French kiss (3 page)

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the whole girlfriend thing. Being with Tyler felt as natural to her as breathing; at school, their once-distinct groups of friends had blended easily, forming a formidable sports posse. And outside of school, when it was just the two of them ... well, that was even better.

The light hadn't changed yet, so Holly leaned forward and lightly traced the line of Tyler's strong jaw.

"Hey," she whispered.

Tyler turned, his face breaking into a smile. "Hey," he whispered back.

At the exact same instant, they leaned in, and kissed.

Holly often wondered why she didn't simply spend her whole life kissing Tyler. Homework and sports and college applications were meaningless compared to the feel of his soft lips, his warm, cinnamony breath, the gentle touch of his tongue against hers.

"Mmm," Holly murmured, nestling in as close as her seat belt would allow. Tyler wrapped his arm around her shoulder, eagerly continuing the kiss, until the blare of car horns behind them ruined the moment.

They pulled apart; the light was green, but Tyler didn't accelerate. "I'm going to miss you so much," he said softly, his eyes sweeping over Holly's face.

Holly bit her lip as the car glided forward. "No kidding."

22

Tyler was staying in Oakridge over spring break for his do-gooder job at New Jersey Cares, a help-the-homeless organization. The Oakridge High college counselor had encouraged Tyler to sign up at the beginning of senior year, since volunteering always impressed colleges. But, as Holly liked to joke, "Saint Tyler" would have gladly joined such an activity on his own. Besides, he was practically guaranteed admission at his first choice, the University of Michigan, thanks to his skills on the lacrosse field. Holly herself had applied to U Mich and, at her parents' urging, nearby Rutgers -- among a handful of other schools. Neither she nor Tyler knew where they'd gotten in yet, and wouldn't find out for another month or so.

College. Spring break. The world seemed to be conspiring to keep her and Tyler apart. With a sigh of longing, Holly rested her hand on Tyler's knee, feeling the heat of his skin through the khaki fabric. Keeping one hand on the wheel, Tyler reached down and took Holly's small hand in his much larger one, gently tickling her palm, just the way she liked it. When he spoke, his voice was husky.

"Holly? Do you want to stop somewhere and --"

"Practice?" Holly finished, grinning. Her face flushed.

Tyler nodded, swallowing hard, his eyes on the road. "Practice," he affirmed.

23

"Practice" was Holly and Tyler's secret code word for fooling around. It made sense, Holly reasoned, since the rest of their lives revolved around other, regular kinds of practice, like track and lacrosse.

This,
though, was practice for something truly exciting.

When Holly had first started dating Tyler after spring break last year, she'd assumed -- based on information she'd read in
Seventeen --
that he'd start pressuring her to have sex right away. But Tyler had taken things deliciously slow, progressing to new levels on a month-by-month basis: April had been about serious kissing; in May, he'd unbuttoned her shirt for the first time; in June, they'd carefully progressed to the undoing-the-belt-buckle stage. One cool evening in October, Tyler's parents had miraculously been away at a wedding and Holly's parents miraculously hadn't been calling her cell every twenty seconds. They were lying half clothed on Tyler's bed when Holly, feeling brave and hopeful and terrified, turned in his arms and whispered in his ear the truth that had been nagging at her for a while: She was a virgin.

Holly had actually been cool with her virgin status -- before Tyler, she'd hardly given it a second thought -- until her best friend, Meghan, passed her a
Twist
article in Italian class. The article claimed that,

24

apparently, seventeen-year-old virgins were as rare as, say, spotted owls in North America. An endangered species.
I am a freak,
Holly had decided, feeling horrified and forgetting the fact that Meghan, Jess, and
most
of her friends fell into that very same category.

But when she'd made her big confession to Tyler, he'd simply pulled her in closer and murmured that he didn't mind; they could wait as long as she wanted, and he himself had only ever been with one girl, which, when you thought about it, barely even counted.

When Holly thought about it, though, she realized that the
one girl
Tyler referred to was Alexa St. Laurent. Tyler never spoke about Alexa, but Holly knew that the two of them had dated for most of junior year. Holly had practically grown up with Alexa, and especially since their bonding experience in South Beach last year, thought of her as a semi-sister. Holly was certain that Alexa didn't care about Tyler anymore. But sometimes the whole tangled web of connections still bothered her.

Tyler had been as good as his word: He never pressured Holly. But that Friday night, as he parked the car on a secluded dead-end street, under a thick canopy of trees, Holly felt a tingling -- part desire, part regret -- in her belly. She wished that Tyler wouldn't always be quite so patient. She wished she

25

weren't
flying off to London as a seventeen-year-old endangered-species. It was funny, but in recent months, Holly had been feeling more like the aggressor, while Tyler was the one who held back -- as if they'd switched standard boy-girl roles.

True to form, it was Holly who undid her seat belt first and reached for Tyler, drinking in another one of his knee-weakening kisses. Tyler's hands slid up her sides, over to the zipper on her fleece. Without breaking the kiss, he tugged off Holly's fleece and her black cotton cardigan until she was wearing only her red tank top. Holly drew back slightly to push Tyler's jacket off his broad shoulders and pull his hooded sweatshirt over his head, the better to admire his toned body. The windows were already fogged up, and they were only getting started.

His breath hot against her skin, Tyler planted kisses all up Holly's freckle-dusted collarbone and her neck until his lips reached her ear, which he nibbled on gently. Tyler knew the sensation was one of Holly's favorites. She sighed appreciatively and twined her arms around his neck, breathing in his crisp, clean scent; no matter how hot and bothered Tyler Davis got, he always smelled like fresh soap. Holly tried to wriggle up against him, but the gearshift made it difficult.

26

"Let's go in the back," Holly whispered, the words slipping out between kisses. Maybe it was the fact that she'd be boarding a plane in an hour and wouldn't be seeing her boyfriend for a full week, but suddenly Holly felt a growing urgency between herself and Tyler that she'd never known before.

Her body made the decision before her mind could even catch up: Tonight, she didn't want to simply practice.

Holly Jacobson was ready for the real deal.

"Now?" Tyler asked, catching his breath. His eyes moved to the dashboard clock; it was ten fifteen. "You were worried about being late for your --"

"Screw it. I'll run to the gate."

Tyler's face lit up. "If you say so." He was reaching for the door handle when Holly touched his arm. He turned back to her, his eyebrows raised.

As butterflies stormed her stomach, Holly took a big, calming breath and inclined her head toward the glove compartment. "Maybe we should ... take the box with us?"

The box
was a box of condoms that Holly and Tyler had purchased together in November on a completely embarrassing expedition to the CVS in the Galleria. Blushing like crazy, Tyler had grabbed the first container of Trojans he could reach and tossed it to Holly, who sprinted to the counter in record time. As Tyler

27

paid the cashier, Holly stuffed the purchase in a plastic bag and raced it out to Tyler's car. It was like they'd been participating in an Olympic triathlon. That, however, was the most action the poor Trojans had seen; they now sat, collecting dust, in Tyler's glove compartment.

Tyler's brown eyes went round. "Seriously?"

Holly squeezed his hand, her pulse quickening. Unable to speak, she managed a slow nod.
Yes.

Before either of them could change their minds, they grabbed the box and retreated to the back. Holly stretched out across the leather seat -- she still had to tuck her legs in a bit while Tyler tried to arrange himself on top of her without hitting his head on the car's roof. Holly stifled a giggle as Tyler accidentally kicked the side door and muttered "Ouch." She had to admit this wasn't the sexiest setup.

Plus, there
was
something kind of suburban-tacky about losing your virginity in the backseat of your boyfriend's Audi.

But whatever. She and Tyler often had to resort to backseat lovin'; there simply weren't that many places in which to get busy. Whenever they made out in Tyler's spacious room, with its double bed and framed sports posters on the walls, Tyler's mom would inevitably call them to dinner; Holly had come to suspect that Mrs. Davis psychically knew the
precise

28

moment that Tyler was reaching for the clasp on Holly's bra. Holly's house was worse; her narrow twin bed was even less conducive to hookups than a backseat, and what with her brother, Josh, blasting Eminem next door, and her parents not even bothering to knock ... impossible.

She and Tyler started kissing, more intensely than before. Soon, Tyler was in his boxers and slowly unbuttoning Holly's jeans, his warm fingers just shy of hesitant.

This is it,
Holly realized. Her heart was racing and her palms were sweaty, even if the rest of her was burning up.
There's no turning back.

"Oh, Tyler," she whispered, closing her eyes. She was aching in the most wonderful way. But suddenly Tyler's touch
was
hesitant. She felt him pause, one hand floating over her belly. By now, Holly was so attuned to Tyler's body -- she was sure she knew it as well as her own -- that she could always sense the slightest change in him. Her eyes flew open.

"What's wrong?" Holly spoke into his ear. "What is it?"

"Nothing's wrong," Tyler replied, his face in her neck. But Holly could feel his heartbeat, which had been so wild against hers only a second before, slowing down. Her own anticipation began to deflate. Something was off here.

29

"It's the car, right?" she whispered. When she and Tyler had talked about sex before, they'd both agreed they'd want it to happen in a king-size bed, and hopefully in a room with flickering candles and a door that locked.

"Not really," Tyler said. But then, as Holly's stomach sank in disbelief, he slowly drew back. He pulled away from her, his head narrowly missing the roof again, until he was sitting all the way up.

"Then
what?"
Holly asked, confused. She struggled to sit up as well. How could they have been attacking each other, like, an instant before? "Tyler, tell me."

Tyler brushed his arm across his forehead, not looking at her. A blush was creeping up his bare chest, into his face. "I don't think we should --" He cleared his throat. "I guess I sort of feel like we're ... rushing."

"Bushing?" Holly echoed. She checked her watch -- almost eleven. "Well, I do need to get to the airport," Holly conceded, feeling a prickle of worry about making her flight. "But I thought you wanted to --"

Tyler shook his head, pushing his fingers through his thick hair. "Not rushing right
now.
More like, in general. You know?"

"No," Holly replied truthfully. "I don't." She slipped up the straps of her tank top, dread building inside her.

30

Tyler stared down at his hands in his lap. "I've just... made that mistake before." He cleared his throat again.

Before?
Holly wondered.
With Alexa?
Holly's skin turned cold. She pictured her old friend her long, fairy-tale blonde tresses and delicate, heart-shaped face; her slinky-sheer designer dresses; her flirty, tinkling laugh ... Alexa
defined
sexy. And even though Holly had grown a lot surer of herself in the past year, whenever she was around Alexa, she felt pretty much invisible.

How could I not?
Holly thought, glancing down at herself. At seventeen, she still looked like a little girl all freckles and stick-straight hair. Only her decent-sized boobs made her seem remotely mature. But it didn't matter. Alexa was the kind of girl boys always lusted after.
And I'm not,
Holly realized, as tears began to burn her throat. This explained everything. Holly had gleaned enough from
Gilmore Girls, He's Just Not That Into You,
various movies, and countless teen magazines to know that, regardless of the circumstances or the timing, if a boy was attracted to you, he was
not
going to turn down sex.

Holly needed to face the harsh truth: Tyler had gone all the way with Alexa St. Laurent. But he didn't want to go all the way with
her.