If there's anything I've learned in the past seventeen and a half years of my life, it's that my older sister McKinley is very blunt. So I don't know why I didn't apply this knowledge to everyday life when inviting her to Dante's game.

"Why is he so tall?" She asks me, eating a salted pretzel. We're nearing the end of the game and Dante is pitching for one of the last batters on the other team. Instead of her letting me focus on him, she's been asking me so many questions about his existence and I'm totally fed up – but of course if I tell her this she'll go out of her way to make me stressed out.

"He grew," I say, resting my head in the palm of my hand.

"But I remember him being like Jackie's height when you two were twelve!"

"You're exaggerating," She slaps my shoulder. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Don't tell me I'm exaggerating," McKinley gives me a dirty look and then returns to eating her pretzel. I roll my eyes and try to focus on the field in front of me. "Anyway, he looks a lot like his siblings,"

"His siblings," I repeat and then frown. Siblings, as in... plural?

"Yeah, his brother and sister. Him and his brother might as well be twins, I swear, their genes are so strong and it's –"

I put my hand up to stop her, mid speech. "He has a brother?"

She puts her pretzel down and groans, just as Nicole begins cheering next to me. The crowd around us also start standing and cheering too and the two of us finally focus on what's really important here – the game.

"They won! Again!" Nicole waves her binoculars in the air and McKinley looks to me for an explanation. I just shrug and watch as she participates in the mini Mexican wave that passes through the crowd. "Ken, babe, do you have any gum?"

I think of the unopened packet of gum in my pocket and try to lie. "Nope,"

"Oh, so that juicy fruit sized lump in your shirt is empty? Wow, I thought we were friends,"

Heaving a sigh, I retrieve my gum, open it and give both her and McKinley one stick each. It hurts but a mother must let her children leave some day.

After they've done the traditional stanky leg (per usual. Something tells me this is the only dance move they collectively know), Max comes over to make out with Nicole, explaining perfectly why she needed gum. Dante only waves in my direction before heading inside. Hopefully I haven't somehow pissed him off somehow but I really doubt it because earlier he was all smiles and teasing when I saw him. He even answered all of McKinley's embarrassing and slightly parental questions with ease, then messed up my hair and ran away with this cheeky smile on his face.

I can't think of any explanation for his behaviour – oh wait, he might just be avoiding my sister which explains everything.

"Yo, Kennedy, let's go," McKinley tugs my shirt sleeve while I'm staring at the floor. I look at the flock of people pushing their way out and cringe.

"Can't we just wait here for a bit? Until that crowd... dissolves?"

She rolls her eyes. "You've always been afraid of confrontation,"

"What?" I squint at her, wondering what she's talking about. She rolls her eyes and then takes the last bite of her pretzel, ignoring me completely instead of answering.

The two of us sit around and talk about seeing our dad next weekend for about ten minutes while everyone clears out, avoiding looking at Nicole and Max because they're pretty intense. McKinley seems more pumped for the trip than I am, saying that she can't wait to decorate the fridge in her apartment with magnets from Sacramento. It seems that being old like she is really isn't very exciting at all, if all I have to look forward to is getting magnets.

"Girls," Nicole towers above the two of us with her hands on her hips. She's reapplying her lip gloss though I don't know why. We all know that it's not going to last that long.

"What's up?" I ask, almost breaking my neck to see her. Thankfully, she sits down next to me so the pain becomes... well, painless.

"Do you think matching couple shirts are corny?" She attempts to lean on my shoulder but I duck out of the way before my shoulder dies because of her weight. "Like if mine says 'I'm With Him,' and his vice versa?"

"Yeah?" McKinley says. Nicole pouts a little and then turns to me.

"It sounds like a presidential election slogan," I tell her a matter of factly. Her pout then becomes extreme, her bottom lip almost causing a traffic violation. "Why did you ask?"

She sighs again. "I wanted to get Max something special for his birthday and I thought that maybe a couple shirt would make him happy. But he told me that he doesn't like corny stuff,"

My eyebrows shoot upwards. "His birthday? When is it?"

"Thursday – which reminds me, tell Stacy that the sleepover at my house has to be postponed to Friday, okay?"

I blink at her slowly. "I can't do Friday," I remind her and she frowns deeply, making her eyebrows sink all the way into her nose.

"You're going to your dads," She remembers. "Oh shit, well, then! We'll have to postpone it until next next week then,"

McKinley leans past me to stare at Nicole with confusion clear on her face. "Don't you just mean two weeks from now?"

Nicole stares at her blankly. "Two weeks from now for... what?"

I look at my watch and decide we've been outside for too long. "Hey, should we get going? The crowd's cleared up,"

My sister scrunches up her nose. "Don't you want to wait for your precious lover-boy? Isn't that why we were sitting here?"

Rolling my eyes, I face her. "First of all, I-" She interrupts me with a really bad mimic. Nicole laughs while I fold my arms and just look around, generally unimpressed. "You guys suck so much,"

We sit around for longer and the conversation turns away from corny t shirts towards our favourite television shows. While McKinley and Nicole have an in depth discussion on the pros and cons of period dramas, I start thinking about how I'm going to get through the upcoming school week without going boom. School's getting more pressurised right now and it doesn't make sense; we're nearing the end of our senior year, everything's supposed to get more relaxed up until finals but here we are, with a ton of homework and way too many teachers reminding us that college is just around the corner. And I haven't even thought about prom yet and it's in just over two months.

"You think they're still selling pretzels?" McKinley asks. I nod, remembering the pretzel stand closes at six thirty and it's only six. "Even though the game's over?"

"Those pretzels are pretty famous," I tell her. "They even open on Sundays,"

She gasps and stands up. "You guys want pretzels too? I'll pay,"

"Get me a salted one," I say and lean back.

"Chocolate," Nicole says and McKinley goes off to retrieve our food. The two of us sit in silence for about ten seconds before we sigh in unison.

"You think Dante's mad at me?" I ask. The look Nicole gives me in her slowness tells me that I'm either overreacting or I'm finally catching onto a clue. I think it's the latter.

"Why would he be mad at you? What have you done?"

I shrug because I haven't done jack shit except kind of watch his game. Although I was only watching partly due to McKinley interrupting me every chance she could get.

PERSONAL REMINDER – NEVER TAKE MCKINLEY ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN.

"Okay... so why do you think he's mad at you?"

Once again, I shrug. Nicole isn't having it however and she pinches me in the thigh repeatedly until I talk. "He didn't come over when the game was over like he normally does!"

She stares at me with an unreadable expression on her face. Due to my inability to decipher it, her face is making me very unnerved and I don't like it.

"You overreact so much," She says finally and sighs. "He's not mad at you, he's infatuated with you. Completely besotted. Enamoured. Entirely head over heels –"

I raise my hand up, fed up. "Okay Thesaurus, I get it."

"That's Miss Thesaurus to you, sweetheart." She snaps her fingers in Z formation, pauses and then bursts into laughter. I shuffle away from her thinking that she's finally gone over the edge. "What? I've never done that before!"

"You used to do it all the time in Middle School," I tell her. A dumbfounded expression colours her face before she taps her chin thoughtfully.

"Oh yeah,"

McKinley appears with only one pretzel in her hands. When we complain about our lack of food, she glares at us and I consider sitting on the other side of Nicole for a hot second. My sister used to fight me if I still bugged her after the initial glare when we were kids. I'm getting war flashbacks just thinking about it.

We sit around talking for a while before deciding to head on out to McKinley's car. I attempt to protest it for a bit but then she reassures me that we'll wait for 'lover boy' (whoever that is!) to come out before we can officially go. Even then I'm still a bit hesitant because this whole situation is just... messy.

"So you girls do this every weekend?" McKinley asks when we're finally outside. I stretch my arms upwards and yawn, wondering how on earth I'm going to answer her without being embarrassed.

"Well, every weekend so far," Nicole puts on her cat eye glasses and takes a sip of water. "If I can't get Stacy to tag along or befriend that girl who is always screaming at that dude Santiago at the front, I probably won't be here next week."

"Why not?"

She pulls her glasses to the bridge of her nose and peeks over them at us, her lips pursed. "Well for one, Kenny isn't coming

I shrug and shove my hands in my pockets. "So?"

"That means I won't be able to extrapolate candy from you, nor hear your funny little theories about how little Dante likes you when he's infatuated and completely head –"

McKinley stops her as we reach her car. "We get it, chill with the synonyms."

Fifteen minutes later, my cell phone rings, interrupting our very riveting conversation on the best Disney Channel show of our childhood. I fumble for a little bit before picking it up, for no reason other than the fact I was caught off guard. It wasn't like I was inherently freaking out over the caller ID or anything.

"Hello?"

"Yo, Kennedy," Dante says quietly. "You still around?"

My sister and Nicole are sharing sly looks with one another and I don't like it at all. "Oh, um, yeah, we're in the parking lot, just chilling."

"Great, I wanted to ask you something," He clears his throat and says bye to someone before continuing. "I'll be at the car park in like, five minutes – what car does your sister drive?"

Slightly worried, I look around the interior and wonder what I'm supposed to say. Sometimes I wish I knew more about cars but I am also much too lazy to commit to that wish. "It's deep blue?"

"What a very detailed and helpful explanation. Thank you Kennedy for aiding me so much in the plight to find your sister's car."

"Okay, so sarcasm doesn't suit you, you should stop," I tell him flatly. He laughs out loud and after pretending to be salty, I giggle along with him. "Why don't I just stand by the car and make this whole ordeal easier?"

He hums a little. "Yeah, okay. See you soon Slugger,"

Before I can reply he hangs up and I stare at my phone for a little while before turning to my personal spectators. "Well, I've gotta blast," I say lamely and take off my seatbelt, ready to get out of the car.

"Wait," McKinley stops me just as I'm about to bolt. Trying not to pout, I sit back in my seat and prepare for her to lecture me about anything and everything. "How long are you gonna take?"

I shrug. "Ten minutes?"

"TEN minutes? Girl, we've been out here forever. Now, I don't know about you but I know David's making some cake tonight and I don't want Tyler's ugly head to eat it all before I get there so you better hurry," She snaps at me. I put my hands up in defence before opening the door and getting out of the car.

"We won't take long, he just needs to ask me something," I tell her through the rolled down window. She waves her hand dismissively in my direction and I roll my eyes.

Dante appears a few minutes later, holding his gym bag and looking around the parking lot. At first I don't know what to do other than wave awkwardly in his direction until he sees me. Someone behind me says lame rather loudly and I end up moving away from McKinley's car and standing by another car because I'm pretty sure she's going to somehow embarrass me.

"Hey Slugger," Dante says with a wide smile. "This isn't quite midnight blue but I'll deal." He points at the car and I wrinkle up my nose.

"Yeah, my sister is way back there," I explain and he nods before waving in her direction. I fold my arms and clear my throat. "So, um, you called me Slugger?"

"Yep," He pops the p.

"...Care to tell me why?"

He titters and copies my stance. "I thought we've been through this already, you're my favourite slugger so therefore I'm going to call you it,"

I bite my lip and think about it. "I don't like that nickname."

"You should've thought about that when you hit me on the head with a baseball," He says promptly, unfolding his arms and grinning at me. Embarrassed, I cover my face and try to shake off the fact that he has brought up this memory that seems to be plaguing my life.

"Nobody has ever let me live that down, I swear it was an accident," I say through my muffled hands and he chuckles.

"Sure it was. I bet you just wanted to get my attention somehow,"

Slightly peeved, I remove my hands from my face. "Get your attention? And why would I need your attention again?"

His mouth opens wide. "You're really asking me that?"

"Yes, yes I am,"

"Really?"

"Dante,"

"Wow," He finally closes his mouth and looks around with disbelief. It's kind of hard for me to believe that he's any type of offended though because he has a half smile on his face. "I cannot believe what I'm hearing at all. It's like I don't even know you anymore,"

I roll my eyes and my phone vibrates viciously in my pocket, signalling me that either someone behind me who shares most of my DNA is annoyed or that they're having a flash sale at H&M. Something's telling me that it's not the latter choice.

"You wanted to ask me something," I interrupt Dante's act by repeatedly poking his arm, until he has to grab my hand to get me to stop. Instead of letting me go however, he laces his fingers through mine like it's the most natural thing ever.

I'm gonna die.

"Yeah! I wanted to ask if you were free on Friday night," He rubs his chin with his kind free hand. Just as I'm about to nod and agree to being free, I remember that my dad is expecting McKinley and I on that Friday night. So... I'm not free.

"Friday?" I bite my lip and wince slightly. "As in... This Friday?"

"The Friday coming up, yes," Dante raises both his brows at me and then chuckles nervously. "Something the matter?"

I sigh. "Well, I'm kind of... going to visit my dad for the whole weekend and I'm leaving on Friday... so um... yeah."

His brow furrows slightly. "Ah. Well... there goes my plans then,"

"I'm sorry,"

"Don't worry, it's not your fault." Dante squeezes my hand and smiles lightly. "So should I walk you back to your car? Or are you good?"

"You know, suddenly my knees have come over weak and I think I'll need you to take me," I say promptly and he laughs.

We make the very short walk back to my sister's car, where she is glaring at the two of us through the windshield. I ignore her and turn him around so he doesn't get to see her evil eyes and run for the hills because of it.

"So..." He starts slowly, looking very hesitant to leave. I relate.

"So... what?" I continue and ignore McKinley tapping the face of her non-existent watch. His eyes focus on a spot on my cheek all of a sudden, making me feel self-conscious.

"You have an eyelash," He comments and leans forward slightly. His freckles are weirdly more defined in the sunlight and they're making me panic.

"Where?" I ask quietly. Dante lets go of my hand and raises his to my face, a crease appearing in between his brows.

"Wait, I'll get it for you," He dabs his finger against my cheek softly a few times before smiling and showing me the offending eyelash. "Ta da!"

"Thanks," I say, feeling pretty awkward. We're still close to one another and neither of us are making a move to separate. "So! I'll see you during the week?"

He shrugs and raises the finger with the eyelash on it.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Making a wish," he blows on his finger until it's gone and then laces them through mine. My breathing speeds up considerably and he leans forward until our noses are touching.

"Do you think it's gonna come true?" I manage to say in one quick breath.

He smiles. Then at last, Dante's lips meet mine.

It's soft, it's sweet and simple. He squeezes my hand as his lips move against mine gently, feeling the shape, moulding until they fit perfectly. It then hits me that we're full on kissing (in front of my sister (ah shit)) and it's honestly - truly - the best experience of my life.

My knees actually start wobbling and getting weak the longer he kisses me and I'm grateful for the fact we both need to come up for air at some point or else I would've passed out.

"So," He repeats. I just hold onto his arm and attempt to hide my wobbly knees. This is actually a mess. "Why haven't we done that before again?"

"I don't know, maybe someone was a bit chicken,"

He gasps. "Someone? Now I know you're talking about yourself because I was not chicken to kiss you,"

I look back up at him and let go of his arm and then pat his chest a few times. "Sure sweetheart,"

Once again, Dante gasps, but he has the largest smile on his face ever. It's huge. "What a condescending tone!"

"Condescending? Me? Never!" I attempt to take a step away from him so he has some space but he pulls me back a little until we're close again.

"You're horribly condescending, Slugger,"

My eyebrows raise involuntarily. "That nickname returns,"

He's about to say something when McKinley decides that she's fed up and presses the horn. Dante literally jumps and turns to where she is sitting with a smug expression on her face.

"I guess you have to go, huh?" he says, sounding shaky.

"I'm sorry about McKinley," I blurt out. He blinks at me as if he doesn't understand what I'm saying at first but then grins and pinches my cheek.

"It's no big deal," he says and then picks his gym bag up. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

I nod a few times and he hesitates before kissing my on my cheek again. My knees do that thing where they begin to wobble again and I have to lean on the car so I don't fall down.

"Yeah, okay, see you!" I say and wave awkwardly, wondering if I'm pulling off playing it cool. It doesn't seem to work though because he asks me with the slyest smile on his face if I'm okay, knowing full well that I am far from okay and right now all I want to do is squeal.

Dante bites his lip and the devious smile returns all too soon. "You know, Kennedy, you have the cutest knees," He says before turning away from me. I stand up straight and fold my arms.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I yell after him.

"I'll call you later!" He responds casually and I frown at his retreating figure, imagining the wide ass smile on his face as he walks away from me.

I open my mouth to say something again but decide no – it's not worth it. I have much more important things to spend my brain power on right now.

For one, what the fuck did he mean by me having the cutest knees?

A/N:

...hi guys :D

it took me too long to update idk I just wasn't this specific chapter at all (I'm still not TBH). I have basically finished the next two so it shouldn't take too long for those to appear hahah it's almost 1am I'm staring at this like it's a completed piece of dissertation work or something someone save me from the nothing I've become