Bad Idea (15 page)

Kissing a girl. Maybe falling in love. Maybe
getting her heart broken, like Emmy had with Iris.

Coming out to Emmy had been way safer than
this, and even that had led to Emmy expecting Daisy to make her
life line up with what she was. If Riva wanted Daisy to live what
was true for her—her heart soared at the thought at the same time
that her stomach churned like she’d walked into class to take a
test she wasn’t ready for at all.

Riva still hadn’t said anything. Daisy kept
on drinking the shake, as if the answer to her existence had been
hidden on the bottom. She couldn’t picture standing up and walking.
This moment seemed like it would last forever: Daisy and Riva in
the food court, blueberry on their tongues, an uncertain future on
their minds.

Then Riva’s hand brushed Daisy’s. Riva’s
fingers twitched and withdrew, but a moment later, they returned,
more sure and certain than before. Daisy caught them and held on,
just as she had at the beach, just as she wanted to do forever.

“I didn’t know,” Riva said.

“It changes things, right?” Daisy couldn’t
keep the anguish out of her voice.

“No! I mean…yes. I don’t know.”

They were still holding hands, right there in
the mall. Daisy thought they probably shouldn’t be, not when
neither of them knew what it meant, but she didn’t want to let go.
“Does it weird you out?”

“What? You being gay?” Riva wrinkled her
nose. “Not, like, not theoretically. It’s fine. People are
gay.”

Daisy jerked her hand away. Something about
Riva’s tone made her skin crawl. “But it weirds you out in some
way. Some actual way. You’re cool with it theoretically, but not in
real life.”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. I mean,
if we were just friends, it would be cool…”

“But because I have a crush on you, you think
it’s gross.”

“Daisy, stop!” Riva sighed. “You asked if it
weirds me out
. I don’t think it’s gross. It just makes me
nervous, is all, and I don’t know what to do. What I asked you to
do with me and Benton feels different now. And what I’m…what I’ve
been feeling about you. It changes things. I guess you’re right. It
changes things.”

Daisy dropped her head onto the counter,
shivering when her cheek touched a ring of condensation left by the
shake. “I did this all wrong. I should have come out before I told
you I would do that. Or the very first day we talked. Or
something.”

“Stop it. I’m serious. Was there a right
time? I don’t know when that would have been.” Her eyes widened.
“That’s why you were so nice when you thought I was a lesbian!”

“Kind of, yeah.” Daisy winced. “I mean, sort
of because I liked you, but sort of because I thought I understood
what you had going on.”

Riva shook her head. “This whole thing is
messed up. It’s not your fault, Daisy.”

“So do you want to forget about that plan?
With you and your boyfriend?”

“I feel bad,” Riva said.

“About Benton?”

“No, about you! You were going to let me use
you.”

“No way. I only said yes because you said you
would want to make out with me even if Benton wasn’t involved.”
Daisy cleared her throat and lifted her head a few inches off the
counter, still too chagrined to sit up straight. “I think
I
was using
you
. Letting you think I’m willing to go through
with this as a favor, because I’m such an awesome friend.”

She knew she shouldn’t say the next thing on
her mind. She told herself that severely over and over, but that
didn’t stop her mouth from opening. “Really, I just wanted to kiss
you.”

The moment the words were out, Daisy wanted
to run away as fast as she could. She didn’t want to look at Riva
ever again. How could they stay friends after this?

Riva’s eyes were closed, her expression
unreadable.

“Riva, I’m sorry.”

Riva shook her head. Slowly, her eyelids
blinked open. She was looking straight at Daisy’s mouth. Daisy felt
self-conscious. Her lips were suddenly dry, and she wanted to lick
them, but that seemed like a weird thing to do at this moment.

She looked at Riva’s mouth in return. Daisy
didn’t have a clue how to kiss. One time Jo had made a comment
about the stupid, unrealistic way people kiss on TV, and Daisy had
laughed along even though she’d had no idea what Jo was talking
about. Now Daisy was left with the knowledge that a kiss was
supposed to be awesome, but also the fear that she’d be ridiculous
if she screwed up and sucked on Riva’s lower lip when she wasn’t
supposed to.

God, the more Daisy thought about it, the
weirder it got. People did it all the time on TV. Daisy had wanted
to do it plenty of times, but it didn’t really make sense now that
she was staring at the bottom half of Riva’s face. Why was it such
a big deal to press one mouth to another mouth? Why wasn’t kissing
ear to ear or chin to chin or nose to nose? Daisy was dead sure she
would mess this up if she tried it, but that didn’t stop her from
desperately wanting to try it. Like,
now
.

Riva chuckled.

Daisy flinched. “What?”

“You look so nervous. What are you thinking
about?”

“I’m thinking I have no idea what I’m
doing.”

“Neither do I,” Riva whispered, leaning a few
inches forward. Her stool protested as it scraped over the dingy
food-court tile, moving her closer to Daisy.

She was wrong because she
did
know
what to do. Daisy could never have been this smooth. Riva’s face
approached, bringing with it the increasing certainty that Daisy
was about to have her first kiss.

“What are you doing?” Daisy asked.

Riva stopped moving. “What does it look like
I’m doing?”

Daisy’s eyes darted to one side. Most people
weren’t paying attention to them, but there was a table of guys not
far away. She saw one nudge another and gesture toward where she
and Riva were sitting.

“You sure you want to do this here?” Daisy
asked.

Riva frowned. “I hadn’t really been
thinking
about it, you know?”

“Then wait,” Daisy said. “I haven’t told that
many people that I’m gay. This is a little public. I’m scared,
Riva.”

Riva snapped back into her seat as if yanked
by a rebounding spring. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Daisy was sort of relieved, but she was also
kicking herself for what she’d just given up. Not long ago, she
would have thought being kissed by Riva Corley was the best thing
that could happen to her, and she’d just turned her opportunity
down and made Riva feel bad for trying.

“I don’t exactly want you to be sorry.”

Riva shrugged. “It’s cool. Like I said, this
whole situation is messed up.” She squeezed Daisy’s hand. “I was
just trying to show you that I don’t think it’s gross.”

Daisy glanced at their intertwined fingers.
She felt so close to having what she’d wanted for so long, and so
close to being herself—and at the same time, terribly far from
both. “What do we do now?”

Riva cocked her head. “Should we go to your
car?”

That sounded like a thrilling idea and a
terrible one. Daisy thought about questioning Riva, but she’d also
just complained about being in public. Riva was listening to her,
trying to accommodate what Daisy needed.

She nodded.

Riva drank the rest of the shake before
tossing the cup in the trash on the way out. “It was sweet of you
to insist we get the blueberry,” she said, “but I ended up not
really paying attention to the shake.”

“Another time.”

Riva’s hand swung beside her hip, then
brushed against Daisy’s. Once. Twice. Too many times to be
accidental. Daisy understood the invitation, but if she wasn’t
ready to come out to the whole school, she wasn’t ready to hold
hands in public with Riva Corley. They couldn’t be the only kids
from Jason Reidman who’d gone to the mall over Spring Break.

She made a little distance between them and
walked quickly toward the mall parking lot. The day’s heat had
cooled into a bearable night. Daisy unlocked her car, and they both
got in and sat down. She turned on the engine, the air conditioner,
and the radio, and leaned back in her chair.

After a moment, Riva leaned across the
divider and put her head on Daisy’s shoulder. Just resting there,
Daisy could believe things were going to be all right. She didn’t
know what to do next, though, and a lot of the things on her mind
made her uncomfortable.

“You know I’m with Benton,” Riva said
finally.

“You think I forgot?” Daisy held back an even
sharper reply—it wouldn’t have been fair to ask Riva if she’d been
thinking about Benton while trying to kiss Daisy in the food court.
Daisy hadn’t been.

“I kind of want to blame him for all this. If
he wasn’t after me to
find a girl
, I’d never have looked at
anyone but him.”

That stung a bit, but Daisy didn’t want to
acknowledge that. “I get that,” she said instead.

“But I don’t get why you said you’d do this
thing with us. Did you think I would leave him for you or
something?”

Daisy bit the inside of her cheek. Yeah,
she’d kind of hoped, but she couldn’t admit that now. And she
wished Riva would leave Benton for her own reasons, because he
sounded like a jerk, but Riva would definitely accuse her of
ulterior motives if she brought that up now. She shifted, wanting
to shrug but afraid of dislodging Riva’s head.

“Haven’t you ever had a crush on a movie
star?”

Riva sat up, laughing. “I’m not a movie
star.” Daisy barely restrained herself from touching the spot where
Riva’s head had been. She wanted to catch a little of that warmth
on her fingertips.

“I’m making a point,” Daisy said, but she
couldn’t help grinning. “If you got the chance to make out with a
movie star, would you worry about whether they were going to leave
that other movie star they’re with to be with you? Or would you
just take the chance to kiss someone you really wanted to
kiss?”

“I’m not a movie star,” Riva said again, but
she was leaning close this time.

The parking lot was dark. Daisy’s lips parted
as if her mouth might know what to do, even though her head didn’t.
She wasn’t going to stop Riva more than once in one night.

Daisy’s first kiss didn’t come. When Riva
pulled away and sat back in her chair, her shoulders were
shaking.

“What’s the matter?” Daisy asked.

“I want to,” Riva said. “I really want to.
But I feel like I have to wait until tomorrow, or I’ll be cheating
on him.”

“Then we’ll wait until tomorrow,” Daisy said.
Her heart was pounding. There were so many reasons to say no to
this probably terrible plan, but the promise of that kiss…She’d
almost been able to taste it. She couldn’t give it up for good.
They’d already said too many things to each other.

Riva shook her head violently. “He’s throwing
me at you. He’s forcing me to try to get you interested in me, but
then I feel like if I kiss you because
I
want to, when I
want to, I’m cheating. It’s not right.” She grabbed Daisy’s hand,
her touch frantic. “You should say no to this, Daisy. This isn’t
going to go well.”

Daisy swallowed. That was too close to Jo’s
warnings. “You
should
leave him,” Daisy said. “He’s pushing
you into this. If you want me, you know I’m here. You could break
up with him. We could…”

Riva touched her fingers to Daisy’s lips, and
Daisy stopped talking. She wanted to kiss those fingers, but now
that the question of cheating had been raised, she didn’t feel she
could.

“I can’t,” Riva whispered. “I just can’t
leave him.”

Daisy knew she ought to say,
Then you
can’t have me
. Wasn’t that the sort of self-respect she wanted
Riva to show with Benton? But apparently really wanting someone
could turn a person into an absolute idiot.

“If you’re not going to leave him, then we’ll
do this thing tomorrow,” Daisy said.

Riva pulled her hand away, her eyebrows
climbing. Daisy shook her head before Riva could argue any
more.

“We’ll do it,” Daisy insisted. “I want to
kiss you, but no cheating. I don’t want either of us to feel guilty
about what we’re feeling for each other.”

She knew she would regret this decision
tomorrow. She didn’t really want to have her first kiss in front of
Benton, the jerk boyfriend. Daisy told herself that kissing Riva
Corley would be worth it in the end.

* * * *

Jo didn’t want to tell Daisy where she was
going, so she texted Declan and asked him for a ride. It was yet
another sign of how much she and her best friend had grown apart.
Daisy had told Jo to think of her car as half hers—probably
because, at the beginning of the year, neither of them had been
able to imagine a situation where that wouldn’t be true.

Declan showed up with a big grin and
expectations Jo could hear as clearly as if he’d shouted them. She
focused on not rolling her eyes as she got in the car.

Scoping out the empty driveway in front of
her house, Declan turned to Jo faux-casually. “Your parents at work
again?”

She pasted on a smile. “Uh-huh.”

It was hard to figure out why she felt so
impatient with him. Declan was a fun guy, and they’d had a hot
makeout session the day before—though Iris and Nico had made Jo
feel like she was moving
slow
.

There was nothing wrong with Declan. He was
good-looking—really sweet eyes and nice legs, thanks to the soccer
team. The kind of dark skin that lit up in the sun with red and
deep purple tones. He’d made her a very good playlist, and he used
correct punctuation in his texts.

For some reason, though, Jo wasn’t feeling
it. Now she was using him for his car while trying to decide in the
back of her mind how quickly she could break up with him. This was
the sort of thing she would have talked about with Daisy. Of
course, if Daisy wasn’t all messed up with Riva Corley, Jo wouldn’t
have
to use a guy for his car.