“You’re forgetting the part about me being a good kisser.”
Yeah, right. Like I could forget that part. “Oh,” is all I say.
There are just ten seconds left for the popcorn, and I feel my thrumming pulse match each beat.
“Aren’t you wondering why I haven’t kissed you yet, Maggie?”
The microwave beeps and I jump out of my skin, but more from the hand planted on my hip rather than the shrill echo of the buzzer. Even as Ran retrieves the bag of popcorn from the microwave, he keeps his palm in place on the curve of my body. He sets down the bag on the tile counter and spins me around with another hand positioned firmly on my other hip.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered.”
I scoot back across the floor to press my backside up against the cupboard, gaining some space so I can clear my head, but he follows my movements—his hands still on me—like we’re doing the conga or tango.
“I don’t know,” I stammer uneasily.
Ran releases me from his grip. “I’m going to tell you something, and I don’t want you to judge me, okay?”
“Okay.” I nod.
“You can’t think differently of me because of it.” There’s a look of worry shrouded in his eyes. He hesitates before saying, “Because it’s not something I’m proud of.”
Oh great. This is the part where I find out he’s some creep who has a weird foot fetish or that he has a secret identity and works for the government or something. This is where everything I hoped we could become shatters and falls down around me, just like everything else always does. I ready for the other shoe to drop.
“I’ve never had a first kiss before.”
I almost fall onto the counter when he says it, and I’m so thankful that I’d propped myself up against it before he spoke because it helps keep me upright and doesn’t make the shake that the laughter causes so apparent. “Ran,” I giggle, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but not understanding what he’s confessing. “That’s impossible. I’m sure you’ve kissed tons of girls.” I keep a joking tenor in my voice, and I hope he doesn’t pick up on the confused quality that is equally as evident.
“You’re right, I have. But I’ve never really had a first kiss.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I shake my head. I hear the jingling of Nikon’s collar before he appears in the kitchen, and when he does, Ran swats him away with the back of his hand.
The breath that Ran sucks in indicates he’s drawing in more than just air before he prepares to speak. It’s like he’s trying to fill himself up with something else...courage maybe. Even though it’s hard to do so without trembling, I place a steady hand on his forearm to offer him a bit of my own.
“Maggie. I’ve done lots of things in my past with more girls than I’d like to admit.” I’m not really surprised—I’d guessed it from the first time I met him—but for some reason, it still hurts when I hear it. Maybe not hurts, but disappoints. But I have no right to be disappointed. Though I haven’t been with anyone other than Brian, we were together for three years and I gave myself to him a year into it. I have my own history that I’m not proud of, too.
“Maggie,” Ran continues. “When I say I’ve never had a first kiss, it’s because I haven’t. The first time I ever did anything with a girl, it was sex.”
I press further into the counter. “Oh.”
Before I have a chance to say anything, he continues. “I was fifteen. We were at a party. There was no kissing, no intimacy, we just went for it.”
I nod my head, but not because I understand. I don’t know how you could do that with someone without feeling some ounce of intimacy in the act.
“Honestly, I was going through some stuff with my past at the time—working through some issues about my parents—and I just needed an escape. So that started a pattern for me. Using girls as an escape.”
It’s getting harder to swallow, and the strong smell of the freshly-popped popcorn on the counter is beginning to nauseate me, pulling acid up into my mouth. I choke it down and say, “Okay.”
“So with every girl I promised myself I wouldn’t become attached—remember I said I get attached to things easily?” He looks down at me with wide eyes and I nod. “For me, taking