Page 7 of The Kiss List

"You said you didn't hook up with these guys. So my next guess is you're planning to kiss all of them. That's why you called it'the kiss list,'right?"

Oh, right. This is the reason.

I scrunch up my nose. "Eww, no. I'm just looking to kiss one of them." I realize my mistake as soon as I say the last word. "N-No," I sputter. "That's not what I meant. I mean—"

"Oh, I think that's exactly what you meant." Denton is now grinning like a Cheshire cat. He leans back against the seat, folding his arms across his chest. "So are you looking to hook up with one of them? I assume Con is your top candidate since he's first on the list."

"No." I glare. "One kiss. That's all I need."

"Oh-kay," he chuckles. "Why?"

"Do I really need to explain everything to you?"

"I missed swim practice for this, Perry," Denton says in a dry voice.

And that's my problem? If he had just minded his own business, we wouldn't be here right now. I didn't even want this. Really, it was his fault.

"Fine." I puff out a breath. "The truth is, I've never been um…"I can't believe I'm telling him this.

"Never been what?" he prods.

"Never been kissed, okay? I've never been kissed. And I'd like to change that before my seventeenth birthday, which is only a month away. So I made a stupid kiss list to make it happen. Happy now?" I snap, glaring at him hard, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

God, I hope this stays between the two of us. I can't have him spilling the information to his friends. People finding out would be bad enough. But the actual boys on the list knowing about it? That would be humiliation with a capital H.

And then what? I'd beg my parents to transfer me to another school? No, the humiliation would likely follow me there. Homeschool would be the right choice.

Denton just stares at me while I silently freak out once again. "Wow."

I cross my arms over my chest defensively. "Go on. Laugh. I know you want to."

And run and tell your friends.Not that I'm voicing that out loud. I'm not that dumb to give him ideas.

He just continues to stare at me. Until a smile slowly creeps up his face. "Oh, I'm not laughing. On the contrary, I'd like to help you out with your problem."

Chapter 4

"Mind if we sit here?"

I stop midchew of my burger and stare wide-eyed at Denton, who's standing next to the table Iris and I are currently having lunch at with none other than his best friend Conrad.

"Err, sure," Iris answers for the both of us, giving me a deer-in-the-headlights look.

I quickly swallow my food, nearly choking on it. Panicking, I grab my soda can and take a large gulp.

Denton smirks at my obvious shock. He places his lunch tray on the table and sits next to Iris, forcing Conrad to sit next to me.

Iris is still visibly stunned. She's probably wondering what's going on, especially since I haven't told her about the whole Denton-is-blackmailing-me thing yet.

It's not that I intended to keep it a secret up to this moment. In fact, I was just about to tell her when Denton showed up.

And showed up, he did. I can't believe he brought Conrad over to our table. What is he even planning to do? We never actually got to talk about the details yesterday. Because right after Denton told me he wanted to "help" me get my first kiss, he got a call from his Mom asking him to run an errand for her.

So I literally had no idea that he would do something like this. I was just as surprised as Iris. I just wish I knew what Denton was up to.

I narrow my eyes on him.

"Oh, sorry." His smirk widens. "Did we interrupt something? I just thought that since we had to work on our History project together, we could make use of lunchtime to discuss it."

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