Torn Mate by Belle Harper
Ada
I tooktoday off from school. I just couldn’t go. Mom believed me when I said I was sick, she didn’t question it. I wasn’t sure if it was because I still looked terrible or because I never lie to her. Not really, nothing bigger than, “I didn’t eat the last cookie.” Well, until now.
I had one of the biggest secrets I would ever have in my life. One big lie about what really happened with Lexi, the fact that there were wolf shifters and vampires. Oh, and angels were real, and my best friend’s dad was one, which made her half an angel. So yeah… until this month, I had never lied to my mom or dad this big, and it was eating at me more than everything I was hiding from them.
I had spent most the day watching some true crime shows. I painted my toenails pink, restacked my bookshelf by color, then by size because I couldn’t handle it. I wrote in my old diary and read some old stuff from in there, when life was simple and I was just boring Ada. I used to write stuff about wishing Saint would notice me, and now I wished he hadn’t. Fantasy Saint was different to the real one.
I spent way too much time looking at my Instagram and going back to the photo that Noah had liked from two years ago, wondering why of all the photos he picked that one to like. Why I was even thinking about him when I kissed Huxley, was I wishing Noah had kissed me? No… Ugh, as if. I slouched forward. I couldn’t even lie to myself.
Ugh…I had to stop thinking of him as anything other than friends. What the hell was wrong with me? We were friends, just friends. Maybe something more later when he was older… Nope. He was too young, too sweet… too good for me. But why did I think no one else would be good for him?
Why the hell couldn’t I stop staring at his photos though? He was so cute, smiling and having so much fun with his friends in most of them. Luca Brooks was his best friend, I knew that. I flipped to see another of him in mid-laugh. It made me smile.
I looked for Huxley’s page. It wasn’t too hard to find either. This was good, I could look at his gorgeous face and remember how those lips had kissed me. It wasn’t like a kiss, kiss. You know, like with tongue. It was just two people pressing lips together. Was that still a kiss? That still counted, right? Ugh… maybe it didn’t.
I think the kiss at summer camp when I was twelve had some tongue action. It was gross and I always tried to block that from memory and just go with the whole “never been kissed” like that movie with Drew Barrymore. Oh, maybe I should watch that. I rolled over and grabbed the remote and flicked it over to Netflix. Might have something romantic I could watch… Crime shows were maybe a little too much for today. But then, maybe I had watched too much so I turned it all off and laid back against my pillows.
I looked down at my phone again, Huxley looking right back at me in that photo with Mason and River. Their arms around each other at the beach, they were all smiling… well, not Huxley. It was the most recent one from spring break. They had tagged it with Shi Shi Beach. It looked nice, and… they were topless.
His photos didn’t do him justice. The real thing was so much better. My heart started to pick up at the thought that I had touched his bare chest… Those abs were rock hard under his soft skin. He didn’t smile in any of his photos. It was a little sad to see. His smile was beautiful, he needed to show it more. I scrolled through some more photos with his friends. River always had this huge grin and Mason you could tell was fun but level-headed… My phone started to ring and I almost threw it across the room in shock like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Shit, Destiny’s name was on the screen. I hesitated at first before answering.
“Hello?” I wondered why she was calling me in the middle of the day. She knew I would be at school, unless… “Ugh, Mom told you I was home sick, didn’t she?”
I could hear her laughing down the line. I rolled my eyes and laid back against my pillow and stared at my ceiling.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know if you really were. I had talked to Kiara earlier about her commitment ceremony, getting all the details I needed to know since I’m a bridesmaid and all, and she told me that you were kissing a boy? A Rawlins boy. Spill, I need details. Who was it? She wouldn’t tell me.” My mouth dropped open.
Of course, I never thought about someone seeing us. In a room full of people. I rolled my eyes. Why did Kiara tell her… I wasn’t ready to tell Destiny, because if I did she might ask questions and I now didn’t have a gag order. Galen had taken that from me and now I could freely tell the world, my sister, about vampires and wolf shifters… like the wolf shifter I kissed.
Kiara would have really noticed my kiss because she was just as human as me. She was helping all the injured wolves alongside me in our makeshift hospital with Hazel. I just didn’t think she was paying attention to us when we kissed.
“Ahh…” I bit my lip, smiling at the memory of how it felt. Maybe I could just tell her a little. I could hold the rest in… right?
“You did, oh my god, and you’re not going to tell me. What the hell, Ada! I’m your sister, you should have called me straight away.” I shook my head and laughed.
“Yeah, like all the times you told me who you were kissing?” Because she never told me once. I sometimes overheard but she never directly told me the boys she kissed in high school. Or college for that matter.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t think you wanted to hear about it. I didn’t want to rub it in your face I was kissing boys and you weren’t. But if you want to know I’ll tell you.”
Did I want to know who she kissed? Hell yeah I did, and I needed to talk to someone about the kiss. Because if it didn’t have tongue and was a peck, was it a full-on kiss, or like a thank-you-for-saving-me kiss like you would give your grandma? Not that I could ask her that exactly.
“Okay, I will tell you, but you have to tell me one guy you kissed in high school, the best kissing one.” At first I thought she had hung up on me, it was silent. Then I heard her murmur something lowly. “What? I can’t hear you.” I laughed. Was she scared to tell me?
“I kissed Lyell, and it was one of the best kisses I ever had, okay?” My mouth dropped open and I almost dropped the phone again. Did she just say Lyell, like as in—
“Lyell Lovell? The quiet Lovell? Like… how?” What? He was so shy and, like, seemed to really live in his room. But like, really? He was the best kiss she had ever had? He was the last one of the Lovell brothers I would think my sister would have kissed, let alone say was her best kiss. Nash, yeah, but he was older and she wouldn’t have kissed him in high school, but Lyell? He was so… different to her. I guess they say opposites attract because I just can’t see how this came to be.
I felt mean to judge him and his kissing abilities. He might be the best kisser in Kiba for all I knew, my sister clearly thought so. I didn’t have room to judge, I was no kissing expert. But I really thought he had never kissed anyone and my sister kissed him… Wow.
“Yeah, Clare was with Jett and Mekhi still. She didn’t want me to feel like a third… fourth wheel. We went out for pizza and Jett brought Lyell. Trust me, I was surprised he even came. He’s cute, a little nerdy, but cute.
“I think Clare was trying to set us up, but I wasn’t looking for anything. I knew I was leaving for college soon. But anyway, we ended up in Kiba at a lookout there. It was late, dark, and the stars were out… you know, really setting the scene.
“Clare was kissing Jett and Mekhi, and Lyell was sitting beside me all shy and quiet like he is. I started to shake from the cold and he took his jacket off and put it over my shoulders without even speaking to me. He just stared at me and I kissed him… and he kissed me back.
My mouth dropped open, I was a little speechless.
“But how was it the best? ’Cause of the right setting?” Maybe that was important for the kiss to be amazing.
“Like, for someone so quiet he took charge, holding my face. Kissing me like I was his next meal and he couldn’t get enough of me. And I swear… fireworks went off in my mind. I felt his kiss everywhere if you know what I mean… like, everywhere.”
Wow, just… Was she just saying what I think she was saying? Fireworks, everywhere. I didn’t even think that was possible. I wanted that in a kiss and it certainly didn’t happen when I kissed Huxley. It still felt amazing though.
“Okay, well I told you mine, now you spill. Who was it? Was it amazing? Was it bad? Tell me now before I come home and shake it out of you.”
I laughed. Like she could come home, she was in a whole other state right now. I nervously played with the hem of my tee as I thought back to the kiss. Was it good? Bad? I had nothing to compare it to. Not really. It was my first real kiss, not some sloppy-boy-from-camp kiss.
“Well… it was my first real kiss—” Destiny squealed down the line. My ear was ringing.
“Tell me who, right now,” she demanded, and I laughed as I pictured her stomping her foot.
“I would have but you cut me off. But like, real as in it was a peck. Nothing like you had with Lyell.” When she scoffed at that last part I smiled and continued. “I kissed Huxley Moore and it was amazing.” Because it was, even if it was just a peck.
She squealed again and I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face even if I tried. I laughed. “Ah, yeah. So, I think he likes me… like more than friends.”
He had to. You didn’t just kiss your friend, even if it was just a peck, right?