Chapter 9 Marco
Marco
Brin’s eyes widen and she grabs my arms. “I know where to go! Get your shoes on!”
It’s a good thing she can think, because my head is filled with kiss under mistletoe, kiss under mistletoe, kiss under mistletoe . . .
We scramble to throw sneakers and jackets on before we careen down the stairs. I can take them two at a time, so I beat Brin to the door. “Which way?” I’m already breathless as I hold the door open for her.
“Left!” she shrieks, laughing as she passes me.
As I run behind her I start to think that maybe this isn’t the best idea. What good can come from kissing my roommate?
“How many points is it?” Brin asks. She’s slowed a little, and I keep pace with her.
I check my phone, trying to focus my eyes on the screen. “Five,” I read. Brin picks up the pace again. “It says only one team member needs to be in the picture, and it doesn’t have to be on the lips.”
“Five points as long as there’s a kiss and mistletoe. Easy.”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a bodega over by the Whole Foods that has mistletoe.”
I huff. I run every day, but usually not wearing a full winter jacket and sweatpants. I’m starting to sweat. But at Brin’s words, my feet start to feel like lead.
Brin, who does not work out at all, is breathing hard next to me. “I noticed it last week and thought it was super romantic. I mean, I’ve seen the couple that runs the place—” She stops talking to catch her breath.
Is this really what I want? To kiss Brin for the first time in a random bodega, with me sweating under my jacket and her shoe soaked and soggy while some stranger takes a picture of us?
I’m just about to open my mouth and say that five points isn’t worth it when Brin skids to a stop and pushes her way into the bodega.
“Almost missed it!” she cries over her shoulder.
Then she’s pointing triumphantly above her.
I look up and there it is, a single sprig of mistletoe hanging above the vestibule.
I stare at it. This is not what I want.
“Excuse me,” Brin says, and I watch, frozen, as she approaches the bodega’s shopkeeper, a Korean woman in her fifties. Brin holds out her phone. “Would you take a video of us kissing under the mistletoe?”
The lady eyes us. “Mistletoe for customers only.”
“We’re customers.” Brin grabs a handful of flavored chip bags from nearby and bounces impatiently while the woman rings them up.
I scan the bodega. There’s only one other customer here, a sixty-something Black man with a beard and salt-and-pepper hair under a fedora.
So it’s me, the shopkeeper, or the old man.
Who am I kidding? I obviously can’t ask Brin to kiss a stranger.
The old man catches my eye. “Hey.” I give him an up-chin. “Five dollars to let me kiss you on the cheek under the mistletoe.”
Brin whips around. “What?”
I hold up my hands. “No funny business. We’re just doing this scavenger hunt and we need—”
“Why you don’t want to kiss me?” the shopkeeper demands.
Brin holds up her phone, and I can see the countdown, which has less than two minutes. “What are you doing, Marco? Just kiss me and we can get it over with.”
Get it over with? This is just getting worse and worse.
“Twenty dollars,” I tell the old man.
He raises an eyebrow. “I think you’re spoken for, young man.” Huh, he even sounds like James Earl Jones. “Kiss the girl.”
“Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her,” the shopkeeper chants.
Brin fumbles with her phone, navigating to the camera, and hands it to the shopkeeper. “It’s on video, just point it at us.”
The shopkeeper holds it up, too focused on the camera work to chant, so at least that’s over.
Brin bounces up to me, frozen on the spot under the mistletoe. The minute our eyes meet, though, she pauses. “Unless . . . unless you don’t want to?”
“I . . .” I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.” It’s five points. Totally fine. I can do this. I can even get creative with it.
This sends Brin bouncing on her toes again. “Sweet! This is gonna get us so many points.” She slings an arm over my shoulder. “It’s just a peck. Nothing fancy. We just have to—whoa!”
I pull a move I’ve seen on TikTok. I bend into her, sweeping my opposite hand behind her knees. Her arm tightens around my shoulder as I pull her into a bridal carry and she squeals in delight.
And then we kiss. Our timing’s off, so my lips close in a kiss just as she’s pulling away, and her mouth hits a bit off center from mine, but that’s fine.
It totally counts as a kiss.
Our first kiss.
We hold awkwardly until the shopkeeper says, “Got it.”
Brin squirms to be let down and rushes to the counter. With a few taps she has uploaded the video to the channel, and then turns the countdown clock to me.
00:10
00:09
00:08
She turns it back and grins at me. “We made it. Okay, let’s get home. My foot is freezing!”