me a knowing smile as Nick led me through the hallway, balancing the drinks in one hand, shutting the door behind us.
Now I was insanely thirsty, but I didn't want to drink too much in case the fluids made me have to pee. Since Nick lived in an apartment, his bathroom was right next to his room, and I didn't want to risk the face that the walls were probably paper-thin. 'Come on, sit down. You're making me nervous.' Nick grinned, and tugged at the bottom of the shorts to get me to lower myself to the floor.
But the shorts were too big and slipped a little, making me drop to the ground like ten pounds of rocks in a Ziploc baggie. 'Sorry,' he chuckled, a deep rumbly sound that made me turn red.
Nick was a senior and I was just a sophomore, and I wasn't naive enough to think that I was his first girlfriend; or rather, that how far we went today was as far as he'd gone his entire life.
'It's okay,' I said, and crossed my legs so that my feet were both pointing away from him, an extremely uncomfortable position for me, but I felt the sacrifice had to be made, so he didn't think I was being too forward.
I didn't know if having cold bare feet shoved in their face turned on guys. 'So are we going to start the movie?' I asked, letting my body lean slightly against his, letting him put his arm around my stomach.
'Are you sure you won't be too scared?' He asked, removing his hand and making claws with his fingers. I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I was relieved. I'd told Nick the other day that I was scared of horror movies in order to seem petite and girly, when in reality, horror movies were my favorite kind.
While he was putting in the movie, I took the extra moments to snoop around.
Oh my gosh. He had a poster of a model wearing some sort of leather contraption on his door. Why?
That in itself just made me even more self-conscious, sine my sophomore year was during my sort've-pudgy stage, and the model behind me probably weighed about nine pounds soaking wet.
He got the movie started, and edged down next to me, managing to lean in even closer than he was before. He reached behind me, making my back stiffen up, and turned off the lights.
Once my eyes adjusted, I turned my head slightly to the side to meet his neck, since it aright there.
I froze up, because his neck tasted like cinnamon and because I could feel him chewing a pizza roll. It was the grossest thing I'd ever witnessed in my life.
So gross that I almost gagged. And he seemed to be oblivious to it all. 'Are you scared yet?' He whispered, right in my ear. It seemed like he was done chewing and all of a sudden, my disgust floated away, leaving me with the feeling I'd had when he first asked me out.
Utter joy.
'Kind of.' I giggled, and let him drape one arm over my shoulder. This was all such foreign ground to me.
It was like his room was a war field in China, and I was a German soldier. I had no clue what was happening or what I was supposed to do.
'Well, I'll protect you.' He said, and then his lips were on my cheek, and I stiffened up again.
Then they were gone and suddenly reappeared on my forehead. This mortified me. I'd woken up that morning to find the biggest, juiciest zit of my life residing on my forehead. I'd piled pound after pound of cover-up, and then topped it off with tinted cream and an insane covering of powder. I was afraid that he was tasting my nasty makeup taste.
In my experience, makeup didn't taste the best, so either he didn't notice or he just didn't care.
He pulled me so close to him I could feel his heart pounding through his turquoise sweater and my cream colored cardigan.
Now I was thoroughly uncomfortable. I had to concentrate on not only keeping my back straight and sucking in my stomach.
'Are you okay?' He whispered into my hair.
'Yeah,' I gasped, 'why?'
'You're shaking a little bit.'
It was because I was running out of air. 'Are you that scared?' He asked, yanking me into his lap, leaning me back so my lips were near his ear.
'I'm fine,' I squeaked.
'Are you sure?'
'Yup,' I squeaked, and he plucked one of my auburn hairs off of his sweater sleeve. 'I'm just kind of cold.'
Uh oh, I thought as he pulled me closer and wrapped his arm closer around me, wrapping them around my waist twice. Wrong answer.
'McAllister?' He asked, his voice low and rumbly in my ear.
'Eh?' I asked. What? When did I suddenly become Canadian?
'Would you mind if I kissed you right now?'
'Um'' My brain sort of went black right then. 'What do you mean? Do you mean like kiss my lips? Cause you've already kissed every other part of my face, so I guess that's what you're talking about, I don't know why I asked, maybe I should stop talking and really answer the question, but I kind of babble when I get nervous, you know-' I stopped to suck in a breath and as soon as I got one, I opened my mouth to speak again.
Instead of words, my lips found Nick's instead. 'Mmmmpphhh.' I gasped, trying to stiffen up, but just relaxing in his arms and letting him kiss me.
He pulled away and grinned boyishly at me from under his long brown bangs.
'Was that okay?' He asked, apparently just to clarify. 'I wasn't sure how long you were going to be talking for, so I figured I'd just plant one on you.' His cheeks turned red and I blushed, my cheeks turning the same color as my hair.
So there you have it. My first kiss was intended purely to shut me up. Doesn't that take the entire birthday cake?