Chapter 26 – What the Heck is Happening?
Saturday
“Sophie, we can’t charge $50 for a kiss.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She erased the little chalk board and changed it to $75.
“I didn’t mean go up. I meant it’s way too much. We need to charge like $5 or something.” Or else no one would stop by. And I had a baker’s dozen football players I needed to kiss.
“Wow, okay. You’re really undervaluing yourself. But I love that you want to kiss more people.” She erased the board again and changed it to $5.
“What? I don’t want to kiss more people. I want to kiss 13 people exactly. Well, and Jacob. And maybe Axel.” I was having a hard time getting the image of Axel in my bed out of my head. His cologne on my sheets had pretty much ensured that. I’d been tossing and turning for the past two nights.
Sophie laughed. “Well we’re only charging $5, so we’re going to be getting way more people than that now.”
Darn it, she had a point. “Maybe we should do like $15 then?” That seems like it would at least ward off drifters. I shuddered. I hated the thought that my kiss thief might be some rando.
“It’s already set in stone.”
“It’s in chalk.” I put my hand out for her to give it to me.
She chucked the piece of chalk into the grass. “Oops, we’re out of chalk.”
I sighed.
“Besides, we don’t have time to argue about pricing. The stadium is about to open and we need to set up these cameras.” She pulled out a little black box like the one RJ had for the V22s.
“Why do we need cameras?”
“We might need to reevaluate the kiss. Or we might be distracted kissing while the mascot is out performing. There will be a lot going on at once and it’s better to be safe.” She popped the lid of the box.
“Wait. Those don’t look like the V22s.”
“They’re not. RJ has all the V22 prototypes in the locker room. Help me up.”
I put out my hand to help her up on the table. She moved a few balloons and placed a little sticky camera on one of the posts holding up the blue and orange striped canopy over the kissing booth.
“So what version are they?” I asked.
“An earlier one.” She put another camera on the other side to get both angles of people walking up to the booth.
“How early?”
“Don’t worry, they work.” She jumped off of the booth and put a camera on the front of the table.
I laughed. “Sophie, we don’t need that angle.”
“Actually, we do. It’ll help determine height.” She smiled.
We both knew that wasn’t why she’d put a camera there. I sighed and sat down as she placed a few more around the booth. I pulled out my phone to check the locker room cameras.
“Any sign of the mascot yet?” she asked when she was done.
“No. Maybe he doesn’t change in the locker room?”
“I guess he could be shy,” she said. “Although everything he texts you and does to you in closets kind of says otherwise.”
Yeah. It didn’t make any sense. I kept staring down at my phone. Most of the guys were already in their uniforms. And I was doing my best not to stare unnecessarily at the ones that were still getting ready.
Someone cleared their throat.
I looked up. I hadn’t even realized that the stadium had opened. And there were a few guys already in line in front of our booth. I think they were underclassmen because I didn’t recognize them.
The guy at the front pulled out $5 and smiled at me.
It felt like my stomach dropped. I didn’t need to kiss a line full of underclassmen!
I turned to Sophie.
“Knock ‘em dead,” she said.
“You do it,” I whispered.
“He doesn’t want to kiss me. He wants to kiss you.”
I looked back at him. And he was staring at me. We really didn’t think this kissing booth through thoroughly enough. I took the guy’s money. But at the last second, I chickened out and let him kiss my cheek. We ended up doing an awkward double cheek kiss thing.
He looked a little disappointed, but he didn’t protest.
I let the next guy kiss my cheek too. And some people walking by saw and kept walking. I think I was scaring customers away. Score!
I sat down when our line dwindled. “Sophie,” I said. “Can’t we just close the booth until the football team comes out?”
“Why? Your kiss thief could literally be anyone here.”
“Stop saying that. It’s one of the guys on the baker’s dozen list.”
“Possibly.” She paused for a second to stand up and kiss a guy on the lips. He definitely slipped some tongue in. She sat back down so casually. “But how are you going to know if you’re only letting them kiss your cheek?”
“I’ll let one of our 13 suspects mouth kiss me.” My phone buzzed. I had a text from my kiss thief.
“I hope I see you at my game today.”
I smiled and showed it to Sophie. “See. He’s not some random guy in the stadium. He’s on the team. Why else would he text me that?”
“I have no idea why stalkers do what they do. But can I text him back? I have a really good response.”
“Don’t promise him more sexy photos.”
“I won’t, I swear.”
I handed her my phone.
She smiled the whole time she was texting. And then she handed me back my phone. She’d written: “I’ll be cheering you on from my kissing booth.”
I laughed. “Nice one.”
My phone buzzed with his response: “Your what?”
“Ignore that one,” she said. “He’ll see soon enough.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe the kiss thief seeing me kiss other guys would make him come out of hiding.
There was a buzz of excitement in the air as the stadium filled with people decked out in Empire High blue and orange. But I didn’t see the mascot anywhere. Didn’t he usually come out early?
I looked back down at my phone as Sophie manned the kissing booth.
Sophie sat down next to me. “Um...you might want to duck.”
“What?” I looked up. We had a line again.
“Too late,” Sophie said.
What was she talking about? Oh. Oh no. My dad had just appeared at the end of the line. And he didn’t look nearly as excited as the other guys in our line did.
“Everyone move,” my dad said. “Now.”
The line dispersed.
“James, I’m sure it’s for a good cause,” my mom said as they made their way up to us.
It was not. We’d made it up.
My mom turned to me. “What are you fundraising for?”
“The football team,” I said and tapped the sign to the side.
“The football team gets plenty of donations,” my dad said. “Shut it down.”
“Uncle James, please,” Sophie said. “We’re just trying to do our part to help the team.”
“How much money were you hoping to raise?” he asked.
Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know. Like $500?”
“Great.” My dad pulled some money out of his wallet and slammed it down on the table. “Now you can close down the booth.”
“James,” my mom said. “They’re just having a bit of fun.”
It actually wasn’t fun at all. But it was definitely necessary. I needed to figure out who the heck my kiss thief was.
“Scarlett is just letting guys kiss her cheek,” Sophie added. “It’s hardly scandalous.”
My dad turned to me. “Is that true?”
I nodded. So far it was. But I was pretty determined to kiss 13 guys later. Even if the thought of actually going through with it was making me feel all sweaty.
He sighed. “Fine. Cheeks only though.”
“That’s just a rule for Scarlett, right?” asked Sophie.
My dad lowered his eyebrows. “Where is your father?”
Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know. He’ll probably be here any minute. Wait. I think I see him now!” Sophie waved her hand. “Dad! Over here!”
Uncle Rob and Aunt Daphne walked over.
“A kissing booth?” Uncle Rob asked. “Good idea. That’ll raise a ton of money for the team.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Sophie looked very proud of herself.
My dad turned to Uncle Rob. “You’re seriously okay with this?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Our daughters are handing out kisses for money.”
He made it sound like we were whoring ourselves out. But he was wrong. We weren’t handing out the kisses. It was more of a receiving kiss kind of thing, but...
Uncle Rob laughed. “They’re entrepreneurial. Like us.” He slapped my dad on the back. “And this is hardly the worst thing they’ve been up to recently.”
My eyes grew round. Oh no. Uncle Rob, please don’t repeat anything Sophie said the other day!
“What do you mean?” my dad asked. “What have they been up to recently?”
Uncle Rob shrugged. “Nothing you should be allowed to be upset about.”
“What does that mean?”
Uncle Rob shrugged again. “Girl things.”
“What girl things?”
“We better go find a seat.” Uncle Rob turned to us. “Don’t worry, I’ve got your backs.” He winked.
“No, you’re supposed to have my back,” my dad said as they walked away.
“Phew, close one,” Sophie said. “Ah the football team is coming out!”
I looked over to see them running into the stadium. And none of them were paying us any attention. I knew I’d narrowed it down to 13 guys. But I also knew that technically it could still be anyone on the team. And there were so many of them. My stomach churned. But it wasn’t just the number of guys that was overwhelming. “Sophie, we didn’t think this through. They don’t have time to come over here and kiss us.”
“Of course they do. The game hasn’t started yet. August!” she yelled.
“No, don’t call August over,” I hissed.
“But he’s on your list. And I think going alphabetically makes the most sense. August!” she screamed louder.
August turned his head. He smiled at Sophie and then jogged over. “What are the two of you doing?”
My heart started racing. Could August actually be my kiss thief? He was definitely tall enough. And that was basically all I was going off of. His head was shaved and he had a dimple in one of his cheeks when he smiled. And after lightly stalking the baker’s dozen list the past week, I also knew he was single.
Sophie tapped the sign that showed what we were raising money for. “Helping out the football team of course. So what do you say? Want to kiss Scarlett?”
He smiled at Sophie. “Are you not part of it?”
Sophie put her hand on her hip. “I guess that will work.” She turned to me. “We can compare notes.”
That sounded reasonable. And it felt like my heart was about to explode, so that was probably a good plan.
“What?” August asked.
“Nothing. That’ll be 5 bucks.” She put out her hand.
“I don’t have my wallet on me.”
“Shoot,” she said. She turned to me and added: “We should have made the kisses free.”
Uncle Matt blew his whistle. “August! Get in the huddle!”
“Sorry, gotta go,” he said.
“Wait,” I said. “Just plop one on me real quick for free.” I couldn’t even believe what I’d just said out loud.
He raised his eyebrow. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
He laughed. “Okay then.” He leaned forward.
This time I didn’t dodge the kiss. Or make it randomly European. I took it right on the mouth. And his lips felt nothing like my kiss thief’s.
“Thank you so much!” I said. I was officially down to a normal dozen suspects.
He smiled at me. “Anytime, Scarlett.”
“Can you please tell Billy O’Reilly to come over here?” Sophie asked.
“We’re about to play.”
“Just tell him.”
“Sure thing.” He put his helmet on as he jogged off.
I watched as he talked to Billy in the huddle.
Billy looked over at us. But then Uncle Matt said something and Billy turned back to the huddle.
“Darn it,” I said. “How did we not think about the fact that the team was going to be busy playing the whole time? I’ve only gotten to check off one guy.”
“Definitely not August?”
“Definitely not. Twelve more to go.”
Some random guys started getting in our line again.
“Billy!” Sophie yelled, ignoring the line forming.
Billy turned his head again.
Sophie waved him over.
He snuck out of the huddle and ran over to us. “You guys, I’m kinda busy right now.”
“Just kiss Scarlett real quick,” Sophie said.
“I don’t have any cash on me,” he said.
“We’ll pay you $5 to plop one on her.”
Okay...this was mortifying.
“Wait, you’re paying for the kisses?” Billy laughed. “I’m not sure that’s how a kissing booth is supposed to work.”
“Well, the money is going to the football team,” Sophie said. “And you’re on the football team.”
“Right, but...”
“Just kiss her!”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” He turned to me.
I leaned forward. I really didn’t want my kiss thief to be Billy. He’d taken so many cheap shots on Jacob during that boxing match. But maybe he’d taken cheap shots because he...liked me?
He pressed his lips against mine.
Nope. It was all wrong. I quickly pulled back and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Billy!” Uncle Matt blew his whistle. “What the heck are you doing over there?”
“Gotta run,” Billy said and ran back over to the huddle.
“Can you send over Eli Jones?!” Sophie shouted, but Billy didn’t respond.
And then all the guys were running onto the field.
“Billy is definitely not the kiss thief,” I said. “And this isn’t going to work.”
“What are you talking about? You already narrowed it down to 11 guys.”
“But all 11 of the guys left are on the field. Maybe we can try to lure them over here during halftime? And shut it down in the meantime?”
“But we have a line,” Sophie whispered.
Yeah. We did. And I didn’t want to mouth kiss any of these random guys. “If you hadn’t chucked that chalk, we could have written that it was closed until halftime.”
“It’s fine,” Sophie said. “I’ll handle it.” She quickly made out with half a dozen guys.
Luckily most people were interested in the football game that had started.
Unluckily, most didn’t mean all. And guys kept wandering over the whole time.
Sophie was handling it like a champ. I kept glancing at the camera feed of the locker room, waiting for the mascot. But he was nowhere to be found. Wasn’t he usually out here by now?
Every now and then someone wanted a kiss from me. And my lips were tired of kissing scruffy cheeks. My kiss thief hadn’t had any scruff. At least, not that I could tell. But I’d also been kissing his lips.
“So who else is on the list?” Sophie asked.
“Um...let’s see.” I pulled it up on my phone. “August and Billy are out. So that leaves Eli Jones, Luis Rodriguez, Zach Fisher...”
Sophie grabbed my phone. “We gotta sort this alphabetically.” She tapped a few things on the screen. “Let’s see. Okay, Eli, Ezra, Henley, Jack, Leo, Luiz, Noah, Ryan, Sean, William, and Zach. Gah, I think they’re all in right now.”
I sighed. This kissing booth was not going the way I’d hoped. And I’d missed the first touchdown of the game. I loved sitting in the stands and cheering on Axel and Jacob. And now I had Liam and RJ to root for too. Why was I spending my Saturday at a kissing booth where I could only kiss underclassmen or guys not on the team? This was a disaster.
“Sophie, can we please just shut the booth down? It’s not working and my dad already gave us plenty of money to give to the team.”
“But look! Ryan is on the bench right now!”
He was indeed drinking water on the bench. He pushed his shaggy hair off his forehead as he watched the game.
“Go over and kiss him.”
What? “I can’t walk onto the field and make out with someone on the bench...” my voice trailed off as I watched Axel throw a perfect pass to Liam. “Go Axel!” I yelled.
Axel turned toward me. He usually smiled when he saw me in the stands. But he didn’t look very pleased right now. Maybe because they were losing by one touchdown.
I turned my attention to my little brother who’d just caught the pass. “Go Liam!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I stood up and started clapping as Liam ran down the field. But then I cringed when he got tackled from the side. The whole crowd groaned at the same time. But Liam stood back up to lots of cheers.
I breathed a sigh of relief. But my breath got caught in my throat when Sophie started yelling at Ryan on the bench.
“Ryan!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
He’d put his helmet back on like he was about to go in, but instead of running onto the field, he turned his head to see us.
She waved him over.
He glanced at Uncle Matt. But Uncle Matt was busy yelling at a ref. Ryan shrugged, got up off the bench, and jogged over.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“We need you to kiss Scarlett real quick.”
Why was this so mortifying every time?
“I heard you were handing out free kisses.” He pulled off his helmet, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against mine. And I...wasn’t sure. Shit, how could I not be sure?
He started to pull back, but I grabbed the front of his jersey so he wouldn’t move. I needed more if I was going to be able to tell if he was the kiss thief.
I didn’t feel the same butterflies I did when I kissed my kiss thief. But was that because I wasn’t in a dark room? Or was it because he wasn’t the kiss thief? Or because I didn’t have a crush on Ryan? His tongue darted across my lips and I parted my lips for him.
Ryan groaned into my mouth.
At first I thought it was because he was really into it, but then he pulled back and cursed. He picked a football up off the ground next to him as the ref blew the whistle.
“What kind of pass was that?” Sophie asked. “Is Axel high right now?”
I stared at the ball in Ryan’s hand. Yeah, that had been a seriously bad pass.
“Ryan!” Uncle Matt yelled. “Get your ass back on the field!”
“Later,” Ryan said as he ran back into the game.
“I seriously think Axel is high,” Sophie said as she turned to me. “But how was the kiss?”
“It was good. But not kiss thief good.”
“Noted.” She looked back down at the list. “Okay, next up is...”
“Go Jacob!” I yelled. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the game. But it seemed like Axel was handing it off to Jacob again. Because Jacob had just tied the game with a touchdown.
Jacob smiled over at me as he spun the ball on the ground.
“You two are adorable,” Sophie said. “And I hope Axel keeps handing it off after throwing it way out of bounds on his last toss. He hit Ryan right in the arm.”
“I didn’t realize the ball had hit him.”
“Yeah. But he was so into that kiss that he barely even cared.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. Kissing hot footballers was actually more fun than I’d been anticipating. Each kiss seemed better than the last. I’d gone from no kisses at the beginning of the school year to being a kissing expert. “So who’s next?”
“Eli Jones, but he’s in. We need a defender. Oh! Perfect. Henley!” Sophie yelled.
Henley turned around from where he was sitting on the bench. He was holding a champagne flute full of water. Mr. Nigel was the waterboy. And he always did it wrong. It was kind of a problem because there was always broken glass on the field. But Mr. Nigel was probably more entertaining than the missing mascot. He was a friend of the family and one of the silliest people I knew.
“Flea flicker! Flea flicker!” Mr. Nigel yelled, even though he wasn’t supposed to be calling any plays.
I laughed.
Sophie beckoned Henley over.
Henley left his champagne flute and helmet on the bench as he jogged over.
“What’s up?” he asked. He was definitely the tallest of the guys I’d kissed so far. And he looked very strong. I pictured my kiss thief holding me in place as he kissed me. Henley was definitely a possibility.
“We’re trying to see who the best kisser on the team is,” Sophie said. “And you’re up.”
“Is that so?” He started to lean in toward her.
Sophie slid to the left and pulled me into her place. “Scarlett’s the judge.”
And Henley didn’t seem to care. He was just about to place his lips against mine when a football collided with one of the posts holding up the canopy over the kissing booth.
The ref blew his whistle and I saw Uncle Matt throw his clipboard.
But I was too distracted to pay much attention to the game. Because the wooden pole split in two, splintering everywhere as the canopy fell. And then there was a huge boom and the balloons started popping.
“Ah!” Sophie yelled and stepped back. She grabbed my arm to pull me back too.
We both ducked as another boom echoed through the stadium, sending wood in every direction.
I put my hands over my head. “What the heck is happening?!” I yelled as two more explosions went off.
“Axel is clearly high!” Sophie yelled back. “Who throws a pass that far out of bounds?!”
I didn’t care about Axel’s aim. I cared about how on earth our kissing booth had just exploded!
People started yelling in the stands but it didn’t look like anyone had gotten hit with flying wood. And Henley was unharmed and already running back to the field.
Along with the mascot.
Damn it! When had the mascot gotten here?!
I quickly got up and stamped down on some cloth that was on fire on the ground. The kissing booth looked like it had been in a warzone. “Sophie,” I said and stared at the carnage.
She sighed. “I was really hoping that wouldn’t happen.”
“What?”
“The only cameras I had in a pinch were the V21s. We had so much extra inventory because of the explosions.”
“Why would you bring exploding cameras to a football game?!”
“How was I supposed to know that Axel would be high and throwing like crap?”
My dad came running over. “Are you girls okay? What happened?”
“We’re fine, Uncle James,” Sophie said as she brushed some ash off her skirt. “Just a normal old kissing booth incident. It could have happened to anyone.”
My dad gave her a weird look. “It exploded.”
“Partially.” She grabbed the money. “But we raised a ton of money. Anywho...”
“Why did it explode?” my dad asked.
“I think technically half of all kissing booths explode at some point,” Sophie replied.
“Did it have anything to do with a certain camera line that has been discontinued? That your father swore he destroyed all the inventory of?”
“What? Psh. No. And even if it had been, no one got hurt. So you don’t have to worry about being sued or anything.”
“I wasn’t worried about being sued until about three seconds ago. Did you or did you not put V21 cameras up in the kissing booth?”
“Uncle James.”
“Sophie.”
“I would never. That would be a danger to society. And all the V21s have definitely been destroyed.”
It seemed like she’d held back the word “now” at the end of that sentence. At least, I hoped the cameras were all destroyed now.
The two of them went back and forth.
Which gave me time to rewind the footage of the locker room. I saw the mascot walking out and kept rewinding. For a second I thought he’d just walked into the locker room fully decked out in the costume. But then he took off his big Eagle head. Well, technically he was putting it on but I was watching in reverse.
And none of that mattered. What mattered was who was wearing the costume.
No.
Freaking.
Way.