First Kiss Read online

  My staring is interrupted by someone shouting at me, "Sing Baylor next."

  I clench inside, about to shake my head, but the room starts to chant it, “BAYLOR, BAYLOR!”

  They don’t understand that’s the song that makes me sad. I wrote it one night when I was feeling something I couldn’t understand. I wrote the song and my heart hurt, but I didn’t know why. I still don’t. I don’t know a Baylor. I didn’t even know it's a name until I Googled it.

  I open my mouth and let the haunting words slip from my lips. It sounds depressing. It’s supposed to. After the haunting solo intro, I start picking at the guitar. The song can bring tears to my eyes, but I won't let it.

  I finish and hand Sarah my guitar. She knows I need her to take it.

  Everyone claps. The house music starts back up, but it feels small, compared to me singing, like my voice is still ringing off of the walls. I fidget with my fingers and bite my lip. I hate the attention singing gains me, but I love that it's something that makes them all happy. I am one of them and they like me for something normal.

  I slip through the room and let the back pats and gratitude wash over me.

  I grab a glass of water in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, staring out the back window. The feel of Sam’s breath on my face is still there. I’m a coward. I should have let him kiss me there in the dark. No one would have known. If he had died, no one would have suspected me. I close my eyes, pushing away my horrid desire to take liberties with someone else’s life.

  "You are good."

  I try not to freeze completely after hearing Bastion’s voice. I spin, wiping my mouth, "Thanks, Bastion."

  “My friends call me Bash.” He looks like he’s frozen in something—a thought or a moment he’s having by himself.

  “Am I your friend?”

  He nods, “I would like you to be.”

  I put the glass on the counter and walk out of the kitchen, “I’ll take it into consideration.”

  He grabs my arm. It feels weird having someone touch me. The fact it’s been happening all night with Sam is odd enough, but Bastion is a stranger. I look down at his huge hand wrapped around my arm and frown, “What are you doing?”

  "I didn’t mean to offend you and call you a drunk or anything. If we’re going to be friends, I want to apologize for that." His grey eyes catch my stare again. They hold me hostage.

  I watch them and forget what we were talking about. "What?"

  He blushes and looks down. His thick lashes cover his eyes, "Before. I wasn’t implying you're some kind of small-town drunk or something."

  I shake my head. His fingers are burning into my arm, "I'm not," I sputter, "o-o-offended. I'm not." God, I know him from somewhere, I swear it.

  He grips my arm and his words become a whisper, "I just wouldn’t be able to handle something bad happening to you. Your recklessness is frightening." He speaks like he’s in a daze. I don’t know why, but I believe him. It doesn’t make sense he should care about me, but I can tell he does. It’s intense and sincere and creepy, in a way I apparently enjoy. Of course I do. The girl who kills boys with a single kiss would also be a sucker for weird insta-love. Why not? It’s ironic and funny. I’m sure God is up there having a chuckle at it. He doesn’t smile at me. He stares like he is lost in my eyes.

  I have no idea what’s happening, and why I can’t stop looking into those grey eyes, but I wonder if the alcohol has gotten to me.

  Sam bursts into the kitchen and grabs my other arm. He pulls me. Bastion holds on tight for a moment and then lets me go.

  "I want to dance with you." Sam kisses the top of my head, pressing his lips into my hair. I look back at Bastion and notice the way his jaw is clenched.

  Sam grips my hips and rubs his body against mine, making me move with him.

  I look up at him, "You're acting weird."

  He grins. His smile makes me smile back, "I'm just done, Lynnie. I'm done with all the nonsense of this small town. I went to Harvard this year and it opened my eyes in a lot of ways. I know what I want now." He’s always been the most popular boy in school, and by far, the best looking. I've liked him forever. We have always been friends. I'd even helped fix him up with Lune and Sarah, convincing them how awesome he was. Mostly so I could date him vicariously through them. He's dated everyone but me, and Maggie.

  I can’t help but be suspicious, "What's different? What did you learn?"

  He shrugs, "I just have wanted to do this for a long time and I'm done letting this small town tell me I can't."

  "Dance?"

  He shakes his head, "Be with you. You're almost nineteen, Lynnie. Surely you have to be allowed to live at some point."

  My stomach flips and I can't help but beam and work out possibilities in my head, "Why now? In October I'm going to New York, and you're going back to school in Boston in September. What do you want—a summer fling, Sam? I don’t think I'm up for that."

  He kisses my cheek, "I don't know. I just want this. I don’t want to think about anything else." His lips press their warmth so close to my lips. When he pulls back, his deep-blue eyes search my face. He’s beautiful. He smiles, flashing his dimples at me.

  I could sigh and stare, but I have an odd feeling in my stomach. It’s the other side of the possibilities. The things I am known for. The things my family is known for. The things I always say I don’t believe in, but that’s a brave stance, when it’s only me I am risking. Here, with his lips pressed against my face, I am about to have a heart attack.

  I glance over to the darkest corner of the room. A pair of grey eyes watch me. They look torn.

  I swallow and look at Lune. She’s mouthing things at me like, 'What the hell?’ and 'OMG'. I’m not great at reading lips but her wide mouth makes it easy. I shake my head subtly, and continue dancing. I can't shake the unsettling conflict inside of me.

  I think he can feel me cooling off. He smiles like we are friends again, "You still thinking New York then?" he asks over the music.

  I nod, “Yeah. I saved up enough for this year, and when I turn twenty, I’ll get the money from my dad. So that should get me through next year. Two years should be long enough to not worry about starving. Plus, I'll work full-time wherever I end up. So the savings will be my ‘in-case’ money.”

  He pulls me in close and kisses alongside my mouth again. I know he isn’t actually kissing my lips, but it’s close. No one has ever been that brave before.

  No matter how badly I want to tell him he shouldn’t, I don’t. I close my eyes and let his skin against mine feel like everything I have been missing. I like the touching and the way he feels all over me. It’s different, and after eighteen years, different is exceptional.

  I run my hands up into his hair. It’s softer than I thought it would be. He cups my ass. My skin is on fire. It feels the same as when I’m singing, like we’re alone and everything is electrically charged.

  I look up as he smiles down on my lips, "Can I just kiss you?"

  The thing I am makes me shake my head before I really even think about it. "Aren't you at least a little scared?"

  "I'm more scared of never doing this." His eyes are lit up with passion, staring down on my mouth. It almost feels like he’s kissing me. I feel vulnerable and scared just as the wind arrives.

  It’s a cold wind.

  It’s always cold.

  It blows through the room and chills us all. We stop dancing and look over at the two girls struggling with the front door. The wind is trying to get to me. It wants me safe. I take the warning to heart. The reality of it all crashes in on me. I blush and pull away, giving Lune a look. She’s at my side in an instant, "We should get going. See ya 'round, Sam." She says it in a singsong voice and drags me away.

  I look back at him. He looks confused. He’s doing the math in his head. No doubt coming to the obvious conclusion, that I caused the wind.

  As Lune drags me out of the party, I catch a glimpse of the grey eyes from the corner. He gives me a
look I will never forget. It breaks my heart and makes my stomach cringe all at once, and I don’t even know why. The look is almost like he is saying I told you so. Like he knew it would happen.

  Once we’re outside, the wind dies down after about a minute. Lune straightens her hair and glances around, "Spooky, Lynnie."

  I give her a grave look, “I didn’t make it windy. The door came open.”

  She laughs, “I know that.” She drags me to the car. Sarah and Maggie come running out after us. Sarah has my guitar.

  "Where's Jenny?"

  Maggie laughs, "She isn’t coming."

  Lune opens the door, "Slut."

  We laugh and try to let it all be nothing, but my heart is racing and I feel lightheaded. I look out the window at the dark night as we drive to my place and know it was something.

  Maggie mutters, "Bastion was hot, huh? But kind of sleazy, I think." I glance back to see her wagging her eyebrows.

  I make a face, "What?"

  She nods, "You guys must have noticed the way he was eyeing all the girls up."

  "I don’t know about that. I never saw him doing that." I want to say "to anyone else" but I leave that part out.

  Lune nudges me, "What was up with you and Sam?"

  I shake my head, "I don’t know."

  Sarah leans forward, "Did he kiss you as the wind started?"

  I roll my eyes, "No. That’s stupid."

  She shrugs and looks out the window, "You know that’s what they're gonna say."

  I can't fight the pained expression as it hits my face. "I know."

  Lune squeezes my leg, "Don’t listen to them, Lynnie. You did nothing wrong."

  I turn back around and watch the dark night roll past us.

  Maggie squeezes my shoulders through the gap between the door and the seat, "She's right." Her hand on me almost makes me believe it.

  It doesn’t matter though. It doesn’t matter how much I ignore it or how much I pretend it isn’t true, I’m a Lake. Everyone knows what that means.

  Lune drops me off and I run up the old vine-covered path quickly. I walk through the door quietly and set my guitar next to the stairs. I put the fifty bucks, I get every week for singing, on the desk.

  "What you been at, girl?" The haggard, mean, old voice slips through the dark hallway. "Huh? Where you been?"

  I flinch and wait for the pain. I’m tight everywhere. I never know where she’ll hit first. The hallway is too dark to see her. I shake my head with a twitch and whisper, "Nowhere. Out with Lune after I made the money."

  "You little slut. You're just like your momma.” It’s like she’s stuck on repeat. She only ever says about seven sentences and she’s just said four of them. She thinks my mom was evil; she doesn’t factor in that her son was the Lake family member. My mother’s last name was something I don’t recall.

  Pain hits in my belly first. I double over and heave as her fist hits. I turtle and let her kick me. I close my eyes and wrap my fingers around my head with my chin tucked. Her old boots stomp and kick until she’s tired. It never lasts long. I taste my own blood in my mouth. My cheek stings where she’s managed to get a boot in. My teeth hurt.

  She spits at me. I tremble and let her. I always let her. I deserve every strike. She and I both know it. That, and I have nowhere else to go. My father's will demanded I stay with her until my nineteenth birthday, or I wouldn’t get my inheritance on my twentieth birthday. That is freedom.

  Chapter Two

  The dark night has a magical feeling. Even if I don’t believe in magic, my face is swollen, and I’m exhausted, the night still feels like magic to me. A boy I have always liked, told me he liked me. Nothing Mary does can take away from that.

  Once she kicks my ass, my grandmother always goes to bed. She watches TV infomercials and smokes. I have always wished long and hard for her to fall asleep with the smoke in her mouth and burn the house down. Then I could be free. Even if I were dead, I would be alive for the first time.

  I am so sick of being a Lake. For me death seems like an out, but being a girl it’s unlikely I will be the one to die. The curse doesn’t care about who has the Lake blood, only that there is love in a heart. The man always dies, always. Even when he is the Lake. Being a girl I must either escape my curse, live a life separate of love, or kill myself.

  Killing myself has never really been an option.

  I sit in the window and wait for the only thing that matters. Nothing matters—not the Lakes or the curses or the pain—just her. I wait for the moment I can sense Rosie. I don’t always feel her, but when I do, it’s like the noise and pain in the world stands still for her. For us.

  The wide window seat is the only place in the world I can still feel her. It isn’t like her ghost is there, but maybe a stain. She died in the house and I always prayed she would haunt it—me. She never did though, not properly, but I will take her anyway I can get her. A whisper in the wind on a window seat is better than nothing at all. The whisper happened the first night after she died. I had sat in the window crying for twenty-four hours straight, when suddenly it was there. A whisper on the wind. The wind that had taunted and provoked me, brought me something amazing.

  I can only hope that it comes tonight so I have someone to tell about Sam. I gaze at my reflection in the window and notice something, movement down on the street. I frown and squint, willing my eyes to focus that far. A figure stands under a lamppost across the road. It doesn’t move, not at first. It stands there, leaning against the lamppost, as if daring me to look out at it or pretending to be part of the lamppost. But I have sat in that window a long time, I know what the shape of the lamppost is.

  My heart is racing as I open my window more and lean out into the cool air. The wind is there, but it doesn’t smell like Rosie. It's something else.

  I almost slam the window shut when the figure walks toward me, but when I recognize him, I’m more worried about hiding my fleece pajamas than I am him harming me. I duck in the window and whisper harshly with only my face poking out. "What are you doing?"

  Bash shakes his head and whispers back, "I had a bad feeling. I was falling asleep and then suddenly I saw you. You were crying and hurting, and I had to see you."

  I cock an eyebrow, "You’re psychic?" I regret asking it right away.

  "No, were you screaming and hurting?" He looks confused. “I had to be sure. I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

  How do I answer that? I shake my head, "I'm fine, so you can go." My stomach’s freaking out. Does he have visions, like a preacher? Did he see me getting my ass kicked by the mean old lady who I have four months, three days, and eleven hours left with?

  He hops over my fence and stumbles into the yard through the weeds and dead grass. We truly do have the worst yard in the whole town. I accidentally giggle, watching him trip and cuss about the state of the yard. He is making an awful racket. I glance back at the door to my room. If Mary comes in, she’ll beat the hell out of me . . . in front of him. I wave my hands, "Please go."

  He jumps onto the porch and climbs with ease to the roof, to where my window is. I gasp and notice how cold the air is suddenly.

  I should scream and push him off. I don’t even know him. Hell, Brandon doesn’t even know him. But something about him makes me feel like I remember secrets about myself that I like. Even when he was glaring at me, I felt like he knew me.

  He climbs right to me, boldly. He grabs the frame of the window and smiles at me. He is forceful and in my space, but I’m not afraid of him. It is like my sanity flew right out with the breeze.

  "Hi," he whispers, like he has done something he does every night—like it's no big deal. He looks around, "This is a nice house you have here." His sarcasm is duly noted.

  I laugh and cover my face to muffle the noise. I turn and tiptoe to the door and lock it. I slide my chair up against it and under the knob, just in case, and creep back to him. “You shouldn’t be here, this is super creepy. No offense, but it is.”

  "
None taken. I agree. Why are you limping?" he notices.

  My eyes widen as I struggle with my exhausted brain for an answer, "I twisted my ankle on the way up the stairs." I whisper my lie. I've done it for so long, I don’t even know how to tell anyone the truth.

  He reaches in the window and grabs my hand, "Your face." He brushes a warm hand against my cheek. I don’t even have a response for that. I stand there, frozen. His warm hand against my cheek is the most amazing feeling. I should push him off of the roof but I don’t.

  When the shock leaves, I shake my head. My eyes must look dreadful because he shakes his head, "I won't say anything to anyone. Just tell me who."

  I glance back at the door nervously, "She doesn’t mean it. She's old and scared."

  He frowns, "Of what? You're a small girl. Do you fight back?"

  I bite my lip and sit on the window seat, “I don’t want to talk about it. Why are you here?”

  He’s so close, I can almost taste him in the air. His smell is refreshing and makes my heart swirl and flutter about in my chest. Those stormy-grey eyes have me in their clutches. “Do you fight back?”

  I sigh, shaking my head and whisper, "I deserve it." I've never told anyone that before, and I don’t know why I told him.

  He looks pained, like he had earlier. He brushes his warm hand across my cheek again, "Never say that again. No one deserves to be hurt by the person who is supposed to protect them." He looks like he regrets saying it instantly. I don’t know what to do or say.

  I look down, "She's old and confused. She doesn’t mean it the way you think she does. I don’t really want to talk about it. You shouldn’t be here." My words are hoarse. He’s killing me inside. I can feel too many things all at once.

  He tilts my chin. His grey eyes take me hostage again. "I had to see you again. I knew I couldn’t wait until morning."

  Heat fills my face, “You don’t even know me, and to be honest, you were a jerk to me at Sam’s.”