Chapter 14
The first time I kiss Ford, I’m fourteen, trying to understand myself.
The second time I kiss Ford, I’m really drunk. Not that it matters. It’s the night of my eighteenth birthday and I can do whatever I want. So what if all I want to do is kiss my best friend again.
It’s a cold January night and Mom, Daddy, the twins and Erik travelled to Norway over Christmas to see grandma Bergman.
Mom said I could stay home and have a birthday party instead.
She even took my side when Daddy said that Grandma won’t live for long anymore and I should go see her.
I don’t know what’s worst, honestly: going away with my parents, or being forced to have a birthday party with people that normally are not my friends but for complimentary beer and spirits, they will pretend they love me for one night.
I let Sydney and Darshi plan everything. With their minds combined the party is at the coolest pub in town, the beer is flowing and pretty much everyone from our school is here. Sydney and Darshi are here as well, although I’m not quite sure why they’re not together.
Sydney is with a new girl from sixth form, a short redhead that is the complete opposite of Darshi.
She politely introduces herself but I forget her name immediately.
Sydney tells me that she wants to move to Ireland, study philosophy, and have chickens.
The girl adds nothing and simply smiles at me.
It feels like she’s waiting for a reaction.
I leave them behind, because I cannot be bothered.
Darshi is here with a boy, too. He’s one of her cousins, and together they explain to me that it is not incest–her auntie is not a real blood auntie.
I must still look confused because they start making out in front of me to make a point.
For a while, I cannot look away. I think about my first kiss with Darshi when we were fourteen, about her dry lips and her ticklish hair, but then my brain wanders to another first kiss.
That’s when I get the brilliant idea of kissing Ford again. Tonight, yes tonight, I will kiss him again.
I leave Darshi and the not-so-real-cousin behind and I go look for Ford, hoping he’s already here.
He must be. He promised me.
Ford moved to Sheffield in September to study music, an undergraduate program that will either make him a musician or, well, whatever Ford decides he wants to be.
When he decides, I’ll be the first to know.
He hasn’t come back over the Christmas break, which means that I haven’t seen him in months.
I’ve had to learn how to live without a best friend and honestly, I’ve been losing my mind from missing him so much.
Sure, we’ve texted a couple of times. But going from practically being neighbours and seeing each other every other day to living in two different cities is hard.
I need to know how big his dorm is, if he’s made any new friends and how good the new rugby team is.
I need to ask for his opinion on my literary analysis, to tell him about my disastrous date with James and most of all, to know if he has missed me as well. I don’t even care how childish I sound.
The pub is really crowded. At every corner I spot someone from my year that I either have never spoken to or have only seen in passing, but everyone smiles at me and offers me happy birthday wishes.
I guess it’s the magic of being the first one to turn eighteen and throw a party where the bartenders are paid to not care for age restrictions.
I see people with all kinds of drinks in their hands and I wonder what time it is, how much I already had to drink.
Sydney insisted on beer but I despise the taste, the consistency.
He pushed a gin tonic in my hands then, claiming it’s “the real shit.” It just tasted like plain shit to me.
Rum and coke is where I land eventually, a sweet mix that is slowly turning the edges of my vision blurry and is making me feel a little less unpopular and a little more myself.
I keep hunting for Ford, sure that his train was supposed to get here around 7:00 p.m. but before I can think of getting worried, James appears before me. Prince James.
He has left his court behind but I can see the group of pretty blonde models behind him, sending me dirty looks.
James is wearing a see-through shirt and is carrying a glass with clear liquid topped by a colourful umbrella.
He must catch me staring at the drink because he lifts the glass to me and wiggles his perfect eyebrows.
I dutifully take a sip and immediately regret it, but still push it down and swallow it.
“Vodka,” James supplies.
The urge to imitate his posh accent is strong, but I restrain myself. I make a face that James doesn’t buy.
“Quite revolting,” he says.
“Yes, it is,” I agree and then I watch as his body starts swaying in rhythm with the music in the pub.
The movements are clumsy and disconnected and James has a concentrated look on his face that I cannot really read.
When he turns nervously to peek at his group of friends that are still staring at him, I finally get it. He’s hating this.
I reach for his waist and I lean into him, way too close for my comfort.
His neck smells expensive and being this close to him reminds me I should have jerked off before leaving the house.
Now I’m just horny and Ford is not here and why are these two concepts connected anyway? I just miss my friend.
My eyes focus on James and I bring my mouth close to his ear.
“Let’s go,” I tell him softly, hoping I’m not being creepy.
When I pull back I ignore the panicked expression on James’ face and I lead him towards a side door.
Together we step out into the freezing January night and I stop to look around.
I hadn’t realised it had started snowing.
The town is still around us and the white flakes almost feel warm as they touch my forehead and my cheeks.
One lands on my nose and as I cross my eyes to peek at it, I catch James staring at me. Right.
“Look, I don’t really want to be intimate with you.” James begins to excuse himself, but I got this rehearsed since our first date.
It hadn’t been a bad date. James and I had met over the Christmas holidays and we had gone to the cinema. It was a convenient location about half way from our houses and we had met there half an hour before the film was supposed to start.
Never in my life had I felt antsier. James insisted on paying for tickets and we discussed where to sit.
Then, I insisted on paying for snacks and we discussed popcorn and sweets.
When the film started, James attempted to hold my hand and we silently discussed the hand placement.
I never realised that there is one proper side of holding hands and one side that is totally wrong.
Apparently, James really wanted to hold my hand the wrong side up.
After the film had ended, we discussed who was supposed to walk whom home and ended up sharing a weird circumstantial kiss in front of the cinema. Then, we each went our own ways.
I have been contemplating how to tell James just how wrong we are for each other ever since.
Now, over a fortnight later, I’m ready to actually put an end to this.
“Oh, trust me, I don’t want to hook up either,” I clarify.
James lets out a long breath that should make me feel humiliated if I did not share the same relief. He chuckles adorably and leans with his back against the wall of the pub, looking up at the snow.
“Thank God,” he says, closing his eyes.
I observe him and it is no surprise his friends call him Prince James. He’s beautiful, straight out of a Mattel commercial. James is just perfect.
“My friends are obsessed with us.”
“Because we are both gay and out?” I ask him openly.
The lines on his forehead deepen and a snowflake falls on top of his lip. He catches it with his tongue and it should do something for me, shouldn’t it? Maybe my dick is defective. Maybe I’m not gay after all?
“Perhaps you’re right. I suppose they believe since I’m gay, I must be attracted to all boys. And the other boy being gay as well, then it would be a match made in heaven.” Pursing his lips, he clarifies, “the other boy being you.”
“I fucking figured.”
It’s probably the wrong thing to say. James furrows at the curse word and that reminds me what else went wrong during our date.
James talks out of a Jane Austen novel, incredibly irritating and pretentious.
It makes me feel self-conscious about my imperfect English accent, about the words I pick.
It makes me feel like Daddy could show up any time, and my cheek tingles.
No bad words, no cursing, stupid Ashley.
Suddenly I’m awkward on my feet, holding my drink in the freezing January night with a boy I kissed whom I did not want to kiss. I move next to James against the wall and mirroring him, I angle my head upwards and stick my tongue out to catch a snowflake.
“It was a fun date, though,” I offer half-heartedly.
“It most definitely was not.” Prince James emphasises the not in the end and it makes me laugh.
“Okay. It was horrible. We could stay friends, though?”
James turns to look at me then and I meet his incredulous stare.
“We weren’t friends before.”
He has a point. James and Sydney have shared classes and are now in sixth form together, but James and I have never really hung out before. Probably never will. The thought I will most likely never speak to him again makes me bold.
“You think this makes us less gay?”
A small grin appears on James’ lips and it is the most genuine he has ever looked. He looks younger, careless and honestly, plain drunk. “Bollocks,” he says and then he angles his face to mine and kisses me.