Page 26 of Science Project

I had never been kissed.

Not by a girl that I liked and definitely not by one as pretty as Nicole.

She curled her fingers around the back of my neck, and she pulled me down toward her. Her mouth tasted like mint, and her hair smelled of strawberries. Butterflies fluttered through my chest. And I tried to force myself to grab her by the waist, the way I had seen so many guys do to her.

To seize her hips. To pull her closer. To kiss her more passionately than anyone else.

But I was scared that I’d do something wrong.

A few moments later, she pulled away.

Come on, Akio! What was that?! You didn’t even kiss her back!

“Sorry,” she whispered, tucking some hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure why I did that.”

I stared down at her, wide-eyed, and opened my mouth to say something—anything—but not even a word would come out.

Did Nicole …

Did that really happen?

Sure, I hadn’t kissed her back, but I was so shocked that it had even happened.

“We should get back to work,” she whispered, wiping the spit off her lips.

She disappeared into the living room, and I followed her.

What is wrong with me?!

After sitting in silence for fifteen minutes, both staring at our textbooks without speaking a word or flipping a page, Nicole’s phone screen lit up the dark room, and she picked it up from the coffee table.

While I didn’t want to make it obvious, I glanced over her shoulder at the phone, maybe a little jealous, a little possessive that someone was taking her away from her spending time with me. We weren’t an item, and we wouldn’t ever be, but still …

Dad: Karmeen Kaiser.

She sighed through her nose, glanced over at me, and definitely saw me staring at her phone. I looked away and shifted on the couch. After standing, Nicole walked to her purse on the table and stuffed the phone into it. “I have to go.”

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I followed after her as she rushed to the front door. “Is everything all right?”

Before she left, I wanted to apologize to her for not kissing her back. But I was so nervous. Nervous that she’d say it was a mistake. That this all was a mistake. That I was a bad kisser and would never get anyone, especially her, to like me.

“Everything is fine,” she said without looking me in the eye.

After she ran out the front door and slipped into her car, I grabbed my keys from the side table in the foyer and watched her pull out of the driveway. When her car disappeared down the road, I ran to my car, determined to follow her.

While I stayed a ways away from her car so she wouldn’t see me, I caught up with her at a traffic light. She turned down a side road and then another, heading toward a slummy neighborhood on the opposite side of town.

She parked in front of Karmeen Kaiser’s house and headed to the front door.

I parked a few houses down.

Karmeen Kaiser didn’t work for Mom, but they often did business together. Kaiser also worked for the Redwood Police Department, not as an official police officer, but from what I knew, Nicole’s father and Kaiser knew each other. Well.

My hands balled into fists on the steering wheel, and I waited.

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