Junior Year
Fall
Ezra
I’ve kissed a couple of girls in my almost seventeen years of life. But not Autumn Green. The one girl I'd like to kiss.
During school, we sit together at lunch. We spent the entire summer working and not working together. I’ve spent more time at Autumn’s house than my own in the last year.
We’ve danced in the backyard. We’ve laughed until cream soda spewed from Autumn’s nose. We’ve studied until Autumn couldn’t keep her eyes open. I taught her to drive a stick shift—and made it through each lesson without one curse word. Autumn cannot say the same. We’ve researched colleges, planted over a hundred trees, and talked about life right up until one second before her curfew hit.
But we’ve never kissed.
The thing is—I come with a lot of baggage. So, I wouldn’t want to assume she likes me in that way or wants to kiss me as much as I want to kiss her. But… I think that she might.
I’m picking her up to go to the Prairie Dog football game and I’ve brought her a few hints.
If she wants to kiss me, she’ll see them. If she doesn’t, she’ll just think I’m prepared.
I don’t even have to exit my car because Autumn’s waiting for me on her front porch step. She leaps from the swing she’s sitting on and runs out to my car.
She opens the passenger side door and my blaring music hits her. “Hey!” she says, a little breathless from her run. “What’s this?” she calls above the loud rock music.
“‘Heaven’s On Fire’,” I tell her. “By KISS.”
“KISS?”
“Yeah, they’re a band from the ’70s. Do you know them?”
She laughs like I’m telling her a joke and reaches over for my volume knob, turning down the music making my car vibrate. “ No . How in the world did you hear of them?”
Google. That’s how.
“Jack Barns,” I lie. Jack’s in my government class and he’s never told me a thing about any band—and yet his is the first name that comes to mind.
“Huh.” She tilts her head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Interesting. They aren’t bad.”
I’m taking that as one point for kissing.
“You hungry?”
“Starved.” Autumn is always hungry. It’s the one thing you can count on. Which is going to help me out tonight.
“I’ve got gummy lips.” I pass over the bag of gummy candy shaped like red kissing lips. “And chocolate kisses.”
“No Cool Ranch Doritos?”
Okay—one point against kissing. Cool Ranch Doritos are the anti-kissing food. Everyone knows that.
“Nope. No Doritos. Sorry.”
“That’s okay, I’ll get some at the game,” she says, popping one of the gummy lips into her mouth.
I turn into the school parking lot and play one more kissing card. “Hey, I bought you a new ChapStick. I know you like cherry.” With one hand on the wheel, I hold the cherry ChapStick out to her.
“Thanks, Ezra.” She takes the ChapStick and pops off the top, smearing the red wax onto her full pink lips. “You’re the best.”
Yes . One point for kissing.
I pinch my fingers and bring them to my lips, kissing them, then holding them outward. Okay… one last Hail Mary pass.
She chuckles. “What’s that?”
“You know? Chef’s kiss?”
She snorts. “My cherry ChapStick is chef’s kiss?”
I lift my brows once, watching my pass slip through the receiver’s fingers and fall to the wayside. “Sure.”
She snickers again but pops the top off and runs the balm over her lips one more time. Lucky ChapStick .
I find a parking space in the back lot of our high school, in the very back row. We’ll be walking a mile, but we should make the kickoff.
Autumn steps outside into the brisk evening fall air and leans against the odd door on my old Honda.
“You ready?” I ask, pausing before I start our trek.
She tosses one of the silver-wrapped kisses into the air and I catch it. She doesn’t move from her lean against my vehicle, and I stride four steps forward until I’m standing in front of her.
“If you wanted to kiss me, Ezra, you just had to ask.”
I kind of hoped after all my hints, she’d make the first move, not discuss it. I shove my hands into my pockets. “I never said I wanted to kiss you.” True—I didn’t say it, but I definitely do.
“So, you don’t?” One of her dark brows rises as she studies me.
I clear my throat and force my feet to hold still—they’d really like to shuffle right now. “I didn’t say that either.”
Autumn sighs out a small laugh, her hands falling to her sides. “Well, which is it?”
“You tell me, Green. Do you want to kiss me? ”
She reaches out, tugging on the front loose end of my T-shirt. “Yeah. I do.”
She tugs again and I catch myself on the window of the car, my arm stretched out, Autumn right in front of me.
I peer down at her, heart pounding, and she looks up at me.
“Took you long enough,” she says before bouncing up on her tiptoes and pressing her lips to mine.