Breathe Me - C.R. Jane Page 0,38

incentive. Take it or leave it. Otherwise, I'm not doing it.”

“Carter, stop being a dick.”

“Shut up, Logan,” Quaid orders, biting his lower lip. “Have you ever kissed anyone before, Val?”

“No.”

“Neither have I,” he admits timidly, gaining a scoff from Logan beside him. “Don’t even play like you’re all that, dipshit. I know for a fact you haven't kissed anyone either.”

Logan throws daggers at Quaid, silently ordering him to keep his big trap shut, but it seems Quaid has a different idea of what he should do with his mouth.

“Like I was saying, I'm all aboard writing whatever list you want Val, just as long as you know the first thing I’m writing down will be having my first kiss tonight, and I want you to give it to me.”

Carter rolls back up, his stomach flat to the ground, and fist pumps Quaid with a proud smirk.

“Like he said. You want me to write a list, then that's going to be the very first thing I write, too.”

I maul my lower lip, and look over at reasonable Logan, praying he’ll get me out of this. But by the way his brows crease together, and he keeps tapping his pen on the pad pensively, I see that I’m not going to get any help from him either.

“I'd like a first kiss,” he finally admits timidly, confirming my suspicion.

I roll my eyes and look up at the heavens. Maybe Dad was right after all. I do have horny teenage boys for best friends. Argh! But then again, it wouldn’t be so bad having my first kiss with my best friends, now would it? I’m bound to do it eventually. And truth be told, I can’t see myself kissing anyone but them anyway, so what’s the harm having my first kiss tonight?

“Fine.” I throw my hands over my head. “But if we are going to do this, then we have to be discreet about it. I don’t want my dad suddenly coming outside to check up on us and freak out when he sees me kissing all of you. I'll go inside the tent, and one at a time, you can come in to get your stupid kiss, but only after we do our list. Deal?”

The question hasn’t even left my lips yet when all three start writing madly on the piece of paper. I can’t help but giggle at their eagerness. Yep, Dad was definitely right—horndogs, the lot of them. Logan is the first to rip his list out of the pad and hand it over to me.

"Done," he shouts, throwing the other two boys a cocky grin.

"Asshole," I hear Quaid mutter under his breath while Carter doesn’t even raise his head from the pad, obviously struggling with his own list. My temple furrows worried about my dark-haired friend.

"Should I say mine out loud?" Logan asks.

"If you want to."

He repeats his list verbatim with all the things he said before, plus some new ones I didn’t know about. I’m a little disappointed that there are a lot of materialistic things he made sure to add. Something tells me that even before I came up with this idea of a wish list, Logan must have already spent plenty of time thinking about what he wanted, especially when it came down to the money aspect. Even though I don’t identify with his wants, I get where he’s coming from. He has a big family with only his father’s military paycheck coming in, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he dreams about having a bunch of fancy gadgets and flashy cars one day.

I tilt my head, silently telling Logan to follow me into the tent. By the time we both get inside, my heart is racing.

"You don't have to do this, you know? We can just fake that we kissed. Or tell the guys that you changed your mind."

"Don't you want to kiss me?" I ask, a little hurt that he's trying to give me a way out of our deal.

"I do. But I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to. Do you want to kiss me?"

There is a veil of vulnerability that falls over his face, poking its way into my heart. Instead of answering his question, I crawl up closer to him until we are a hair's breadth away from each other. Logan's crystal blue eyes shine in anticipation as he keeps his ground, waiting for me to make the next move.

"Close your eyes," I whisper. His Adam's apple bobs