A High School Trip! What could go wrong? Well, put teens in a room with an empty bottle and drama is certain to unfold. Kissing others and watching others kiss may reveal some hidden feelings never felt before. After midnight, the chaperone has checked out of caring.
PART VI - SPIN-THE-BOTTLE
It’s after midnight and no one is ready for bed. They are ready for something far more exciting.
Once all the students are gathered into the boys' motel room they fan out and find places to sit. To Alice's delight, everyone has agreed to join but yet all seem hesitant. Curious. Daring. The room is a mix of hormones, unrequited love, mutual pining, questions...and hopefully some answers. Alice pulls out the bottle she had swiped and sets it in the middle of the room, then steps over and falls back into the sofa next to Lai.
The Chaperone is none the wiser of what is going on behind the closed motel doors. As long as they all stay quiet, all will be well.
"All right. Only play if you agree to the rules–" Alice instructs adamantly, then continues, "You must kiss whoever the bottle spins and lands on. The only exception for a re-spin is if it lands back on you or one of your relatives."
Everyone either shrugs or nods, accepting the terms. Some still don't look as excited, perhaps only there because of peer pressure.
What a force to be reckoned with!
Noire has decided to sit on the floor next to the door, Alex lounges in what she presumes is the double bed he's been sleeping alone in or removed himself from since she pulled that scene with Ryder.
April also favors the floor.
Ryder, Angelo, and Colleen have pulled out chairs from the small dining table in the suite, and Caleb has decided to occupy the floor as well.
Alice bends down and reaches out toward the bottle, "I'll go first since it was my idea. It's only appropriate."
Of course, she also couldn’t wait to get started and for it to be her turn.
She knows she can break the ice on this sort of thing. She's kissed boys at the Academy behind closed supply closet doors or in the theater during passing periods or after school. Usually, they are the ones she can convince to do her homework in exchange for a little attention. Boys were easy to manipulate, they didn't think sensibly when she got close which is why it was frustrating and challenging to get Ryder where she wanted him.
She spins the bottle and it wildly rotates, it seems like everyone is holding their breath on the first turn.
'Please be Ryder, please be Ryder ' she thinks to herself, but only a few seconds later fate has decided to disappoint her as the neck of the bottle points towards Caleb Cosgrove.
Alice makes a dissatisfied face, both at the fact he isn't Ryder and the fact he is Caleb. Not to say Caleb isn't attractive, he has a cute nerdy vibe and is a part of an impressive, influential family, but he's not the kind that would ever do her homework for her in exchange for a make-out session. He probably thinks he's above all that.
She stands with a sigh and he mirrors it. She stiffens and closes her eyes as she feels his fingers hold her arm and his breath on her face.
She smirks because he definitely ate a mint beforehand. Ever the gentlemen, he would never burden anyone here or embarrass himself with bad breath.
Caleb is quite aware he is about to get a freebie kiss from Alice Calhoun. While he thinks the Calhoun siblings have no dignity and bribed their way into the Academy, there's no denying Alice is conventionally gorgeous and most would say out of his league because of it.
He can tell Alice is not into it, but he leans closer and gives it his best shot...he isn't that experienced, there was just the one time when he was eight years old and quickly pecked Lai on her lips to prove cooties weren't real.
But he has studied! His philosophy is to learn about something if he doesn't know it and judging by the look on Alice's face when he pulls away, he passed the test of kissing her albeit only barely adequately.
Alice gives a considering hum before opening her eyes and returning to her seat.
He's feeling a lot of things right now, namely thrill and excitement, and promptly sits down, not noticing the concerned expression of his best friend from the other side of Alice.
Lai plucks the collar of her shirt with sudden, slight anxiety, and she doesn't know where it has come from. Perhaps, watching Caleb kiss Alice struck her in a way she didn't anticipate. She feels concerned because it would be a lot of pressure to kiss someone as popular and pretty as Alice, and hopes he doesn't feel embarrassed or judged for it.
"Lai!" Alice chirps, knocking Lai out of her deep thoughts, "It's your turn."
Lai slides to the floor onto her knees and spins the bottle. Watching it intently, her breath catches as it passes Caleb's direction.
But then rotates around slowing in front of Alex...
...and finally stops at April.
April just gives her a shrug and a smile, as if to silently assure her it's no big deal. Lai is at least glad she can help April avoid kissing boys, which she admitted she would rather not. Lai has no problem meeting April in the middle of the circle. April is a friendly acquaintance, they had at least three classes together last semester.
"You okay?" April asks as she brings her hands up to frame Lai's pretty face. Lai nods and they press their lips together. There’s no intention behind it, it feels the same as being called up to the chalkboard in math class and solving the equation in front of everyone. In this case, April is good at math. They pull apart and both are smiling; that wasn’t bad at all.
There's a nervous, excited energy that ripples through the room as Noire's spin lands on the gorgeous, green-eyed girl that is the mastermind behind the whole game.
It's different than when Lai kissed April - this was going to be two completely opposite personalities locking lips.
The boys in the room smirk and perk up.
"What are you waiting for, Alice?" Alex quips from the bed.
Noire gives a disheartened sigh for her bad luck and rises slowly, approaching the middle of the room.
Alice stands as well, albeit reluctantly.
"I...um..." she fumbles with her words, looking at everyone but the girl she is, by her own rules, supposed to kiss. "Do you really want to kiss me?"
"No," Noire says bluntly, "So let's just get this over with. You made the rules clear, and I agreed to play."
With that, the gloomy girl pulls on Alice's sweater with enough force to drag her forward so their lips collide.
April was right, girls have way softer lips than boys; probably from all the moisturizing lip gloss.
Then it comes to Alex. He’s been lounging quietly on the suite’s double bed the whole while, giving off the impression he’s not actually participating but still ends up grabbing the bottle on the floor and giving it a spin.
Ryder seems particularly intent on where the bottle is pointing, and his face crashes into disappointment when it stops; pointing somewhere other than himself. The opposite is Alex’s face which dons a genuine smile that's been missing for the last day or so. After being punched, watching his friend and crush kiss his little sister, falling down the half-pipe, and falling while skating there wasn’t much much for Alex to smile about.
Until the bottle stops on Angelo Sanchez; his smile returns, however slight. Maybe he’s not quite done falling yet today. Alex meets Angelo’s eyes and Angelo seems keen. He wastes no time jumping up to meet him.
Before they kiss, Alex points an almost defiant, petty, gaze at Ryder, who isn’t even a foot away before he grabs Angelo with more force than necessary and kisses him.
It lasts, unlike the impersonal sentiment of the other kisses they’ve witnessed–all seeming a product of obligation rather than an actual desire.
Alice certainly notices the fervor and smiles, because if her brother is no longer interested in Ryder, it makes it that much easier to pursue him.
For Angelo, kissing Alex is a thrill. It’s something he’s wanted but not had the courage to admit to himself. He’s always been attracted to guys and found his sight lingering on Alex more than a few times over the past few years. He’d try to tell himself that it was just because Alex was good at skating, made him laugh, and appreciated the same hobbies. Not just because Alexander Calhoun is hot as Hells and just so happens to swing both ways. However, all of Angelo’s hopes for anything with Alex were dashed as soon as Alex and Ryder started hooking up last summer.
Angelo may have been the best skater at the park but he just couldn’t compete with Ryder Greystone on that level. Ryder was an immaculately beautiful and patient person who attracted and endeared people to him like moths to a flame, but he was about as interesting as watching paint dry, in Angelo’s opinion.
Now Ryder watches with a cold sadness and burning jealousy as Angelo receives the kind of kiss, until, recently that only belonged to him.
The sexual tension in the room is so thick it could be cut with a knife.
“Um, I think it’s time to move to the next person,” Alice clears her throat and prompts them to separate.
Alex pulls away slowly, now showing all teeth in a broad smile as he falls back onto the double bed and honestly it makes Angelo go a bit weak in the knees, knowing he is the cause.
It seems Alex’s lips are not quite yet to rest, as April’s turn comes about and in turn, the bottle turns about to him.
He looks dubiously at her and she seems to make a face indicative of extreme apprehension, the irony not lost on her how she claimed only the night before that no one would be kissing Alex’s crusty lips and here, lo and behold, she is about to do so.
Their gazes lock and an uncomfortable silence fills the room. Alex knows literally nothing about her, only vaguely remembers her name and she might own a guitar?
“Well, are we going to do this?” Alex asks and April seems to take a quick breath before abruptly standing from her spot on the floor and ducks down to meet his lips which causes a few of the girls in the room to gasp out in surprise. She’s a way better kisser than he would have thought from her hesitation and doesn’t understand what’s so shocking about it.
Well, he can surmise he made a show of it with kissing Angelo, so maybe they think he’s only into kissing males.
Whatever! Women could be so judgmental sometimes.
Alice feels her spine prickle with anticipation as Ryder kneels down and his hand lands on the bottle. Again he tries to make eye contact with Alex, and finally succeeds, manages a hopeful smile despite Alex not returning it.
He remembers the weight of Alex’s head on his chest that morning, it felt so natural and then so…incomplete when Alex realized the position they were in and removed himself. Ryder had to turn over to keep himself from showing how much it hurt to be held at such an arm’s length when he’d been close enough to hold hands just the day before.
He feels his throat tighten and averts his eyes.
Clearing his throat, he gives the bottle a hard spin and it whips around with the ferocity of a top.
‘Land on me. Land on me’ Alice tries to manifest her chance to kiss Ryder into reality.
It doesn’t get anywhere close to her direction.
“Rude,” she mumbles under her breath at fate and pulls her legs up to her chest as a colossal disappointment sweeps over her. There are no more chances to kiss him now.
The bottle stops spinning in front of Noire Denholm, who looks at Ryder incredulously. He’s not her first choice of people in this room or of the Greystone brothers to kiss. Ryder stands with a helpless smile. Was it weird he was going to kiss the former girl next door?
Noire was not a typical girl next door, not in the least. She often pulled apart plumbing and wiring for fun just to figure out how it worked, he remembered her once telling him that she didn’t want him hanging around because he whistled too much, and even when he trained himself not to whistle she still didn’t seem pleased with his presence; he never understood why she was so cold toward him when everyone else tried to catch his attention.
Honestly, he thinks Noire is one of the most interesting and beautiful girls he’s ever met. He hopes she knows that of herself, despite the trials and tribulations of her family life. She could never be anything less.
She sighs and stands as well, after her initial moment of surprise and then seeming acceptance of the situation.
“Shall we?” he steps closer, towering over her. Ryder is the tallest in their class while Noire is quite petite.
“Yes,” she affirms in a soft voice and tilts her head back with her eyes closed, lips puckered toward him.
Damn, she looks so cute.
He lowers his head and kisses her. It’s not the same feeling he has when kissing Alex but there is a feeling there.
It spikes when he feels her hands on his chest and realizes she’s raised onto her tiptoes. He reaches for her arm and wrist, and pulls her slightly closer but she resists, using her hands to barricade herself from getting too close. What was she so afraid of?
He pulls away with a curious expression on his face.
Both Calhoun siblings look toward him as if their worlds are worse for wear.
“It’s enough,” she explains and abruptly sits down on the floor where she was before, leaving him standing in the middle of the room by himself. He shakes his thoughts away with a shrug before sitting back in his chair with the tiniest hint of a smile. His elder brother, Noah, would never believe this had come to pass.
“Alice, are you…okay?” Lai asks discreetly, seeing the girl next to her has seemingly checked out of the very same game she insisted on. Alice usually is seen smiling–either genuinely, manipulatively, or maniacally–so it's a sort of shock to see her face wiped clean of it but Lai only needs one to guess to understand why.
Caleb catches her eye and gives her a smile, she can't help but think of their foray into 'kiss science' all those years ago.
It consisted of them rationally agreeing that cooties weren't real and testing it, despite the unpopular opinions of their peers. They'd gone the whole week at school without getting the 'cootie shot', spent recess discussing how adults seemed to kiss without being affected, and it even cured sleeping princesses in fairy tales so it couldn't be so bad.
Lai remembered spying on her parents all week and told Caleb to do the same and come back with notes, and finally, on Saturday during their scheduled movie day, they met up at Lai's house and did a quick peck on the lips to test their hypothesis. Neither of them got sick but...
Lai can feel her heart beating faster, thinking about the memory, and her skin prickles in anticipation of Caleb's turn, wondering if the bottle will stop, pointed in her direction. Wondering how different it would be to kiss him now, and not to test the existence of cooties, but maybe test something else far different that she hadn't considered until just now.
Their attentions are snagged when Angelo taps the bottle into a spin and seems to hold his breath. It stops on Colleen, whose face flashes with clear panic.
Colleen knew she probably shouldn’t have agreed to play the game, forfeiting her first kiss to something so meaningless when she truly wanted it to be with someone who cared about her. Angelo was no such person, she had a vivid memory of him trying to bully her off the playground.
Her elder brother frowns, obviously disapproving of this skater kid touching her in any way.
She takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves but can’t seem to move from her spot to meet him as the rest have done with their spin-the-bottle partners. She sees Angelo rise from the floor, out of her peripheral vision and shuts her eyes tightly. She can’t help feeling nervous and anxious about it.
But the anxiety evaporates as soon as she feels the cold brush of metal quickly pass against her temple. All Angelo has done is give her a chaste peck on her forehead.
“It’ll be okay,” she hears him say as she opens her eyes again, watching him sit back into the chair next to her.
“Why didn’t you kiss me like everyone else has been kissing?” she wonders and turns toward him. She has been avoiding him this whole trip, or rather he to her because she had punched him in the fourth grade.
Angelo cocks his head and grins without any offense, “It’s obvious you didn’t want me to.”
Colleen feels herself blush, “Yeah because…I’ve never been kissed before…you know, seriously kissed. Thank you, Angelo.”
He nods, seeming to understand where she is coming from and a bit of her childhood disdain for him wanes.
“Hey!” they both jump, seeing Alice in front of them. She is scowling in displeasure, “You have to do it again, right this time, on the lips. This isn’t a grade school game of kissy-face.”
The color washes out of Colleen’s face at Alice’s words. Angelo is quick to stand against the Queen Bee, “You never said in your rules it had to be on the lips.”
Caleb joins in defending the technicality, not pleased another person is making his little sister feel uncomfortable, evident by Colleen freezing up and guarding herself. Alice argues it’s not fair and Angelo calls her out for being salty because she didn’t get to kiss who she wanted and wants to see others suffer.
Alice can feel hot tears threatening to burst out of her eyes as she glares at the boys. Why was everyone so protective of Colleen? She could use the experience; Alice was doing her favor trying to push her out of her comfort zone. The Calhoun siblings had a tendency to do that.
Alice is about to lose her temper, and Alex is poised ready to intervene as it’s not a pretty sight but she stops arguing as she feels a pair of arms wrap around her. Her first instinct is to shrug them off for the audacity but then hears Ryder’s ever-calm voice at her ear, “If you sit down and drop this, I will take you out on a date.”
Her heart flies into her throat and her scowl melts. She finds those terms more than acceptable. She nods slightly as Ryder lets go, and then gives an inconvenienced huff toward the three in front of her mumbling, “Fine, whatever. Let’s just finish the game.”
Colleen tentatively moves to the floor to spin the bottle with a nervous hand, wondering who it will land on this time and if she’ll have to kiss them for real-real. She is getting tired but also feels so wired, like everyone’s energy is pooling together and keeping them from falling asleep.
The bottle opening stops spinning and Colleen slowly looks up with a gulp.
The bottle is pointed at Noire.
Noire’s dark eyes seem bright and alert, she tilts her head and raises a brow. Colleen feels frozen again. She doesn’t know what to do! Well…she does but don’t know if she can bring herself to do it!
She glances at Alice who seems to roll her eyes. They know Noire will play the game, her pride won’t let her tap out easily. She seems to have no fear of what others think of her.
Noire seems to tire of waiting for Colleen to make the first move, so crawls forward, not unlike some kind of jungle cat and Colleen feels like prey all of a sudden. Noire pulls herself to her knees and hooks her finger under Colleen’s chin, then runs her thumb across the bottom of Colleen’s lower lip as she studies her face with an intense stare. It reminds Colleen of how Noire looked while playing chess, and she can’t even breathe.
Noire’s head dips and Colleen’s eyes snap shut as she opens her mouth, hoping she doesn’t look like a fish out of water. She feels lips on her cheek, close to her mouth but not quite; not a quick brush like Angelo’s kiss to her head but something sweet and lingering.
She manages to release the air that’s built up in her lungs as her eyes flutter open, watching Noire pull away back to her spot with a slight smirk, “Not going to ruin your first kiss.”
Colleen can’t help but think it wouldn’t have been ruined at all.
It’s finally Caleb’s turn, he grabs the bottle from in front of his sister and gives it one last twirl.
Lai leans forward with interest, watching it intently.
She'd always maintained that Caleb was her friend. In thick, in thin, Prestigious Academy or not. He was Caleb. Just Caleb. Caleb with the dark hair, baby blue eyes behind thick-framed glasses, with a shy smile and the little mole above his lip. He liked cats, and comics, proving himself good at math and solving problems. Overthinks everything too much, but he was still the same...but yet...different.
He is Caleb Cosgrove, the student body president of the Preparatory Academy, winner of many scholarships, mathlete, rare comics collector, keenly intelligent, well-spoken, with a spark in his eyes and a broad smile reserved for her and only her whenever they see each other.
Her gaze darts to his lips and she blinks sharply, now knowing why her mouth has seemed to suddenly have gone dry, other parts of her the opposite, and the pace of her heart hasn't slowed one iota. It just feels like it's been trapped in a tightening vice as the bottle spins past her again and again.
Fuck.
He’s perfect.
And she’s only been in denial about it.
She remembers his warm embrace just yesterday, when they were alone in the cold, only barely a layer of cloth between them at the springs, and the resignation in his eyes when she had called him 'friend' which was true but...there was so much more, and she didn't realize it.
Fuck.
She can only hope that the bottle will land on her now.
“Seriously?!” they hear Noire’s uncharacteristic outburst, her face is twisted into annoyance as it’s about to be her fourth kiss of the night.
More than one teen in the room shushes her, trying to keep the room quiet.
Lai feels a jolt of anger as she spies Caleb grit his teeth in dismay, blush and set his eyes to the floor because of the public rejection. How could Noire be so cruel?
“I’m sorry,” Caleb says, addressing Noire, and Lai can’t fathom what he has to apologize to Noire for until he clarifies, “For what I said at the bus station.”
“What did you say at the bus station?” Alice asks, blinking with confusion, even though she isn’t the one being addressed.
He ignores Alice and just holds Noire’s gaze until she eventually nods and pulls herself to a stand with determination–“Let us finish this game.”
Caleb smiles in agreement and they approach each other.
Alice is so over Noire kissing almost half the people here; she can’t say with 100% certainty but wonders if Noire rigged the bottle somehow. She looks like she could be into witchy stuff.
Lai leans back into the sofa and crosses her arms, her heart has finally slowed.
More than that, it has sunk completely as she watches her best friend cup the other girl’s face oh so gently–and kiss her in a way that probably makes Noire feel like she’s the only girl in his world.
Lai wouldn't mind that.
She realizes, sadly, that it may be too late to have it. Not to mention, if he didn't feel the same, their friendship would be forever lost.
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