Page 56 of Wild Ever After
“I knew that,” I mutter.
“You did?” She sounds surprised.
“Your car, your hair, your laptop cover.”
“Right.” She grins and moves to flip another card.
I win again. It’s harder to come up with questions than I expected.
“Who was your first kiss?”
“My mom was dating this guy. I can’t even remember his name.”
My muscles tense.
“He didn’t.” She assures me, picking up on my body language. “He had a nephew that he’d bring over occasionally. His name was Justin and he rode a skateboard. I was smitten.”
“Did he kiss you or the other way around?”
“He kissed me. Although I all but put a neon sign in front of my face before he did. I remember I had this Dr. Pepper flavored ChapStick and I kept putting it on my lips. He loved Dr. Pepper.”
“That’s funny,” I say as I laugh.
We go back to the cards, and this time, she wins.
“Same question. Tell me about your first kiss.”
“She didn’t wear soda-pop flavored ChapStick, sadly. A little grape-flavored ChapStick would have really done it for me back then.”
I earn a soft giggle.
“I was in junior high and a buddy had a pool party on the last day of school. I’m pretty sure her friends dared her to do it.”
“She kissed you?!” The idea seems to catch her off guard.
“Hell yeah. I was terrified of girls back then. She marched right up to me, laid one on me, and left me standing there with my jaw hanging open.”
Jade’s head tips back and a big, hearty laugh erupts out of her. She looks so happy and carefree.
We keep playing, asking questions about our childhoods and past relationships. Fun, safe topics.
When we near the end of the deck, Jade flips the winning card and stares at me a beat before asking, “What was your last relationship like?”
“Messy.”
“How so?”
“We wanted different things.”
She doesn’t pry, but I guess she’ll ask me more on that later. I don’t like the idea of laying out my shit with Crissy for her, but I won’t lie about it either.
On my next win, I ask, “How’d you and Sam get together?”
“We met at a frat party my senior year.”
“You approach him or the other way around?”
“He approached me. He gave me some line about how I was the hottest girl at the party and he just had to come over and get my name.”
