Page 51 of All at Once

I add, “I think it was better when I stopped talking.”

“I would have to disagree,” Luca says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“There’s never a dull moment with you,” he replies with a side smirk.

“That’s such a nice thing to say.” My smile is practically beaming at his compliment. “Thank you.”

“You’re not going to keep bringing this up now, are you?” he adds, glancing amusedly at the road.

“That depends,” I tease. “Are you still going to help me learn how to surf?”

“So you’re planning on goingagain?” he asks, raising a brow at me.

I catch myself glancing at his lips, forgetting what we’re even talking about for a second. When his face slightly tilts to the side, my eyes immediately turn the other direction, hoping he didn’t notice me look at him.

“Of course,” I finally reply with noticeably warmer cheeks. “I’m coming tomorrow morning.”

“Ticklish, clumsy, and scared of the ocean, but is willing to go again.” Luca purses his lips. “That’s a little—”

“Badass? I know.”

His eyes widen in exaggeration. “Alarming, but yeah. I was going to say that next.”

I roll my eyes, also noting how it’s nice that things have returned back to normal.

_________

As soon as Luca drops me off at the resort, I immediately call Georgia. I still can’t believe it’s been almost 24 hours without telling my best friend about my first kiss, when after these many years I know it pretty much means as much to her as it does to me.

This time she thankfully answers right away. “Hey. I only have a few minutes. Sorry I missed your call yesterday.”

Barely hearing a word she says, I squeal, “I had my first kiss. Enrique kissed me.” I momentarily find myself wondering if it’s the kiss with Enrique that I’m this excited about, orjusthaving my first kiss in general.

“Jasmine!!Wow. Okay. This is big. Forget it. I’m telling my mom this is more important.” I wait on the line until Georgia comes back. “So how was it?”

“Well my nose almost broke his at first, but then it was pretty nice when he put his tongue in my mouth,” I summarize.

She snorts. “Okay information overload. The nose thing was honestly inevitable for you.” I roll my eyes. “And speaking of his tongue. Is that the only place he put it on?”

“Georgia!” The visual only adds to my increased heartbeat.

“What?” she says nonchalantly.

“And to answer your question, sadly yes. I literally jumped away from him as soon as I felt his hands touch my neck.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I say, frustrated. “I thought maybe he wanted to kiss my neck.”

“Are you sure? Maybe he was just going to touch it while you kissed?”

“Honestly, you’re probably right,” I admit. “I wasn’t exactly thinking though, so I just freaked out and told him I got a phone call when I didn’t.”

“Jasmine, no…,” she says, her voice dropping.

“I know.” I groan at the memory, replaying it all over in my mind again. “It gets even worse. I legit felt like I was having a panic attack after that so of course that’s when I had to run into Luca again. And I don’t know what came over me, but I told him everything about my lack of experience. Like first kiss, sex,allof it.”

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