My eyes open, his eyes closed. My palms sweaty, his hands at my side. A kiss so soft it doesn't bruise the cut on my bottom lip. I've never believed in sparks flying when people kiss, or a build-up of enough chemistry to cause an explosion. And it doesn't happen to me.

Instead, my heart starts to beat, going from zero to a hundred in a few seconds, threatening to fly straight out of my chest. My brain goes in a different direction, opting to shut down rather than be of any use to me whatsoever. All coherent thought flies out of my mind replaced by the single-minded desire to move closer to him. And I would if that was possible.

The day is nearly over and yet I thought the most world-altering event had already come and gone in the pool. How is it two things can happen to a person in the time-space that lie on opposite sides of a spectrum? And more importantly, how did I go from a boy holding my hand for the first time to my first kiss?

Darnell steps away first and I realize that even though my world might have stopped entirely, only seconds have passed since now and the instant he kissed me.

It's hard to wrap my head around that. The fact that he kissed me.

But there will be time to analyze all that later because he says, "We should go, it's getting late."

I nod and we jog back the same way we came. I press the tips of my fingers over my mouth as we do. Careful not to mess with the invisible imprint of his mouth has left on mine.

I make sure to keep my back to cameras as we walk by them, I can't afford to slip up this late in the game.

Sam seems surprised to see us finished that quickly and says as much to Darnell.

"I'll show you the photo's when we get in the car."

If he notices anything off about my demeanor or the glowing red color on my cheeks he doesn't comment on it. And for that I'm grateful.

The drive home is too short. I drive back into Marco's neighborhood and drop the boys at Darnell's house. But not before I catch a glimpse of my brother asleep in Micah's lap. His legs crossing onto Darnell's.

When we do get home, Timothy is barely conscious even though it's not that late and I have to carry the log of a boy out of the car and into the house. But we're home and that's all that matters.

*****

On Saturday morning I'm woken up by a phone call.

I don't normally get phone calls.

You can tell this by the way I'm jerked awake by my ringtone and the fact that I'm so shocked I thwack the phone off my bed, sending it skidding onto the floor. I know of only three people who are close enough to me to call. My parents and Anika. One party I live with and the other I'm not speaking to at the moment. Suffice to say my call app isn't getting much traffic.

When I do pull myself together I dart off the bed and across my room to slide the call in to accept. It's Andrea.

"Hey," I say breathlessly. "Good morning."

"Morning," Andrea replies with an airy note in her voice, a nice change of pace from the curtness I've been receiving from my parent's end for most of last week. "Did you just wake up?"

"No, no," I say. "I've been awake for hours."

I haven't. It's ten and I've slept through all three of the alarms I had set. Missing my morning run and the double bill of cartoons I had planned for my day.

"Hmm," she says and I can tell she's raising an eyebrow even through the phone. "Your grandma's fine. It was a false alarm. But your dad wants us to say a little longer."

"Great," I say with too much feeling. "I mean Oh no, what are we going to do without you."

Andrea snorts, "Is Timothy awake?"

I take a second to stare at his unconscious body, "Yup, in the bathroom."

"Good," She says. "Remember you have to take Timothy to his birthday party?"

I hop over to my desk where I'd kept the birthday card and rattle off the address. "I remember."

"What are you doing for breakfast?"

"Cereal for breakfast and cake for lunch, probably."

"Dinner?"

"Uhh, we could order pizza?" I ask, hopeful.

"Sure," I hear her shuffle the phone. "I just wanted to check up on you. I think I hear your aunt calling. But when I get back home we need to talk, okay?"

The words I've been dreading.

"Okay."

Talk. They want to talk to me. Normally when my parents want to talk my mind goes over every single thing I've ever done. Good or bad. From the time I broke our neighbor's window and just kept running in the opposite direction, to when I cheated on my history midterm in freshman year. Okay so not good, all bad. But I know what she wants to talk about and I'm not looking forward to it.

We end the call and I start making my way to the bathroom but not before kicking Timothy awake.

One shower and a few hours later and Timothy is typing in the address at the bottom of the birthday card into the GPS. I'm surprised to learn that it's the Irvine View country club.

In my opinion, country clubs upset the ecological system, using enough water to supply the state with their Olympic regulation-sized swimming pools, hot tubs, and acres upon acres of green grass for golfing. The Irvine View country club was no exception. But my own views aside, it was still a lovely place. In the midst of a drought, it had lush, healthy flora starting at the gates and leading up to its main building.

There must be more than one event happening today because the parking lot is filled and we have to squeeze into the overflow parking. But we do find space after squeezing the Honda in between two sleek sports cars.

"They're having a ten-year-old's birthday party here?" I ask.

"Yup."

"I'm guessing they have money?"

"Yeah."

"Are you nervous?" I say turning in my seat to look at him.

"Nope."

Good enough for me.

Today the temperature was climbing through the nineties with the air compressed and heavy. Stepping into the air-conditioned reception is a blessed relief and the sweat patches I developed just by walking through the lot start to dry.

When I ask the front desk clerk for directions she points us down the hallway. As we walk down it we pass a large dining area, a ballroom, and a conference room before we reach a chalkboard with Dylan's Eleventh Birthday Party written on it in color.

I have to hand it to Dylan's parents they know how to throw a great party. It's being held poolside but has a host of activities, laser tag, face painting, a tower of spider man themed cupcakes, and in the distance, I see a bouncy house. It's heaven and not just for preteen boys.

"You can go now," Timothy says dismissing me as he spots his friends.

Not until I raid the dessert table and maybe, just maybe, get my face painted. They have an interesting selection of themes from the Spiderman movies. I can get a Peter Parker on my left cheek.

When I get my cupcakes I decide to book it. The line for the face paint is far too long. Besides being the tallest person at a party is only cool until you realize you're surrounded by sixth graders. Instead of heading back down to the reception, I wander the rest of the country club scene. It's not every day I get to pass through the hallowed halls of Club Members Only. I walk through another dining area with crisp tablecloths, and charming centerpieces and pass a bar which for very legal reasons I wasn't allowed to sit at.

I end up in a private library complete with leather armchairs, bearskin rugs, and stacked maple wood bookshelves. It seemed like the perfect place for an old-timey gentleman to light a cigar and shoot the breeze or whatever they do in their free time. But even the most straight-laced old-timer wouldn't spend a pretty Saturday with bright skies and high temperatures indoors. It was great golfing and indecently short khaki shorts weather. Which meant I could hide out in here for a few hours.

With hours to kill I indulge my most unhealthy habit. I furtively type out Darnell's Instagram username and click onto his page.

Not my proudest moment. But he kissed me ergo I deserve to know everything I can find out about him.

What does one earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting kiss even mean? I can't tell you. I'd watched hundreds of romance movies and devoured the books but here I stood very much confused as to what the kiss meant. Cyberstalking him was a welcome distraction to my ignorance on the finer points of love affairs.

The first photo I hit upon was a recent post with Sam and Micah, all in their uniforms, all smiling at the camera. I zoom in scanning the photo but I'm careful not to double click it. I scroll through the comments and fall into the rabbit hole of other people's profiles but for the most part, I stay on his page. There was another recent photo of him and Leah, his cheek pressed against hers.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous.

A picture of his golden dogs including a new addition, a photo from a ski trip he'd taken with his parents, and one of his custom sneakers. His reels were a lot more political, an old image of a march with Martin Luther King, a quote by Nelson Mandela, and a pin he'd purchased for the me-too movement.

Two hours later and four years deep into his Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr pages I check my watch and finally get up off the chair. With a bit more time left to kill before I could collect Timothy, I kept up my lazy pace through the grounds. And by some stroke of luck or misfortune, I end up in the club's outdoor events garden.

With the sun much lower in the sky, it looks no less picturesque than the rest of the club. Beautiful flowers were hanging over the tables and an even more beautifully dressed crowd milling in-between them. A small private orchestra playing soft mood music and in the corner, there was a table of well-plated finger foods. Or maybe I should call them hor do'eurves? That's how you know it's a fancy party when they have hor do'eurves.

I'm about to step off the path leading to it and turn around when I'm stopped in my tracks.

"Here you go." The girl standing in front of me says handing me a tray bearing flutes of bubbly champagne. She thrusts it to me so quickly my hands reach out to take it on impulse just to stop the tray from tipping over.

I hadn't thought much about my outfit when I was getting dressed in the morning. A white button-down shirt that I usually saved for church and a pair of fitted black slacks. It's only now that I realize I'm dressed like the servers, down to the pumps on my feet.

I'm not sure how to feel about that.

The girl walks away from me and back to the main building before I can even get a word in. I'd like to say this is the first something like this has happened but it isn't. Not if I'm counting the time a woman at Trader Joe's asked me to direct her to the hardware aisle. There must be something about my face that screams, belongs in the service sector. Not a bad place to end up.

Instead of getting upset, I lean into it. After all, this might be the last chance I get to rub shoulders with the wealthy and well-placed. A quick look at the chalkboard and it reads Irvine Baptist Summer Fete, raising funds for California's less privileged.

A church fete?

They must have pretty deep collection plates to afford an event like this. Our last church party was held in our pastor's garden. They had barbecue so I wasn't complaining. Much.

Around me, adults in luxury summer wear mingle with each other. The largest group of people is in a circle around a man who I assume is the minister given his tell-tale clerical collar.

I'm careful with the tray, keeping it steady as I weave through the crowd. The other servers don't even blink an eye as I move, preoccupied with their own work.

In the back of my mind, I wonder how many private gatherings I was going to crash this year alone. My current record stands at 3.

Stopping by a group of people, someone relieves me of two glasses. Seven to go. Around me, I catch bits and pieces of chatter. Sophisticated conversation about politics and the economy. All the things I've never understood.

I walk to a more secluded side of the party, down the path that leads to the sports courts. A path that's hidden from the view of the rest of the crowd by a wall of flowering vines. I think to myself that it would be the perfect background for a selfie. Anika would have a field day here. And with that thought, I start to miss my friend.

I make a turn and bump right into someone, only just managing to rescue the very fragile glasses I'm carrying.

"Sorry," The man says holding my shoulders to keep me upright.

Then I realize that it's not a man. Or at least not yet.

Clad in a dark gray suit, Darnell-kissed-me-on-the-mouth-Washington holds my shoulders and stares at me looking just as surprised as I am.

"Hey, you..." I say.

He grins taking in my outfit and my tray, "Hi. Hey."

At that moment you could have knocked me over with a feather. Well not knocked me over, more brushed me gently. Because that's what feathers are known for. Gentle brushing. I'm rambling because I'd rather not focus on reality. The boy who has been consuming my thoughts for the past few days. The boy who jumped into a pool for me. The boy who dragged me all the way to North-side and showed me the most fun I'd had in a while. The boy who kissed me in spite of myself.

Is it possible to think about someone so much that they appear? No, it wasn't.

And yet here he was, in the flesh

"Are you stalking me?" I say, joking. But also, not joking. Because if anyone's stalking anybody it would be me.

"Pfft," He says, letting go of my shoulders. He folds his arms across his chest and the material around his forearms stretches deflecting my focus. "I don't have that kind of time on my hands. But I'm really glad you're here."

I smile.

"Are you still working?" He asks before I can respond. "I was hoping we could talk."

Why does everyone want to talk to me today? It was becoming vaguely threatening. But I nod anyway.

Without me having to ask, he takes the tray out of my hands and I follow him as we walk to one of the stone benches behind the wall.

When we sit he puts the tray in the space separating us.

For a while neither of us says anything.

Darnell stares very intently at a spot on the ground next to his shoes which I notice are Converse. Like it's his way of rebelling against the black-tie establishment. With a pair of sneakers.

Since the last time I saw him, he's had a haircut. Now it's cropped close to his scalp with two stripes running down the sides. I want to badly take my thumb and run my finger down from his temple to his cheek, just to see if the skin there is as smooth as it looks.

Yesterday he looked like a tortured high school athlete. Now he looks every bit the class valedictorian he is. What a juxtaposition?

"You clean up nice." I offer as an icebreaker.

"Thanks. That's probably the first real compliment you've given me this year." He says laughing.

"Not true," I say. "Two weeks ago I told you your dribbling was good enough."

"Good enough for a pee wee team." He continues.

Aaah.

I'd forgotten I'd said that as well as a few you throw like a girl's during practice. But it was water under the bridge, probably.

With bravery I don't get very often, I say: "I'm kind of mean to the boys I like. It's a thing I do."

He turns to look at me and smirks, "You like me?"

I stare at rose bushes in front of us, staunchly refusing to look at him. "I don't know. It's complicated." I finish with a whisper.

"Yeah, same." He touches his hand against the stem of a champagne glass, swirling its contents. "I suck at stuff like this."

It seems even he wasn't good at everything.

Darnell clears his throat, "I didn't know you worked here?"

"Well, I do. In a manner of speaking." Not even. "Just know that I'm wasting precious company time to talk to you."

"I'm sure your boss won't notice."

"I'm not exactly known for my work ethic, so she won't." Or he, I can't say for sure.

We're talking about my fake job when we could be talking about so much more. The ability of mankind in general to dance around important topics was unparalleled. Not that we have any other lifeforms to compete with yet but still.

I really miss you. That's what I want to tell him. I want him to know that even though he's right here I still miss him. Go figure.

"I didn't know you were this bougie," I say. "But I should have known. You have too many syllables in your name not to."

"I'm not, I swear. I'd much rather be in sweats." Then he smirks. "Kind of like my hoodie. That one was my favorite one."

"Oh really?" I ask. "If you want it, why don't you just ask for it back."

His eyes flash with a challenge, "I don't know. It looks better on you."

I drop my gaze with warming cheeks. I could stay here forever. Talking about the first thing that comes to my mind.

He starts to speak, "When you—"

"There you are," Someone says and we both stand up, with me clutching the tray in my hands. Angled like a shield.

I'm half expecting the pretend boss I was going on about to lecture me but it's not.

It's Leah. In a dress so pretty it could make anyone cry. It makes me want to cry. The dress is as blue as the sky, with cutouts near her waist, making her look taller and slender. She's a vision in lace.

"I thought I lost you," she says taking his hand and looping her arm through his.

I'm not sure where to look, so I stare down at the drinks in my hand as though they have committed some heinous crime.

"Nope, just taking a breather." He responds tightly.

"And I was thinking you were supposed to spend time with your date at these things?" She says shaking her head, letting her curly waves of hair bounce with a soft smile.

Date?

Maybe I misheard her. But I'm certain I didn't.

She sees me and takes a flute of the tray gingerly whispering thank you. Her face is blank, with no recognition in her eyes. We've been in the same classes for three years and she doesn't even know me outside of school. Wow.

Together they walk out of the back of the garden and back into the party.