Losing Hope

face and slide it under her jaw, then run my thumb across her bottom lip. I can feel her chest heave against mine and her breaths come in quicker succession.
    “I wish I had kissed you Saturday night,” I whisper, staring down at her mouth. She parts her lips and I continue to run my thumb across them. “I can’t stop imagining what you taste like.” I press my thumb to the center of her lips and I quickly lean in and kiss her. I pull away just as fast, though, because that tease just about kills me. Her eyes are closed and I release her face and walk away.
    I’m pretty sure I just became the master of willpower, because walking away from that mouth was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
    • • •
    “Hey, whisker biscuit,” Daniel says, cutting in line to stand in front of me.
    “ Whisker biscuit?” I sigh and shake my head. I swear I don’t know where he comes up with this shit.
    “Well, you don’t like it when I call you Hopeless. Or cunt nugget. Or piss flap. Or—”
    “You could just call me Holder.”
    “Everyone else calls you Holder and I hate everyone else, so no. I can’t.” He takes two empty trays and hands me one. He nods in the direction of Sky’s table. “So, I hope your ditching me Saturday night for cheese tits over there was worth it.”
    “Her name is Sky,” I correct.
    “Well I can’t call her Sky. Everyone else calls her Sky and I hate everyone else, so . . .”
    I laugh. “Well then why do you call Valerie by her name?”
    He spins around. “Who’s Valerie?” he asks, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
    “ Val? Your ex-girlfriend? Or current girlfriend. Whatever she is.”
    Daniel laughs. “No, man. Her name isn’t Valerie, it’s Tessa.”
    What the hell?
    “I call her Val because it’s short for Valium and I always tell her she needs to take that shit by the bucketful. I wasn’t lying when I said she was fucking crazy.”
    “Do you call anyone by their actual name?”
    He ponders my question for a second, then looks at me, confused. “Why would I want to do that?”
    I give up. “I’m sitting with Sky today,” I tell him. “You want to sit with us?”
    Daniel shakes his head. “Nah. Val’s having a good day so I better take advantage of it.” He takes his change from the cafeteria cashier. “See you later, buttshark.”
    I’m kind of relieved he’s sitting with Val. I don’t know if I’m ready for Sky to get a dose of Daniel yet. I pay for my food and walk toward their table. When I reach them, it sounds like Sky is giving Breckin a recap of our weekend. Breckin sees me walk up behind her but he just winks and doesn’t let her know I’m listening.
    “He showed up at my house on Friday and after quite a few misunderstandings, we finally came to an understanding that we just misunderstood each other. Then we baked, I read him some smut, and he went home. He came back over Saturday night and cooked for me. Then we went to my room and . . .”
    I drop my tray down beside hers and take a seat. “Keep going,” I say. “I’d love to hear what we did next.”
    She shoots me a quick grin when she sees my tray beside hers, then she rolls her eyes and turns back to Breckin. “Then we broke the record for best first kiss in the history of first kisses without even kissing.”
    “Impressive,” Breckin says.
    “It was an excruciatingly boring weekend,” I say.
    Breckin shoots me a look like he wants to kick my ass for insulting Sky. He just scored major points for that one.
    “Holder loves boring,” Sky clarifies. “He means that in a nice way.”
    Breckin picks up his fork and looks back and forth between us. “Not much confuses me. But you two are an exception.”
    He’s not the only one confused by us. I’m seriously confused by us. I’ve never felt this comfortable with a girl before and we aren’t even dating. We haven’t even kissed. Although I did give her one hell of a non kiss. Just thinking about it has me anxious. “You busy tonight?”
    She wipes her mouth with her napkin. “Maybe,” she says, smiling.
    I wink at her, knowing that’s her stubborn way of saying she’s not busy.
    “Was it the smut I let her borrow that she read to you?” Breckin asks.
    “Smut?” I laugh. “I don’t think it was smut, but I didn’t catch most of the book because my mind was a little sidetracked.”
    Sky slaps me on the arm. “You let me read for three hours straight and you weren’t even paying