Big is Beautiful (13 page)

He lit up when I mentioned kissing him. Why would he do that? He had Kendra to kiss on. "So, from the hug I gathered a good grade, but not a one hundred and not the bonuses. What was it?"

"Um… actually. I made a one hundred. I missed one problem and got two bonus questions right." I said sheepishly. I was excited but not enough to kiss him.

"Brittany! That's amazing! Good for you!" He stuck his hand up and high-fived me. High fives I could live with.

"I was pretty excited, hence the ill-advised hug."

"I think I earned a kiss for that hundred, don't you?"

Wha—what in the—huh?
I don't think I said any of those things, but I was sure they were written all over my face.

"You promised me a kiss if you got the bonuses right. Did you, in fact, get them right
and
make a one hundred on top of it?"

I nodded.

"Well…"

Okay, Matt Taylor wasn't asking me to kiss him. There was no way. None. It had to be a trap and there had to be a camera in my face right now.

"You don't have to if you don't want to. I wouldn't force you." He sounded genuine.

I had to think about this. On one hand, I had promised him a kiss. On the other, he wasn't exactly my boyfriend, and I'd never kissed anyone in my life. But it would be nice to kiss Kendra's boyfriend — er — ex-boyfriend.

Making up my mind, I leaned over the seat and stretched as far as I could go. Laying my lips on his cheek I held them there while my heart pounded so loudly I was sure he could hear it. His cheek had stubble that poked my lips in a good way. It might not be 'official,' but I'd always count it as my first kiss.

I looked up in time to see a shadow disappear in the hallway. The janitor probably. They tended to clean the halls when school was out. Not really wanting to, I backed away after a few seconds and couldn't look at him as I sat down in my desk. I knew my face was fire red. I'd kissed Matt Taylor, and thankfully not in the presence of Kendra or two hundred other students.

"Thank you for helping me get a good grade," I said, still feeling the tingle in my lips.

"Thank you for the kiss." He looked happy. Not mocking happy, but
happy
happy. "What will I get if I get you an overall semester average of A?"

I could only guess what he was hinting at. Obviously, something more than a peck on the cheek. Well, not obviously, because he wouldn't do
that
with me. He had a built, if not lopsided, Kendra for that. "We won't have to worry about it if we don't start studying." I made a funny laugh. I did that when I was nervous, and nervous I felt.

"I won't aggravate you anymore." He grinned. "I do have one more question, though."

"What?"

"Were you able to get a ticket for the Red Ball?"

The Red Ball…
The Red Ball
. Another thorn in my side. For the second time that day, my high deflated. The Ball was two days away, and I didn't see myself getting a ticket.

"That's a problem. I wanna go, but I can't find a way to get a ticket." It was true. I'd asked and asked different people even though I felt like an idiot doing it, and every answer had been,
Ask Kendra
. I'd already asked Kendra and that was no-go.

"Kendra has some I think. Did you ask her?"

Sigh. "I did, but she didn't seem too keen on selling me one."

He turned away and said something under his breath I didn't catch. "You let me work on her. I'll get you a ticket."

"You don't have to. It's just a stupid dance." One I really wanted to go to.

"Yeah, but…" He started to keep going, but I cut him off.

"Drop it. Let's just work on tomorrow's math, okay? Did Ms. Bennett give you anything for me to be working on?"

Matt hesitated for a few seconds, eyeballing me while I eyeballed him. We were stuck in an eyeball stalemate. I won.

"Fine. She gave me this." He handed me a worksheet with Lesson 18.1 written across the top. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

"What are your first impressions?"

"I'll never get to kiss you again." If my ability to kiss him was based on this, I sure wouldn't.

"What don't you understand?"

"Everything." It was an honest answer to every problem I had at the moment, both in life and in math.

For the next hour, he helped me with the worksheet. I was barely listening though, lost in my own daydreams about the Red Ball… maybe even being Red Queen. Popular Matt's date would have a shot at it. Hey, it was my daydream, and I could dream whatever I wanted, even silly things I knew would never come true.

"Brittany," he said and I snapped out of my coronation quickly.

"I'm listening." I really wasn't.

"No, you weren't."

How did he do that?

"You were sitting here half-dazed, looking at the paper like it had all the answers to the universe."

Very observant. "I wish."

He took the paper from me and sighed heavily.

"Don't do that," I protested, trying to get my paper back. "I'll listen. I promise."

"You won't, and I know this stuff so I don't have to learn it. I can talk to a wall and get it to understand better than you are listening today."

Ouch, did he have to be so blunt? It had been a really bad day… well, it had some good thrown in, but a lot of it was bad. "I said I was sorry."

"And I said you looked like you were trying to find all the answers to the universe on that one little piece of paper. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I'd already told him about the Red Ball and not having a ticket.

"Brittany."

"Matt," I said equally as annoying. "The only problem I have is the inability to understand geometry for long periods of time and a tutor who only wants to talk about my feelings."

"I never asked about your feelings."

Fair enough. I had nothing else to say. I'd kissed the guy an hour before, but thinking about the Red Ball and the inability to go had turned my mood sour.

He got quiet and lowered his head. For the longest time, I didn't think he'd speak. His fingers became very interesting to him, and he picked his nails dirt-free, not that I noticed any there to start with. "I do care though… about your feelings."

Why would a jock who had only known me for four days care about my feelings? Me, of all people. Kendra Moses, sure. I could see why he would care about her, but me?
Me
?

I must have looked all dumbfounded because he felt the need to elaborate. "I mean, okay, sure, we haven't known each other very long, but you remind me of someone I care about very much."

I regained my ability to talk, but in short syllables. "Who?"

His mouth opened like he was going to tell me his life story and shut just as quickly. "Doesn't matter," he said sadly. "The point is…"

He looked at me again with an expression I could not understand. It reminded me of the way guys look at girls in those romantic movies I liked to watch. Finally, he smiled, shook his head, and said, "The point is we have geometry to learn."

Matt flipped my book open to section 18.1. He started talking about the problems in ways I could understand, and I actually fought to listen this time.

Like always, time came for me to do the work on my own. Trying to remember exactly what he'd said, I worked out the problem fairly quickly… quick for me anyway. I checked my answer and re-checked because I really didn't want to be wrong and disappoint him. His opinion of me meant a lot.

"You're gonna have to give it to me some time or another. We're not getting any younger."

"Fine," I groaned. Praying to not look like an idiot, I handed him the paper.

I bit my lip in anticipation so hard it began to sting. Geometry was hazardous to my health. Of course, he took longer than necessary, made me wait, and nearly drove me crazy.

"Well?" I tapped my foot on the floor in aggravation. Really, man! I knew I was probably egging him on, but come on!

"Don't rush it. Just enjoy the still and quietness in here." He sounded like a Zen master. I wanted to throttle him.

"I'm going to quiet you," I said only half-kidding. Could he go any slower?

"You got it right," he said without any expression.

"I did what?" I must have been so mad, I misunderstood him.

"You got it right!" This time he had more excitement in his voice.

"I got it right?" I couldn't believe it. "I got it right?"

He nodded with a big ecstatic grin on his face.

"I got it right!" Totally running on emotion, I jumped up from my desk, did a little dance, and fell into his arms. Hugging the man when I was happy was quickly becoming my new norm.

Once the embarrassment faded, I enjoyed being close to him again. We were alone, so no Kendra to worry about, and he'd already let me kiss his cheek so this hug wasn't completely out of the blue.

I so needed to stop this.

I eased my grip on his shoulders when the most amazing and unexpected thing happened.

His arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tightly.

He was hugging me back!

In the cafeteria today, he hadn't. It had been just me attacking him. But now, in the solitude of the geometry classroom, Matt Taylor was hugging me back.

There weren't words for how I felt.
Excitement
was too lax.
Joy
didn't do it justice. What was I supposed to do now?

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear and tightened his embrace. I felt the stubble of his jaw on my cheek.

This wasn't right. Matt was in a league far, far, far beyond me.

Self-conscious, I eased up, and this time he loosened his grip but kept his arms around my back. I was sure with my size, it was a stretch. I knew the instant my face turned red, and it wasn't from being excited. Matt Taylor wasn't just holding me; he was feeling and seeing every fat roll I had in high definition.

A few strands of my hair had fallen down in my face over the last few hours, and I hadn't cared enough to put it back in the clip or even place it behind my ear. More gently than I even imagined, he rubbed a piece of my hair behind my ear and let his hand linger longer than necessary.

It was a dream.

It had to be a dream.

I was daydreaming.

That had to be it.

I was probably sitting in my desk with my hand on my jaw, drooling like a fool, looking at him all starry-eyed.

The sweet smell of his cologne wasn't tickling my nose.

His body wasn't touching mine.

I wasn't seeing the way his eyes were looking at me. Intensity pouring from them, something I'd only see in the movies. So, it couldn't be real because no guy would ever look at 'Big' like that.

None.

The only sense not covered was taste. And in a brief second, that was covered. My chin tilted up (not under my own power), and before I could breathe, his mouth brushed against mine.

Before I could get my bearings, his lips crashed fully into mine. At first, it felt like I was drowning in erratic ocean waves. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Only white blankness erupted in my cloudy mind.

This could not be happening.

Not to me.

Not at school.

It didn't take long for my body to decide it was human after all, and my mouth opened. Matt took the opportunity to change his kissing position, making the waves crash harder before I could fight my way to the top to get air.

I heard roaring in my ears and finally found the ability to breathe. He let me go, and I leaned back against the closest desk I could.

Whoa!

From the way he looked at me, I knew he hadn't expected that either. His eyes were dilated, his mouth red and swollen.

If he looked that out of sorts, I knew what I had to look like.

My first kiss was with my math tutor.

For what seemed like eternity, I looked at him and he looked at me. I guess neither of us knew what to say. My breathing became normal again and so did my hearing. I heard the faintest sound of something or someone faraway, running maybe, at the end of the hallway, but I didn't dwell on it too much. This was too important to think about other things.

"I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not." His voice was husky.

That made me feel a lot better. "Me either."

"Good, because I don't normally go around and kiss people I'm supposed to be helping."

"How many people have you helped?"

"Tutoring? Just you. But I also help out at the Senior Citizens' Center."

The thought of Matt kissing a lady without her dentures made my nose scrunch up. A visual I hadn't needed.

"Yeah… so, don't think that I do this every day."

"I wouldn't dream of it." I giggled.

When I was able to move again, I sat back down at my desk. If I got a kiss for every math problem I got right, I'd be an A student in no time!

There was an awkwardness between us which I guessed was understandable. He had kissed me after all. My first unless I counted Jesse Donaldson in third grade. Personally, I didn't count it. It was a slobbery kiss on the playground to get out of the 'Love Jail.' He was the criminal. I didn't make the mistake of arresting him again.

"Things are weird now, aren't they?" he said.

"No… no, they are…"

He raised a cute brow at me.

"Yeah, they are. I'm sorry. I'm not…" Should I tell him I wasn't used to being kissed? Was that something someone told their first? Did the kisser get a medal if they took the kiss-ee's first kiss? I thought Matt probably deserved one for kissing me, that was for sure. My toes were still tingly.

"Kendra's pretty mean to you, isn't she?"

Kendra? Why did we have to talk about Kendra? Did the world revolve around her? That didn't take much thought at all. "Mean would be an understatement for what she is to me. She has taunted me ever since she learned my middle name."

Matt shook his head. "That's not right. She shouldn't get to ruin people's lives like she does. It's part of the reason I broke up with her."

"What was the other?"

He shrugged. "She was a horrible kisser. Glad I got to have a good one for once."

A four alarm fire wouldn't burn as hot as my face.