Page 39 of If Love Had A Manual

She ducks her head lower. “I had my first kiss.”

Silence.

Dead silence.

Internally, I’m spiraling. Kissing? Kissing?! She’s practically a fetus. I flash back to my own first kiss—braces, bad lighting, and a boy named Declan who thought open-mouth meant trying to lick my esophagus. I’ve never fully recovered.

“Oh,” I say calmly, smiling like I’m a well-adjusted adult and not someone currently trying to astral project into a dimension where this conversation isn’t happening. “Cool. So, just kissing, right? No other...activities?”

She groans. “Lena, that’s gross.”

“Boysare gross.”

“I want to die.”

“I’m just saying! Boys your age are basically golden retrievers with hormones. They’ll hump a throw pillow if you leave them alone long enough.”

She covers her face. “Please stop talking.”

“No, I’m serious. Kiss everyone, if you must. Taste the rainbow. But they keep their hands in their pockets until you have a fully developed frontal lobe.”

“I’m literally never telling you anything ever again.”

I loop my arm around her shoulders, still grinning. “You say that now. Just wait until Ben texts ‘wyd’ at midnight and you need me to decipher whether it’s love or boredom.”

She shoves me, but she’s laughing.

We fall back into step, and for a few blissful seconds, the conversation dies.

Then Tess glances up at me. “How come you’venever had a boyfriend?”

“What?”

She shrugs, all innocence. “I’ve never met any of your boyfriends.”

“I’ve had boyfriends.” I think back, mentally scrolling through my short list of failed love interests. None of them were worth my time, let alone Tess's.

“That feels like something people say when they definitely haven’t.”

“They were real. You just never met them because they were too busy humping throw pillows.”

She snorts but doesn’t drop it. “Seriously.”

Throwing my hands out with a sigh, I roll my neck like that’ll help me dodge the question. “I don’t know. Timing? Vibes? The crippling fear of emotional intimacy?”

She raises a brow.

“I just…” I glance at her. “There’s never been anyone I wanted you to meet.”

She’s quiet for a second before her voice softens. “You don’t have to protect me, you know.”

I tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I do.”

She lets it sit, and thankfully, doesn’t argue.

Then, because she’s still a teenager and loves to rile me up, she bumps her shoulder against mine and says, “Ben’s a good kisser, by the way.”

“Can he fight?”

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