or fearing for her life, Kavya retreats to my bed. She wisely keeps her mouth shut for the next few minutes while I demolish the sketches.
When I’ve done as much damage as my aching shoulders will allow, I slump onto the pink polka-dot comforter next to her. The Nerf gun lies limply on my lap, and her light, floral perfume engulfs me.
She turns to face me. “Wanna tell me why you’re so upset?” she asks.
I do—from the yellow sweater with the floppy bows to the way Mat looked at me in the green dress. From the almost-kiss in the dressing room to his zinger of a revelation—that he’d made a bet with his buddies that I would fall for him.
Her jaw drops, as expected, but her ears don’t steam next. Instead, she tilts her head, considering me.
“Winnie, do you like him?”
“What? No.” My fingers twitch on the trigger of the Sideswipe, even though I’m out of bullets. “We hate each other—oh, excuse me, loathe each other.”
“But you sat on his lap, right?” she persists. “Why would you do that if you don’t like him?”
“Because I kinda fell?”
“I don’t buy it.” She faces me, her knees jabbing into my thighs. “You’ve been snarking at each other for years. But none of your comments was malicious. You never aimed to truly hurt him. In fact, when Delilah Martin told the girls last fall the exact details about Mat’s underwear—that he wears boxers, that he prefers solids—you were the first person to tell her to shut up.”
“Because I didn’t want to hear it.”
“No,” she says softly. “Because the details were too personal. They weren’t meant to be shared publicly. You were protecting Mat.”
I open my mouth and then close it. And then open it again. Because she’s right. “He was my best friend for my entire childhood,” I say weakly. “What else was I supposed to do?”
The sun spills through the window, heating my neck, highlighting the clothes I’ve left draped over chairs and heaped on the floor. I get up and begin to clean, because I don’t want Kavya to think I’m a slob—but also because I need something to occupy my hands.
“How was his lap?” my best friend asks. “Cozy?”
I gather an armful of leggings and T-shirts, the blush spreading through my body. Even my elbows are probably red.
She hoots. “Oh, Winnie, don’t ever change. I love that you’re so innocent.”
“When I was ten, I used to want my first kiss to be with my husband at our wedding,” I confess. “Goodness knows, that would make Papa happy.”
“And now, at the wise old age of seventeen, how do you feel?” she teases.
I toss the dirty clothes into a hamper. “I’m not sure. But I’d like my first kiss to be genuine and not part of a bet.”
She gestures for me to sit next to her. “I don’t care if you have your first kiss when you’re eighteen or eighty. No judgment here. All I want is for it to be right for you.
“I’ll let you in on a secret. First kisses pretty much suck—and not in a good way. Too much slobbering. Too much thrust.” She jabs her tongue out repeatedly to demonstrate. “I only have one word to describe mine: ‘braces.’”
I giggle. Kavya’s parents are as strict as mine, but that’s never held her back.
“I’d love for your first kiss to mean something,” she continues. “But I’d also love for it to be with someone who knows what they’re doing.” She waggles her eyebrows. “With Mat, there’s a good chance you’ll have both.”
Is she right? There were some long, sticky moments, in the dressing room and out of it, when the connection between us was a weighty, palpable thing. Is my attraction to him real? Or was I just confused?
I lick my lips. I suppose it doesn’t matter how I feel when he’s made his feelings abundantly clear. He’s flirting with me only because of a bet. Nothing more. “Bet me ten bucks that I can make him fall for me first.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Those are some pretty hefty stakes.”
“Seriously, Kav?” I grumble. “You’re missing the point. I just have to tell him that I made the same bet. Help a girl out.”
“Make it a dollar and you’ve got a deal.”
I sigh. “Fine. A hundred measly pennies. You’re a true friend.”
She reaches over and squeezes my hand, accidentally depressing the trigger on the Nerf gun. A foam bullet flies out and hits pencil-Mat’s knee, and we burst out laughing.