Bloodthirsty - By Flynn Meaney Page 0,47

imagined my pale exposed flesh baking and sweating in the sun for three hours every afternoon. I couldn’t be out in the sun for that long. If I were, people would start to notice that I wasn’t sparkling like Edward in Twilight or bursting into flames like Chauncey Castle from Bloodthirsty. They would know that I wasn’t a vampire. Oh, and I’d break out into hives. That too.

“I’m not really… great… with the sun,” I told Coach Doakes.

The coach didn’t look at me like I was crazy, which most people did when I talked about the sun like it and I were in a rocky romantic relationship.

“Frame, I’m talking winter track,” Coach said impatiently. “Indoor track.”

“Oh, psh,” I breathed out, relieved. “Sure. Great.”

“Great!” He clapped me on the back. “See ya at tryouts!”

Wait, what? I was so excited at avoiding the sun that I joined a varsity sport? I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. And I wasn’t even wearing the short-shorts yet.

The best reaction to my violence, though, was not my ambush varsity recruitment. The best reaction came the day after the fight happened. I still had some sore hamstrings from that unexpected hallway sprint (a sad comment on my physical fitness—and on Luke’s ability as a personal trainer), so I was squatting and wincing as I dropped books onto the bottom of my locker before lunch.

“Hey, Tony Soprano,” someone said.

I looked up and, despite my pain, smiled. It was Kate.

“What’s that?” I asked Kate.

She was hanging on the open door of my locker, and I stood up quickly so it wouldn’t look like I was looking up at her boobs. Which I had been, but only briefly and respectfully. Ouch, hamstrings.

“I hear you’re kicking ass around here,” Kate said. “Should I be scared?” She drew away from me, pretending to tremble. “I wouldn’t want to provoke your rage.”

“No rage here.” I held my hands up in surrender.

I didn’t want Kate to think of me as Chris Perez did—mentally unstable. That wasn’t attractive.

“I just think Chris Perez is a jerk,” I explained, shrugging.

“Me too,” Kate said. “In chem class the other day, he spilled hydroxylic acid on me.”

“Were you okay?” I asked. “Did it burn you or something?”

“Hydroxylic acid is water,” Kate said, grinning.

Oh. Dumb Finbar. How did I get that A in chem last year?

“But he got my jeans wet,” Kate continued. “And I had to borrow a pair of shorts from Audrey Li.”

Audrey Li was a famed sophomore slut. “Oh, so you have scabies now?” I asked.

Kate laughed. “Pretty much,” she said.

She stared at me for a second. Then she poked me in the shoulder.

“Does this provoke your rage?” she asked.

Her index finger poked my pale skin repeatedly, ranging from my shoulder to my collarbone. She asked repeatedly, purposefully annoying: “Does this provoke your rage? Does this provoke your rage? Am I provoking your rage?”

I was not provoked. I just stood there, laughing, calm, as people passed the open lockers, went through their lockers, trudged by in backpacks, turned into classrooms, walked out the doors. And in the midst of all this normalcy, I leaned toward Kate, shaking my head, and then an extraordinary thing happened.

Kate had been poking the back of my neck, but then she used her fingers to pull me forward. There was no ambiguity about what she was doing, no question, none of the hesitation that characterized my whole life, and especially my love life.

Kate kissed me.

My first thought was, She’s giving me CPR! That’s how little sexual experience I have. Then I realized that I was not having a heart attack. This girl was voluntarily pressing her lips to mine. And she wasn’t even trying to hide the kiss. People were watching—out of my peripheral vision, I saw half of Mrs. Anderson’s fan club walk by. A whole bunch of guys were seeing me, Finbar, making out like a pimp.

After all these things ran through my head, I realized I had to kiss back.

I had barely lowered my lip to below hers when she pulled away. But I really don’t think she pulled away out of repulsion. I’m pretty sure that was the natural ending to the kiss…. Right?

“Let’s go to lunch,” Kate said, like she kissed guys every day during fourth period by the lockers, and then went to eat chicken patties. Like this was normal. Instead of what it was to me, which was… incredible.

chapter 13

So you may ask, “Hey, Finbar, what’s up with you and the sun? Do you still