I kissed King and it was good!

He smelled good, his lips were soft, and his breath smelled good. Yes, it really mattered. He placed a hand on my waist and held me close to him. We were kissing under the moon and the stars, on a beach near the ocean.

It was a perfect moment.

"Rave, why are we-"

"I wanted to," was all I could say when we stopped. He still stood so close to me. "Didn't you want to?"

"For the longest but...why now? Are you ready to be with me or...what's going on? Talk to me."

"I...like you a lot."

"As friends?"

I blushed. "As more than friends. I like that we are friends now, and I am scared things will change if we do more than just that."

"That kiss was more than friends," he said and touched his lips. "Damn girl."

I laughed at him. "Stop it!"

"No for real. Let me-" He pulled me back to him and kissed me again.

I felt all the tingles all over my body again. This was magical. This was what I wanted.

"I'm not the type of guy to just mess around Rave. Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked me.

What could I say to that? I nodded like an idiot and finally said. "Yes!"

He held me in his arms a little tighter. "You mean that?"

"Yes," I said again. "If you want to be with this basket case, then let's try."

"I don't think you're a basket case." He gently rubbed my cheek. "I think you're different and unique. You're something special."

Something about King made me want to smile all night long. I would not call him perfect, I learned my lesson there, but he was pretty darn close. Already since knowing him, he proved he was a good guy, but that did not mean we were a perfect match.

Time would tell.

"Come on, let's walk back to the house, save this beach stuff for in the morning. Unless...you want to hang out here."

"Can we just sit here and watch the ocean?"

"Sure." He sat down in the sand, pulling me down with him, playing me in between his legs Then he wrapped his arms around my waist and we looked off into the dark ocean skyline.

The fact that he hated the beach but stayed because I wanted to earned him brownie points from me.

"It's so pretty and calm."

"Yeah," he said with a kiss on my cheek. "I'm glad you're here with me. This was more of my friends' thing, but I decided to come and get out of my comfort zone."

"How did you...meet your friends?" Not to sound racist or anything, but King did not seem the type to have white friends. I know, I know, I was wrong to think like this.

Heck, I did not have any white friends till now in college, so maybe that was my hangup. I grew up in a nondiverse neighborhood, and all Black schools till now. I was glad I decided to attend Mizzou for college and learn from other cultures.

"Just from school together. We played ball together."

"Basketball?"

"Why? Because Will is tall?" he said with a chuckle. "No, football."

I should have remembered he told me he played. I was already starting as a bad girlfriend.

"We all just hit it off right away. I can call them my true friends versus some were just teammates. Even though my mom had a lot less money than their parents, they never judged me with my not-in-style clothes or new Jordans every month...which ain't my style anyway."

King was so low-key I could not imagine he cared about name brand this or that, dressing to impress, or how much money someone had. I wondered how he would feel about my secret stash of money. There was no way he needed to know about that.

"I grew up really poor," I said it then realized that was not totally true. "Let me take that back. My mother had very little, my father did okay and of course, he helped when he could. Once he married my stepmother, combined incomes and all, big house in one of the richest areas in St. Louis, I can't say I felt poor. Staying with them I felt like a rich brat. My own room, a pool, across the highway was Six Flags."

"But with my mom...I shared a room with my brother after he was born. We barely had a backyard. Drivebys in my neighborhood. I stayed in the house mostly or down the street at my friends' place."

"Whatever we with through in our childhood will define us as an adult," he said. "And just because we came from a bad place doesn't mean we stay in that place. We use it to do better and grow from it. I don't want to be anything like my father."

I could relate to that. "I don't want to be anything like my mother."

We sat outside just watching the nothingness of the ocean for about an hour, talking and get to g to know each other more. I thought I knew everything about him but I learned even more. He was trying h to get into the Mechanical Engineering Master's program where he could double up and graduate with both.

Though he did not make straight As or anything, he did pretty well in most of his classes. He hated writing papers. He did better at verbal speaking. His favorite food was cheeseburgers.

I was a pizza girl, with ranch.

When King told me he knew his to cook I think it was over for me.

"I know how to cook too but I can't say I'm the best. My daddy and granny are."

"I tasted your gran's food and I agree. Next time you go home bring me a plate."

I planned to go see Angel and my father real soon. I would bring him some of my dad's cooking.

We finally left the beach and headed back to the house. All the people were gone from the back deck, except Tre and Will, who were kissing Gay.

"You know Will has a girlfriend," King said to me once he saw them.

"Gay has a boyfriend." This was a whole mess I wanted no parts of. We walked past them and headed into the house.

"So you know, I'm nothing like that. One girl, one guy."

"Same."

Once inside, I looked around the place. We were only five an hour and a half, two hours tops. The partygoers had made a mess. Empty beer cans, chip bags, and trash everywhere. I had not touched a thing now I had to clean up.

"I'll help you with this."

I'm glad I didn't have to ask. We grabbed nags and picked up all the trash, put things away, and wiped everything down. After cleaning everything, we washed our hands, sat in the living room, and watched some TV.

"Yo amigo!" Tre yelled in the house after only two twenty minutes. "We ready to head out."

I did not want King to leave but I couldn't ask him to stay.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked me.

I nodded.

"I know I came on vacation with my boys, but now all I want to do is hang out with you."

That made me smile.

"Let's do something fun tomorrow, and not the beach."

"Okay."

He pulled me in his arms and gave me a big, kisses my forehead, then planted a kid on my lips.

"Good night."

Today was the best day ever.

A/N: These two are so sweet! I didn't want them to get together till the very end of the book, but then we would not see their relationship grow, so why wait?