Here the Whole Time - Vitor Martins Page 0,68
looking deeply into my eyes. She grabs my two hands and strokes me with the tips of her fingers.
“Son, no matter what happens, I want you to know that there are condoms in the second drawer of my nightstand.”
“Mom!” I shout, letting go of her hands.
I get up from the couch and almost run to my room, because I’d rather deal with a recently kissed Caio than with this conversation.
Caio is in bed scrolling on his phone, but as soon as I walk into the room, he drops it and stares at me.
No pressure.
“What a day, huh?” he says as I turn off the lights and lie in bed.
“Today I discovered my mom once dated my gym teacher,” I say, because despite everything that happened, it’s another piece of information that I still haven’t been able to fully process.
“Was that before or after we kissed, and I acted like a fool because no one has ever kissed me and then taken me home on the very same day?”
“That was before,” I answer, laughing.
“Just to be clear, no one has ever taken me home in general, okay? Under no circumstances. If you know what I mean,” Caio says, a little embarrassed by his confession that he’s a virgin.
Ha. Ha.
I decide to be honest, too. “What about me? Who, until today, had never kissed anyone?”
“No one?” Caio asks, seemingly scared, as if I am good-looking enough to have a line of people trying to kiss me at all times.
“You were my first,” I say, and my forehead starts sweating when I confess the truth. Caio was my first kiss. It’s still too surreal for me. I’m afraid I’ll suddenly wake up to find out I’ve been sent to a parallel dimension by mistake, and that I need to return to my universe where I suck and no one wants to kiss me.
I don’t want to go back.
“I hope I didn’t disappoint you,” Caio says.
“I hope I didn’t, either.”
I don’t know at what point this happened, but I let my hand fall off the side of my bed, and Caio interlaced his fingers with mine. We’re in the dark, holding hands, staring at the ceiling, and saying anything that pops into our heads.
“Counting you, I’ve kissed two mouths in my life,” Caio informs me. “So far, you’re way ahead. The other one was the biter.”
“Denis.” I nearly whisper the name of the first guy Caio kissed. Which, if you stop to think about it, is a pretty creepy thing to do this late at night.
“You remember his name?” Caio laughs.
“I’m good with remembering names,” I answer, even though that’s not true. I think I just have a good memory for resentment.
“No need to be jealous of Denis. I haven’t talked to him since then. And like I said, you were better,” Caio says, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.
“I’m not a jealous guy,” I say, but deep down, I think I am.
What has this kiss done to me that I can’t stop lying for one second?
“It’s a funny thing,” he says. “We just kissed today, and we’re already talking about jealousy. That’s not right. There must be something else between the first kiss and the first bout of jealousy.”
“Probably a little more kissing,” I joke, but Caio doesn’t need any more to jump into my bed.
In the dark bedroom, he catches me by surprise and squeezes himself between me and the edge of the bed. The first three seconds are a hot mess because he tries to kiss my mouth but first hits my nose and chin.
When our lips finally meet, I’m certain I want to do this every day. But then Caio hugs me, and his hand touches my hips, and I know it’s time to stop.
I have to say, kissing in the movies is very different from kissing in bed, in total darkness. Here in my bedroom, Caio kisses me intently. I try to kiss him back in the same way, but my mind is on full alert because there are parts of my body he’s not allowed to touch. That no one is allowed to touch.
His hands slide up and down my hips. I furtively try to keep my T-shirt in place. I pull it down on one side, he pulls it up from the other, and all of a sudden, kissing Caio is almost exhausting.
When our lips separate, I’m breathless. I need more training to synchronize kissing and breathing. Caio runs his hand down my face,