Bite Your Tongue

8:29 P.M.
Brian;;

“You know what’s hot?” Matt said.

“What?” I wondered.

“Girls.”

Jimmy and I laughed. The three of us were comfortably seated in one of the many beanbag chairs in Stevie’s basement, winding down from a humiliating defeat. The girls and Zacky had completely kicked our asses at Dance Dance Revolution, a game Zacky usually was terrible at, but all of the caffeine had made him so hyper that all he did was jump around on the mat, and he had somehow managed to get a higher score than most of us.

Now we were watching the girls dance to one of those rap songs I heard on the radio approximately forty times every morning on the way to school. They thought we were just talking, but it was kind of hard to concentrate with them dancing over in the corner. None of them were very good, but even Korinne, who Stevie had had to drag into participation, seemed to be having fun. I wanted to go and join them just to be near her, but I was a terrible dancer and really didn’t feel like embarrassing myself in front of everyone.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Especially dancing girls.”

“It’s just like…damn.” Matt stared. “If I had known Stevie could dance like that, I would have asked her out by now.”

“I know, right?” Jimmy agreed.

Matt shot him a dirty look.

“What? I’m just saying.”

The song ended and the girls fell into sitting positions on nearby furniture and the floor.

“Okay. Now I’m exhausted,” Stevie said.

“I know; me too,” added Korinne. She ran her hands over her hair, which was adorably curly only a bit messed up from dancing.

“Hey! You over there!” Delia shouted across the room to us.

“What?”

Stevie gestured for us to come over. “Get over here. We’re going to play Truth or Dare.”

“Ooh! My favorite!” Johnny said excitedly as he came down the stairs. He crossed the room in an instant and sat himself down next to the girls.

“Truth or Dare? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Matt asked.

“Everything I say is a good idea,” Stevie retorted.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Fine. We’re coming.”

Once everyone was settled and Zacky had calmed down enough to actually sit for more than a few seconds, Stevie clapped her hands together.

“Okay! Who wants to go first?”

“I think Korinne should go first,” Jimmy said. “She is the birthday girl, after all.”

“Uh, I don’t think so. I think I should just get to watch and listen. Since I’m the birthday girl,” Korinne countered nervously.

“All right…” Stevie looked at each of us in turn before her gaze finally settled on Matt.

“Matt! How about you go first?”

“Great,” he said sarcastically. “I’m so excited.”

“Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.”

“Okay. I dare you to give Jimmy a lap dance.”

“What?”

“Hey, you’re the one who picked dare,” Stevie pointed out.

“Yeah…but…come on,” Matt said, squirming uncomfortably.

“I can always think of something else, you know. Something worse.”

Matt considered this for a second before hauling himself to his feet and walking the few steps over to Jimmy, who looked like he was about to throw up.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” complained Matt.

The next twenty seconds were perhaps the most entertaining ones of my life. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, and seeing everyone else shriek with hysterics as Matt attempted a lap dance wasn’t exactly helping.

“Can I stop now?”

Stevie nodded and clutched her side, gasping for air. The rest of us were in more or less the same condition. Except for Jimmy, of course, who was curled up in a fetal position on the floor and kept muttering “Scarred for life…scarred for life…” every few seconds.

“I seriously should have brought my video camera,” Johnny said. It took everyone a few minutes to calm down, but once we did, Matt turned to Stevie with a glare that probably could have melted wallpaper off of the wall.

“Stevie, how about you go next? Okay? Sounds great. Truth or Dare?” he said.

Stevie affixed Matt with an equally deadly look before answering.

“Truth,” she replied.

Matt thought about his question for a second while everyone watched curiously.

“Do you have feelings for anyone in this room?”

Stevie scoffed, rolling her eyes. “No.”

I saw Delia and Korinne exchange a look, which probably meant that they knew something the rest of us. But that something wasn’t really that hard to guess—you’d have to be blind not to see the attraction between Stevie and Matt.

“Are you sure about that?” Matt asked.

“Of course,” Stevie said, suddenly becoming very interested in her toenail polish.

“Look me in the eye and say it, then.”

She brought her eyes up to Matt’s face and just stared at him for a few seconds.

“Fuck you!” she spluttered, getting to her feet and running from the room.

“Ha! So you were lying!” Matt shouted, getting up to follow her.

Johnny shook his head. “Those two are such idiots.”

Everyone murmured phrases of agreement.

“ALRIGHTY! WHO WANTS TO GO NEXT!” Zacky shouted suddenly.

Jimmy looked over at me, confused.

“I thought he had calmed down,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Uh oh,” said Delia. She held up an empty can of Red Bull that she had apparently just pulled out of the trashcan. “I think he’s been sneaking these while we weren’t looking.

“LIKE I SAID BEFORE, RED BULL GIVES YOU WINGS!”

“I’ll go next,” Korinne volunteered. “I might as well get it over with.”

“That’s the spirit!” said Jimmy. “Truth or Dare?”

Korinne chewed on her lip while she thought of what she wanted to choose and I couldn’t stop thinking about how cute that made her look.

“Uhhh…truth, I guess.”

“Hmm.” Jimmy turned to the rest of us. “We’ll have to come up with an extra special Truth, since it’s her birthday and all.”

“Is that really necessary?” asked Korinne.

“YES! OF COURSE!” exclaimed Zacky.

“Right…so…anyone have any ideas?” Jimmy asked.

“Ooh! I have one!” Delia said excitedly.

“Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“It’s a two-part question,” she told Korinne. “Just FYI. Okay, who was your first kiss?”

“Oh, come on, Delia! That’s such a typical girl question,” Johnny complained.

“It is not! I happen to find first kiss stories rather sweet and entertaining!”

“Yeah, well, I happen to find them about as enjoyable as getting teeth pulled.”

“YOU GUYS ARE NUTS! FIRST KISSES ARE AWESOME!” shouted Zacky. He turned to Delia. “DO YOU REMEMBER OUR FIRST KISS, DELIA!? WASN’T IT AWESOME?!”

Delia blushed slightly and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Zacky. It was awesome. Now can we get back to the question at hand, please?”

“Yeah. I’m interested,” I said without thinking. I saw Zacky smirk at me—I guess even in a caffeinated stupor he was still capable of bugging me. Korinne’s eyes landed on me as a bit of a smile graced her features and I wondered if I had been her first kiss. I mean, I had no idea if she’d had boyfriends before she’d moved here or anything like that. But she did seem to at least sort of know what she was doing.

“Okay. Korinne?” Delia said, resuming the game.

“Ugh…it was this guy named Lorenzo at a party in sixth grade. I didn’t even know him; my best friend at the time basically forced me to kiss him so she’d know if he was good enough of a kisser to be worth pursuing,” she said.

I felt kind of disappointed. I couldn’t help but wish that I had been her first kiss; because that was something most people would remember for the rest of their lives. And I didn’t want her to ever forget about me.

“That sucks,” said Delia. “But now for the next question! Who was your best kiss, so far?”

Korinne squirmed slightly in her seat.

“Um…” She opened and closed her mouth a few times all the while keeping her eyes determinedly on the carpet. She glanced up quickly and her eyes met mine, causing my heart to beat that tiny bit faster. She blushed when she saw me looking at her, but she didn’t look away.

Holy fuck, does she think I was her best kiss?!

“Uh…”

“Sometime before the next millennium would be great, thanks,” Johnny joked.

Korinne glared at him until he shrank back in his seat.

“All right…the best kiss I’ve ever had was with…” She paused, her face bright red by this point. “…Brian.”

“HOT DAMN!” Zacky shrieked. “BRIAN! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU KISSED HER?!”

“Omigod, you kissed Brian and you didn’t tell me?” Delia demanded.

Both Korinne and I were speechless as everyone around us fired off a seemingly endless string of exclamations. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, and I surprisingly wasn’t uncomfortable with the relentless eye contact. What I really wanted to do was walk over there and kiss her again, but I knew the guys would start saying all sorts of inappropriate and unhelpful things, and I really didn’t need that at the moment.

“Well, it’s about damn time,” said Jimmy. “I was beginning to wonder when you two would finally get it together.”

“Yeah, really,” Johnny agreed.

Zacky opened his mouth to contribute as well, but was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere upstairs, following by a loud crash.

“Dammit, Matt! I swear to fucking God; if you scare me like that one more time, I’ll cut your balls off!” Stevie shouted.

“Sorry! I’m sorry; I thought you saw me!”

“You damn well did not, you lying, incompetent excuse for a human existence!”

We all looked towards the stairs at the sound of someone galloping down them. Stevie emerged into the room first, looking livid. She was followed shortly by Matt, who was smirking and had a mischievous glint in his eye.

I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly just happened?”

Stevie gave Matt the dirtiest glare I had ever seen her manage. “Nothing,” she spat viciously.

“Stevie thought I was a serial killer who had broken into the house,” Matt explained.

“I was in the bathroom; you pervert! Why on earth would you think barging in is socially acceptable?”

“…The door wasn’t locked…”

Within seconds, Stevie had tackled Matt to the ground and seemed to be attempting to scratch his face off.

“Woah! Okay, Stevie, we all know you want Matt, but can’t it wait until later?” Jimmy joked, hauling Stevie to the other side of the room.

The sharp noise of a slap echoed throughout the room.

+++

Korinne;;
6:36 A.M.

I rolled over again, trying to block out any and all noise with my pillow for the thousandth time. It wasn’t working. I had woken up nearly two hours ago, to the incessant sound of snoring. Apparently, Jimmy snored like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t know how anyone else dealt with it, but they were all still asleep, so I figured they must have found a way.

I sighed and gave up on trying to go back to sleep. I was wide awake now anyway, and my stomach was growling. We had cooked up a pizza in the oven—an endeavor that proved to be somewhat dangerous, seeing as Zacky set the temperature way too high and about burned down the house—but that had been hours ago.

I sat up and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. After a few moments, I could make out everyone’s sleeping forms on the floor, and the dark shadow cast by the stairs on the far wall. Most of the party snacks on the table nearby were gone by now, so those weren’t an option. I pushed the sheets Stevie had let me borrow off of my legs and stood up, careful not to step on anyone as I made my way over to the stairs. Jimmy gave another loud snore just as I was stepping over Brian, startling me and almost resulting in me falling right on top of him. Thankfully, I avoided that, and climbed up the stairs as quickly as possible.

I rummaged around in Stevie’s kitchen, looking for something I didn’t have to cook. I eventually came across a package of Poptarts, and after clapping my hands excitedly, I opened the box and removed two blueberry pastries. I ripped a paper towel from the roll on the counter and turned to go back downstairs. However, I stopped short and nearly dropped my food when I caught sight of Brian walking into the room.

“Shit!”

He laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling, and walked over to the table.

“How come you’re up so early?” I asked, setting down the Poptarts.

“Are you kidding? Jimmy’s snoring is loud as fuck. I was trying to figure out whether or not he’d suffocate if I stuffed a pillow in his mouth, but then I saw you come up here, so I followed you.”

“Stalking me now, are you?”

Brian grinned. “Maybe.” He joined me over by the table, standing close enough to possibly send me into cardiac arrest.

I bit into a Poptart to attempt to calm my nerves and looked back at Brian while he looked at me. I really wanted to run my hands through his hair, which was adorably ruffled from sleep. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt—only boxers—which wasn’t helping with my plans to not just jump on him or anything like that.

“So…uh…I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” he said suddenly.

I looked at him curiously, noticing that he looked kind of nervous.

“What?”

He stepped closer and took both of my hands in his, looking me deep in the eye.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now, but…I really, really like you,” he said.

I had been thinking something along those lines, but hearing it out loud was even nicer.

“I really like you, too,” I said, smiling.

Brian smiled as well as he continued talking.

“Good. So…I was wondering if…if you’d be my girlfriend.”

My answer didn’t even require a second of thought. “Of course,” I said happily.

He sighed, relieved, and pulled me into a hug—a hug that sent tingles all over my body and caused the breath to catch in my throat. I smiled up at him, and soon his mouth was on mine, softly parting my lips and weakening my knees as the same time.