Page 44 of Archer
“A lesson. One we haven’t done yet.”
“Do you mean…?”
“No.” I quickly shook my head to correct him. “I want you to kiss me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Archer
Rose stood across the island with her fingers knitted together after she suggested doing another lesson. Staring at me silently, her bright blue eyes zeroed in closer, staring at me as if she were egging me on, even though it was her suggestion. Inside my rib cage, I could feel my heartbeat thumping, but I didn’t know how to proceed until she said, “No. I want you to kiss me.”
My eyebrows shot upward before quickly furrowing. “Huh?”
“I want you to kiss me,” she said with more force.
“What?” I asked, but I had no idea what I was even asking. Kisses were something I’d hand out like party favors. Games of spin-the-bottle, kissing booths, bumping into drunk girls on the way to the bathroom who dragged me into a bathroom stall, you name it. I had no emotional attachment to a kiss. It was nothing but two mouths smacking against each other. Past the age of sixteen, once you started hitting the other bases, kissing became second nature. So, why was I so nervous? “Right now?”
She looked at the ground and bit her lip. “Yeah.”
“Why?” I asked.
Lifting her neck up, blades shot through her eyes and out at me, as she asked, “What do you mean, why? Do you not want to?”
“What? No! Of course, I do. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“It’s kind of a big step, don’t you think?” I said, realizing how dumb it sounded. “I mean, it’s… it’s more intimate than a blowjob.”
“I want to.”
“Yeah, but why? You’re acting so weird right now,” I said, standing away from the island to throw my hands up. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yes, Archer,” she said, raising her voice. “There’s a lot wrong right now. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this, I just want to.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said, but I didn’t know what I was expecting from her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know, fuck,” she said, the cussword sounding strange coming from her mouth. “I just have a feeling we should. What’s the big deal?”
“Because, maybe I don’t want to.” I said, before I could stop it. My tongue had a mind of its own. “Maybe I don’t want to just be your little coach who teaches you how to do everything, then what the fuck do I get in return?”
“Are you serious right now?” She started laughing, and I felt a pang through my chest from her steamrolling through my confession. “It’s a kiss, Archer. You’ve hadso manythat you can’t even tell me, so why not add another one?”
“Because!”
“Because why?”
“Well, honestly, because you’re acting crazy right now and it’s not really that attractive,” I shot back and she finally closed her mouth, sharing a similar hurt expression as me only mixed with more fury. “What the fuck did I do? Why are you so mad at me?”
“Why am I mad at you?” She threw her neck back and laughed with her hands on her hips as she paced in a circle. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!” I said. “I walked through the door and you started yelling at me.”
“Because you won’t kiss me!”
“So crazy!” I said grabbing my head in my hands, using everything I had in me not to call her crazy again, knowing it only made her visibly angrier. “I don’t want to kiss you because I think you’re going through something and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea if we start… getting… more…”
For about five seconds, Rose stood and breathed through her nose as her chest heaved. Swallowing deeply, she looked at her feet quickly before looking back up. I thought she was maybe going to cry or just, once again, announce she was going to bed when she clearly wasn’t. But instead, she went from zero to one hundred, yelling at me without much self-control.
