“Hey, kiddo.”
I grit my teeth. Hate the feeling as my stomach flip-flops at the sound of his voice. At the stupid nickname that makes me feel like he thinks of me as a little kid when I’m not. He’s only two years older than me.
Boys are so frustrating. And stupid. And gross.
But he’s Hayes Whitley. All swoony and tall with his light brown hair and dark brown eyes. He’s funny and flirty and supposedly knows how to kiss better than any of the other guys in school. At least that’s what the older girls claim when they’re giggling on the other side of the locker room before gym class.
Because I’ve never kissed a boy before.
But I don’t believe them. He’s just Hayes Whitley. My brother’s best friend. The one who, during my last slumber party, helped Ryder squirt drops of mustard on all of my sleeping friends’ faces before slowly tickling their cheeks with a feather so they’d smear it all over. The boy who takes a cookie out of my hand after school without so much as a thanks before heading to my brother’s room and slamming the door shut to do who knows what before they head out to whatever practice they have for the day. The same guy who, every time Ryder has a party when my parents go out of town to wherever they go, makes sure to climb up the ladder to my tree house to make sure I don’t want to come down and do whatever all the cool kids are doing down below.
I like it and hate it and don’t understand why I feel that way.
“I’m not a kid anymore so don’t call me kiddo. Go away.”
And of course being the stubborn teenager I know him to be, he doesn’t leave. Rather his footsteps clomping around the small area tell me he’s invading my space. My reprieve from the annoying giggles of the popular senior girls downstairs, trying to impress the jocks.
The floorboards flex beneath me from his weight. The subtle scent of his shampoo and beer fill the space around us. The sound of his body shifting—shoes scraping, jeans sliding over wood, the grunt as he lies down beside me. The heat of his upper arm pressing against mine as he scoots next to me.
“What are you looking at? Ah man, there’s tons up there tonight,” he says as he sees the bright stars spread across the darkened sky above us.
“Mm-hmm.” For some reason I can’t say anything else. Nerves rattle around inside me when it’s just Hayes.
Irritating.
Frustrating.
The boy who’s like a third child in our house most days. A second, annoying, brother.
And yet despite all of that, the nerves I don’t understand are there.
I concentrate on the sky above. Try to draw lines from star to star and make them any shape I want them to be. It’s so much easier to focus on that than the funny way my blood rushes in my ears. Or the chills that suddenly blanket my bare skin despite the warm night.
“Have you?”
His question pulls me from my thoughts. Makes me realize he asked something. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. Swallow over the words tying up my throat. “Have I what?” It’s barely a whisper and I wonder if he even heard me with the party’s music and laughter carrying up here.
I turn my head and startle when I find his face turned toward mine, our noses inches apart. The heat of his breath hits my lips. My heart feels like it somersaults in my chest and lands somewhere in the pit of my belly. I meet the dark brown of his eyes and avert my gaze immediately, way too uncomfortable and at the same time wanting to look right back at them.
He waits. It feels like forever in the tiny space of the tree house, but I know it’s only seconds. Seconds where I neglect to breathe. Forget to think. And it’s only when I bring my eyes back to his, suddenly leery that I might have boogers in my nose or leaves in my hair, that he answers my question.
“Have you seen any shooting stars?”
My breath hitches as he moves his arm and the back of his hand brushes against mine.
Is this how a boy tries to hold your hand?
I don’t want him to.
I do want him to.
This is Hayes. Just Hayes. Don’t be stupid. He’s not going to hold your hand.
The question. Answer the question.
I clear my throat, trying to make my tongue, that feels like three times its normal size, work. “Yeah.”
I can’t see his mouth but know he smiles because the corners of his eyes bunch up as his hair, wet from swimming, falls onto his forehead. “What did you wish for?”
You to kiss me.
My eyes fling open, and the familiar shadows on my bedroom ceiling do nothing to slow the rapid beat of my heart in my chest. The dream, reliving the memory, feels like just yesterday and so very long ago at the same time.
That first longing to be kissed by a boy. The smell of summer around us, and those first moments in my teenage life where Hayes Whitley became so much more than my big brother’s best friend.
He became my first crush.
Then later my first love.