Life, Love, & Lemons Read online

  The girls’ room was in the exact same position as my room, but their room definitely looked like two little girls lived there. Somehow they pushed two twin beds, two white dressers, and lots of pink little girl clothes all into that tiny room. I watched as Kai tucked each one of the girls into bed and then proceeded to sit on the edge of Abby’s bed and read The Cat in the Hat at least three times. Then he kissed them both good night and led me out into the living room. There was something charming about a guy that was good with kids. I couldn’t deny that I watched the way his mouth moved as he spoke, wondering what it would be like to kiss a guy with a lip ring.

  “Wow, you’re like really good with them,” I said once we were out of ear shot.

  “Yeah.” He plopped down on the futon that was folded into a couch. “Mom is a supervisor at a grocery store during the day and works at a call center for a cell phone company three times a week, so I kind of do it a lot.”

  I felt sorry for Kai and at the same time, was envious. At least his mom was helping to support them. I wasn’t sure if there was a dad in the picture, but by the looks of all the family pictures, he was probably long gone.

  Kai patted the seat next to him and I sat down, leaving about six inches between us, just in case he didn’t want to be too close.

  “So you got threatened by the infamous Brynne and you still want to hang out with me, I’m impressed.” He smiled and I realized just how white and straight his smile was. Not in an overly bleached way, but like a guy that definitely took good care of his teeth.

  “I figure if you can date someone like that, then you definitely can handle an ex-Catholic school girl.” I giggled, leaning in more toward him.

  “What can I say? I like a challenge.” He scooted closer, ever so slightly. His warm brown eyes were locked on me.

  “But do you really want to date a guy like me? You seemed pretty turned off by me when we met. I think you called me a perv and unsanitary.” He laughed and leaned his head back on the futon.

  I had to think about that one. I usually was not attracted to guys like him. Punk fans with piercings and tight jeans definitely weren’t my thing. The guy I dated before Jake played tennis, and my middle school boyfriend wore sweater vests. This was a whole new adventure for me.

  “Who said anything about dating? I mean I thought you only dated girls with guitars and tattoos.” I fiddled with a string that was loose on one of the blankets. By looking at the futon it seemed like someone slept out there, and I was guessing since his sisters shared a room, that person was probably Kai. My face got hotter realizing that I was probably sitting on his bed.

  “Yeah, but I think it’s pretty easy to like a girl with a Mini Cooper and mad pie-eating skills, too.” He inched even closer so that our sides were touching. The bare skin of his arm was warm against mine and my whole body heated up.

  “So are you saying that you like me?” I absently bit on my bottom lip and held his gaze.

  “Yeah, I think you can say that.” He started to lean in as I closed my eyes but then his sisters’ door creaked open. My eyes sprang open and Kai jumped to the other side of the futon before I could even move.

  “Can I sit out here with you until I fall asleep?” Damaris asked as she came out, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists.

  Kai rolled his eyes. “Really, Damaris?”

  “Yes.” She pouted. “Were you guys doing something that you weren’t supposed to be?”

  “No, we were just about to do some homework,” I said and pulled out a notebook and my geometry book out of my back pack.

  Damaris came up and scooted right between Kai and me. Kai put his arm around her as she looked up at me. “Are you sure you weren’t kissing?”

  For the first time I saw Kai turn beet red.

  “No.” I flashed a quick smile in Kai’s direction, then looked back at Damaris. “I don’t kiss boys unless they’re my boyfriend.”

  I think he got the message because his face didn’t get back to a normal shade for the rest of the night.

  Chapter 13

  We Are The Former Bowling Team

  “Hey, do you work today?” Kai ran over, his shoes squeaking against the yellow linoleum floors that lined our lockers.

  I shook my head. Since our almost kiss the night before I couldn’t wait to spend more time with him and hoped he wasn’t working either.

  “Cool,” he said and then nodded. “I don’t either. You want to go bowling with me and some of my friends after school?”

  “Bowling?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “Yeah.” He walked along next to me toward my English class. “They always have a bunch of free bowling passes in the office, so I snag a bunch at the beginning of the year.”

  I shrugged. “All right, I guess I can do that. Let me just ask Dad.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you after class then?” He smiled, running his tongue across his lip ring. My face heated up thinking about what it would be like to run my own tongue over it.

  “Sounds good.”

  Dad had no problem with me going bowling after school. He was actually pretty preoccupied lately, typing away on his computer like it would disappear if he didn’t get every word in. And Mom was never home, so I didn’t need her permission.

  “Ready to get bowled over?” Kai was standing in almost the exact same spot I left him in before class, swinging his arm like he was tossing a ball underhand.

  “You’re so lame, do you know that?”

  “Yeah.” He placed his arm around my shoulder and walked down the stairs and to the student parking lot. “But you like it.”

  “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes, but still smiled.

  “You want to ride with me to Bowl-Z-Rama?” He arched his brows.

  “Eh, is it all right if I meet you there?” I glanced over the parking lot at my car.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” He nodded, his voice dropping.

  I wouldn’t have minded riding with him, but I wanted to adjust my makeup a little bit before meeting up with him. And if his friends were as creepy as the guys at Perkins, I would need a quick out.

  “Okay, see you there.”

  ***

  I pulled up to Bowl-Z-Rama and parked my car right next to the giant orange Falcon. It didn’t take me too long to get ready and Bowl-Z-Rama wasn’t exactly a fancy place, but I couldn’t just go looking like a hot mess.

  Bowl-Z-Rama had been built sometime in the seventies and nothing had really been updated except for the fenced-off sand volleyball courts that I think were just added to sell more beer and make smokers happy.

  I walked up to the giant blue stucco building and opened the front doors to see where the 1970’s threw up. Yellow, green, and red, checkered shag carpet lined the floors and the walls, leading up to a long line of orange bowling lanes and old neon signs for Coke products.

  “Hey, you made it!” Kai waved from the lane directly in front of the door.

  I walked down the stairs and saw the girl, Star, from Perkins grabbing a ball from a bag.

  “Yeah, I can’t resist a nostalgic bowling alley.” I smiled, taking a seat in one of the cream chairs next to the scoring computer.

  “You didn’t tell me we had an audience!” Brody’s gravelly voice could be heard through the entire bowling alley as he and Grant walked from the concession stand with their mouths full of something fried and greasy.

  “I invited Bentley to come hang out with us,” Kai said, sitting down next to me and tying a pair of bright pink bowling shoes.

  “Are you all on the bowling team or something?” I looked around at all their faces.

  Star snorted and put her ball on the rack. “We are the former bowling team. It got cut last year.”

  “Oh.” I nodded, feeling like an absolute jerk.

  “It happens,” Star said, shrugging

  I needed to break up the awkwardness, so I quickly went to the front counter and rented a pair of shoes. Then went back to the lane once I had my smelly rental shoes.r />
  “I’m not very good at this,” I whispered to Kai.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” He stood and grabbed his ball. “I’m not either.” He didn’t take his eyes off of me and threw a perfect strike.

  “What was that?” I threw my arms out to the side in a huff.

  “Oh, dumb luck.” He smirked.

  Dumb luck my foot. After two games of bowling, Kai and his friends were all in the 400’s and I was barely hanging on at 150. That is 150 between two games.

  “You should have told me you were a bowler.” I gently punched Kai in the arm as we walked out to our cars.

  “Ow.” He grabbed his arm and threw his head back. “That is my good throwing arm. Now I will never bowl again!”

  “Haha.” I folded my arms across my chest as we approached my car and I leaned against it.

  “You’re lucky I like you.” Kai let go of his arm and turned until we were toe-to-toe.

  “And why is that?” I inched up, so that our faces were almost touching.

  “Because I normally wouldn’t let someone get away with that abuse.”

  “Ha ha.”

  He tilted his head and leaned closer. His lip ring gleamed in the light, and I kept wondering what it would feel like on my lips.

  “Bee, is that you?”

  I jumped back and then turned toward the sound of the voice.

  Brett jogged from the volleyball court and to my car.

  “It is!” He pushed his way until he was standing between me and Kai. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “Oh, Brett, what are you doing here?” I glanced over at Kai, who was giving Brett the stink eye in a major way.

  “It’s my sand volleyball night.” His grin was way too wide. That would explain why he ran from the sand volleyball court.

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot.”

  “Hey, who is this?” He turned toward Kai and then shook his hand like a politician. “I’m Brett, Bee and I used to go to St. Christopher’s together.

  “Uh, I’m Kai, Bentley’s…er…friend.” Kai glanced at me and then looked back to Brett.

  “Cool.” Brett let go of Kai’s hand and looked back at me. “Hey, Bee, by the way I’m sorry about the other night. Jake can be a real ass sometimes.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Well, hey, it was good seeing you, but I’ve got to get back out to the court.” He smiled and then headed back toward the fence. “Nice meeting you, Kai,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “Well that was…” Kai turned toward me.

  I let out the breath that I didn’t know I was holding in. “My former life.”

  Chapter 14

  Maybe

  From Monday to Friday it was like everything had changed. Instead of walking through the halls alone with my head down, Kai was always by my side. This, of course, led to some very interesting stares and nicknames from people. I think my favorites were Bonnie and Hyde or Sid and Nancy Drew. Anything people could think of to come up with a couple name for the punk kid and the preppy girl. There were others, but the East High kids could get pretty raunchy when they came up with some of these nicknames.

  “Do you still want to go watch Grant and Brody’s band play on Saturday?”

  It was that lull after I had fourth period gym class and before lunch. I was leaning against my locker, and Kai pressed his palm against the other locker and faced me.

  I still wasn’t sure what to think of Grant and Brody. They were nice and all, but I always felt like they were gawking at me like I was some sort of a zoo exhibit.

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  The truth was that I already asked my parents about the concert. Mom just rolled her eyes and couldn’t believe that her daughter wanted to go to some crummy warehouse to sweat with a bunch of teenagers, but Dad was a little more interested. Just by asking about the concert hosted a whole slew of questions about the bands and who I was going with. I especially got nervous when he started asking questions about Kai.

  “What do you mean maybe?” He asked as he ran his tongue over his lip ring. We still hadn’t kissed. I was pretty adamant about the whole not kissing until he was my boyfriend thing. But I couldn’t deny how much I thought about his lip ring.

  “I mean, maybe I’m busy or something.” I twirled a strand of hair around my fingertip.

  “What? Are you going out with one of your other boyfriends or something that night?” He leaned in closer. A couple of jocks walked by and yelled some disgusting comment, but I pretended like I didn’t hear them.

  “I don’t have any boyfriends at all, so I really wouldn’t be going out with any of them, now would I?” I batted my eyelashes.

  “Why don’t you be my girlfriend then?” He traced his free hand down my arm, full-on putting on the charm.

  “Maybe,” I answered very quickly, almost too quickly, since he blinked really hard.

  “What do you mean, maybe?” He tilted his head to the side and he reached down to grab my hand.

  “Ew, get a room.” A very tall girl with fiery red hair and cat’s eye glasses yelled and then walked over to us.

  “Teegan, if you think that hand holding is bad, then you really need to get out more,” Kai quipped, quickly looking from me to Teegan.

  “Oh, I saw plenty of that with you and Brynne. Remember I’m her band mate,” Teegan snarled and walked closer. “But when it’s with little Miss Sandra Dee, it’s kind of disgusting.” She giggled and headed over to a group of girls a few lockers away. Once I caught sight of the group I immediately saw Brynne’s big green eyes glaring in my direction.

  “Do you really want to have to keep dealing with that every day? The weird vampire girls and jocks talking about us? Because that’s what you’re going to get,” I said, looking up at him. My cheeks were still hot after Teegan’s comment and I hoped I didn’t look too embarrassed.

  He laced our fingers together. “I wouldn’t be still standing here if I didn’t want to be with you.” He looked from our hands and back down to me. “Now what do you say, will you be my girlfriend?”

  “Maybe.” I smiled again.

  He started to roll his eyes when I got up on my tippy toes placing my hands on the back of his neck. I slowly pulled him closer as our lips met for the first time. I couldn’t believe how warm and rough his lips were in contrast to the cold and smoothness of his lip ring. Nor could I believe all the people that were cheering as he pulled me closer to fully envelope himself in the kiss. I didn’t want it to end and swear I literally almost melted in his arms when I felt his tongue on my bottom lip.

  A large hand thrusted between us, knocking our bodies apart. I got off of my tippy toes and quickly let go of Kai as I turned to see my gym teacher, Mr. Brown, with his large and quite furry hand placed firmly in the middle of me and Kai. He faced Kai with his spit-stained mustache.

  “Handshake, Mr. Stone.” He took Kai’s hand from mind and shook it senseless. “Handshake!”

  “Yes, Mr. Brown,” Kai said as he nodded in his direction. He looked like he was trying his hardest not to laugh. Then Mr. Brown turned and walked away with his windbreaker making the most annoying swishing sound.

  If I thought we had an audience before, we definitely had almost the entire hallway trying not to gawk now.

  When I closed my locker Kai took my hand in his hand as we walked to lunch. We were only about five steps from my locker when he stopped and looked down at me.

  “So does that mean it’s a yes?”

  I shot a quick glance over to Brynne and her friends, who were trying to pretend like they weren’t staring when I glanced over.

  I looked back up to Kai. I got back up on my tippy toes and placed another quick kiss on his lips “It’s a definite yes.”

  Chapter 15

  Drink Your Milk

  I got off of work at three, and Gabby agreed to come over afterwards to work on homework and help me figure out what to wear for the rock show. She was the first friend I had over at the apar
tment, and I was pretty sure she would be my only friend for awhile. My parents were acting even crazier than usual. Pre-lay-off Dad was the biggest hypochondriac and would have gone to the doctor for anything and everything. Post lay-off, and since his insurance extension expired, he hadn’t gone to the doctor in months and this time he was really sick. His nose was all stuffed up, so he was constantly sniffling and then he was congested so he would cough just as often as he sniffled. Mom kept saying that she couldn’t stand his constant noises and would keep leaving to go off to wherever she went.

  Since the concert didn’t start until seven, Dad offered to cook Gabby and me dinner. The whole time he stood over the stove we could hear him coughing from my bedroom. I didn’t know if it was because Dad was sick or, since he hadn’t cooked the past seventeen years, if he was just coughing on fumes.

  “You know you don’t have to stay for dinner, Gabby.” She stood at my closet, going through what little clothes I had since I’d either sold or gotten rid of most of my old weekend wear. Though that didn’t mean my bedroom wasn’t packed with everything that used to be in my old bedroom, which was twice the size of my current one. My queen-sized, white canopy bed took over almost the whole middle of the room with its pink drapes and bedspread and was flanked on each side by a night stand. Underneath my single small window was an oak desk with my laptop and a few books thrown on top, and on the other side of the room were my bookcase and a dresser. Needless to say I felt like Gabby and I were two sardines stuffed into the room.

  “No.” She smiled as she held up a tank top to her chest. “But I want to.”

  “Good, it’s nice to have a friend around.” I stood up from the bed and approached the closet, which was only about five steps away. “You know you can always go to the concert with me. I mean, I may need some protection against Brynne.”