First Time for Everything (21 page)

It was edging onto midnight—closing time for the maze—when I stepped on my own loose shoelace, nearly tripping into a wall of corn stalks.

In the time it took to tie my shoe, I’d lost the others. I didn’t hear any of Megan’s or Margo’s piercing giggles or any of their footsteps on the dried and crunchy leaves. At the closest intersection, I looked both directions and saw nothing but dark night and pale stalks. Christ, that’s just what I needed. My heart boom-boomed a bit in my chest, but not like I was scared. Not scared of something happening to me in the maze, at any rate. More the thought of having to be “rescued” from the maze while Blake was around… I wouldn’t survive the humiliation.

I examined my two choices. There was nothing to distinguish one route from another. I pulled out my phone and enabled the flashlight feature. Cheating, maybe, but it might save me from going in the complete opposite direction of Carter, Jared, and the girls. The light didn’t help much, though. A crunch of dried cornhusks sounded from the right.

“Carter? Is that you?”

No one answered. I hoped it wasn’t Carter playing a trick. Actually, I changed my mind. Carter playing a trick would be a better option than a wild deer passing through for a midnight snack. Deer might be placid creatures, but the hooves can be blade sharp, and they know how to use their antlers (the bucks at least) in a confrontation. I rolled my eyes. For crying out loud. Did I just admit I was afraid of a deer? How about wolves? Wolves weren’t out of the norm in this part of Wisconsin. Did I think of wolves? No, I had to worry about Bambi.

“You
are
a pussy,” I muttered and turned right. More likely than wolves or deer, Carter or some other kid was lurking in the maze. I followed the sound I thought I had heard. Safety in numbers, right?

Another noise—the creak and rustle of cornstalks—told me I picked the right direction.

“Carter?” I didn’t yell. I said his name softly, hoping he’d acknowledge if he heard it while at the same time hoping no one else did.

No answer. I followed the curve of the path until I reached a dead end marked by a large wooden barrel. A giant jack-o’-lantern leered at me from the top. Maybe the others hadn’t gone that way after all.

A high-pitched squeal pierced the quiet of the night. A girl—I’m pretty sure I recognized Megan’s ear-splitting tone—burst into gales of laughter. Probably Carter dragging her aside for more kissing.

I knew I should have gone left. I turned and backtracked a ways toward the intersection where I’d lost them, but my foot caught on a bent stalk, and I flew forward, hands sinking into the cool earth and decomposing leaves. My phone flew a few feet, the light going out. “Damn it!” I stood up and tried to decide what to do with my grimy hands. I didn’t want to wipe them on my jeans or my coat, but I’ll admit the sticky mud and whatever else on my hands felt nasty.

Looking down, I searched for my phone, cursing myself for the matte black casing I’d chosen. In the night, with darker shadows hiding huge chunks of the maze’s path, it might as well have been camouflaged. I don’t know how long I knelt on the ground, searching in vain for my phone. Mom was going to kill me. I’d only had the phone for a few months, and there was no way she would spring for a new one. It would take me months bagging groceries at Stan’s, my part-time job, to save up enough to replace it.

Mud and God only knew what else soaked through the knees of my jeans a few minutes later. I gave up. There was no way I would find it tonight. I’d have to call the haunted farm people tomorrow and hope someone turned it in. If they found it before the phone got plowed into the ground next spring at planting time, I might only have to get it repaired rather than replaced.

I tried to find the barrel again as a point of reference, but in the short time since I’d seen it last, I’d gotten totally turned around. The moon chose that moment to hide behind some thick clouds, and the already dark corn maze became almost completely black. I couldn’t even tell where the next intersection was.

I read somewhere once a person could find their way out of maze if they kept one hand on the wall at all times. Eventually it would lead the person out. A daunting task, but what were my other options? Wait for help? Did I have enough time for that? What if it took me back through every single alley and turn? I could still be working my way out by this time tomorrow. Maybe I’d find one of the rescue-me-I’m-a-loser bells. Again, the alternatives sucked.

I stuck out my hand and started to walk. I wasn’t completely blind in the dark, but it was close. I’d only made it a couple of yards when I reached my first big gap in the corn stalks, a gap so big it could only mean I’d found my first turn. I followed the edge of the corn until I faced ninety degrees left of where I had been and took a small step that crashed into a body. Not one of the cheesy scarecrows. A real, living, breathing, body.

“Whoops! Sorry!” Instinctively I grabbed on to the person’s coat in an effort to keep my balance.

“No problem.” The voice was soft and husky and vaguely familiar. I couldn’t quite place it, though, since another burst of laughter, male this time, erupted from a couple of rows away. Great, people. At least I wasn’t too far away from the others.

The only warning I had was the slight shifting of shadows, and then,
wham
, his mouth covered mine.

I should have been outraged. Or, at least, a little freaked out that some stranger, possibly a serial killer in disguise, kissed me in the middle of a dark corn maze.

I should have pushed him away, telling him to leave me the hell alone.

I should have done a lot of things.

But doing something would have required more working brain cells than I had at that moment.

Whoever he was, when he kissed me, my brains started to leak out through my ears. Well, not really. Gross. But every thought, every molecule, every brain cell whirling around in my head were suddenly and completely useless. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t talk. I could only
feel.

And I felt
fantastic.

It took me a solid minute before I could do anything more than stand there and revel in the moment. Then, remembering kissing was a two-person activity, I started to participate. The press and caress of lips against mine, the moist puffs of breath when we broke for some much needed air, all of it overwhelmed my senses. When I pressed back, changing the angle of our mouths, my kissing partner groaned and deepened the kiss, adding the smallest glide of tongue.
Oh wow
. I leaned closer, needing more contact.

Who knew all the stupid kissing clichés were true? It was like dancing or flying. Like floating. Stars fell, flowers bloomed. My eyes closed, and I’m not entirely sure one of my legs didn’t kick out like some kind of old-fashioned romance heroine. I had been ensnared in a spine-tingling, toe-curling kiss to end all first kisses.

Eventually my brain started working, though sluggishly, and I started cataloging details. His lips were cool. Not surprising given the temperatures outside. And it was a he, thank God. I don’t know how I would have handled my toes curling from a girl’s kiss. Well, maybe if it had been a girl, I could have found a way to push her aside without losing my sanity in a cloud of hormones. He was taller than me by a couple of inches, and what I could feel of his body under his bulky coat was thin. He smelled awesome. When he broke away to catch his breath, I did the same, inhaling the heady combination of fruity-scented hair products and fabric softener.

I should have opened my eyes to actually see him, but I was so afraid it would ruin the moment or find out it was some cruel joke or even a wicked dream. A warm hand grazed my cheek. “Happy birthday,” he whispered, then stepped back, and he was gone.

It took forever before I could finally open my eyes. Not in time to catch a look—even if I could have in the darkness—to identify my kisser, though.

The floodlights surrounding the maze ignited with a clunk and a hiss, and the brightness nearly blinded me as effectively as the darkness had. But lights on meant it was time to go. And I still didn’t know where I was. I saw the top of one of the light poles and figured heading “toward the light” was as good a plan as any.

A few minutes later, I heard a crowd chattering just out of sight.

“This way!” someone called.

I turned toward the voice and had to put my hand on my chest to physically keep my heart from beating through my ribcage. Blake. He was only a few yards ahead of me, probably herding lost idiots out of the maze. I didn’t know whether to melt into a puddle and slink away in shame or to dance in glee because he was so close. And, oh my goodness, he even smiled at me. Tongue-tied, I could only nod as I walked past him. Getting close to him always jangled my nerves, but this time I made it a point to make eye contact.
He
was a couple of inches taller than me. Could he have been the one who…? No. Absolutely not. No matter how much that would make my day—hell, my century—birthday wishes don’t come true that easily. No, it must have been someone else.

But who?

“Joey!” Carter waved at me from a short stack of hay bales he and the others sat on. “Where have you been?” he asked me when I arrived. “I can’t believe you got lost in there!”

“I didn’t get lost,” I protested. “You guys ran off when I had to stop and tie my shoe.” There wasn’t much venom in my voice. I was too distracted by what happened in the maze to worry about Carter being a jerk. “I can’t believe I lost my phone,” I added as an afterthought.

My eyes fell on Blake again, but I made myself look away. Bret Thomas, who stood by his old pickup, was too tall; his buddy Tim Hayes, too short. Phil and Jason were permanently connected at the lips to their girlfriends, so it seemed unlikely they would kiss
me
. A couple of the other guys I recalled from school had the reputation of being asshole bigots, so they were out. I didn’t recognize the handful of college boys, and they wouldn’t have known it was my birthday or even care that it was. Could I have gotten the height wrong? Maybe Carter…. I chuckled at the ridiculous thought. Carter took his role as best friend seriously, but even he wouldn’t kiss me just so I could avoid the pressure of being a never-been-kissed sixteen-year-old. And I’d have noticed the braces.

Jared walked over from wherever he’d been. His red-streaked dark hair hid most of his face from view. “We’ve got to get going,” he told Margo. “If you miss curfew, your dad’ll freak.”

Margo nodded in agreement and made sure her purse hung secure on her shoulder.

Jared acknowledged the rest of us with a wave. “Later,” he called out over his shoulder. When he brushed past me I realized he was a couple of inches taller than me too. It couldn’t have been him, could it? That would be as absurd as thinking it was Blake. Wishful thinking, much? Which was ridiculous. Jared wouldn’t think of me that way, and I certainly didn’t think about him that way. Sure, at least I knew he was gay and I found him undeniably hot, but we lived in completely different worlds. And, well, he wasn’t Blake.

“Come on, we’d better get going too.”

I followed Carter and Megan to Carter’s car.

II. The Clues

“S
O
,
WE
’
RE
still looking for volunteers to man the info booth at the Community Service Fair on Friday.” Jared looked up from the meeting’s agenda in front of him.

It was Monday afternoon, and we were halfway through our biweekly GSA meeting, and club members weren’t exactly jumping up and down to volunteer. Most of the members, like me, doodled on our copies of the agenda. When we were talking about issues or planning a fund-raising event, we were a pretty lively crowd. When it came to the Community Service Fair, well, let’s just say no one wanted to be stuck on that duty. Pretty much only the suck-ups and the do-gooders worked the Community Service Fair.

Jared leaned forward, staring at each of us in turn as though trying to make us volunteer through will power alone. “It’s good for the GSA, both in terms of networking and in outreach.”

His being right didn’t make anyone more interested in volunteering.

His dark eyes met mine, and the intensity of the stare was almost enough to make me raise my hand. “How about you, Joey?”

Ah crap.
“Sure, I can do that.”

“Great.” Jared beamed and tucked the red strand of hair behind an ear.

Eye contact and a smile.

I pulled out the little notebook from the front pocket of my backpack. Ever since Friday night, I’d been tracking details—clues—as to who my secret kisser was. I made a list of every boy I’d seen at the maze that night, only eliminating ones I could be absolutely sure about. Like Pat Brand, who had a full goatee and mustache, and the kisser didn’t have that much facial hair. I flipped to the page with Jared’s info and made a note about the unusually friendly manner.

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur. Not out of boredom or excitement but out of distraction. I wished my little notebook held more clues. I looked at each entry. Carter thought the whole thing—some guy finding and kissing me in the corn maze—was creepy and stalkerish. I probably should have agreed with him, but instead I was intrigued and energized. Carter decided to help me figure out who the mysterious boy was so he could prove that only a weirdo freak would accost random boys in a corn maze.

I didn’t tell him I was hoping for something a little more. After all, any guy who would go to that much effort just to kiss me couldn’t be all bad, could he?

It took me a minute to realize the meeting was over. Most of the other members had cleared out by the time I shoved my agenda into my GSA folder and stashed the folder into my backpack. I had to hurry if I wanted to catch the bus. Yes, finally sixteen and still riding the bus. Pitiful.

“Hey, Joey, wait up.” Jared slung his messenger bag over one shoulder and swept red and black bangs from his eyes. “Thanks for stepping up. I know I kind of put you on the spot. The Community Service Fair is a bore, but we’ve got to do it.”