Her lips felt warm and tingly, and she fought the urge to touch them with her fingertips.

She noticed Michael look down at her then, and she lifted her eyes just in time to see him smile at her; he tugged a piece of her hair and winked, and then he picked up his drink and walked away as casually as if he’d just said a passing hello to them.

Lauren stared after him, watching him walk away, still unable to form a coherent thought.

“Well, shit,” Jenn said from beside her, although her voice seemed far away. “I gotta give him credit; it certainly looked like the boy has skills.”

“I can’t believe you did that,” Lauren mumhy not?”

“I know, right?” Jenn laughed. “You’re welcome,” she sing-songed, hopping up and grabbing Lauren’s wrist. “Vamos, chica. I need a refill.”

And Lauren allowed her body to be towed further into the wilderness in search of the keg, although her mind was still back on the fallen tree, kissing Michael.

Oddly enough, as the night went on, Jenn seemed perfectly content to move past the little incident on the log; to Lauren’s surprise, she never even brought it up again. But as the hours passed, no matter how many conversations Lauren tried to get into, no matter how many times she filled her five-dollar plastic cup at the keg, no matter how many times she scolded herself for going back to that moment, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Maybe Jenn had been right? Lauren thought as she stood with a group of people who were laughing and talking, completely oblivious to her zombie-like state. She sipped her beer, her eyes on the floor.

She’d never been kissed like that in her life.

The gentleness, the tenderness, it had to mean something, didn’t it? Suddenly it didn’t seem that farfetched that Jenn could have been right in her assumption. After all, she had been right about one thing—one thing Lauren couldn’t deny anymore if her life depended on it.

She was hopelessly in love with Michael Delaney.

By the time Lauren had finished her third beer and Jenn had disappeared somewhere, cozying up to some senior, Lauren had convinced herself she needed to find Michael. She needed to know what he thought of that kiss.

She needed to know if it changed anything for him.

It took her a while, but she finally found two of Michael’s friends leaning up against a tree with a couple of girls, passing around what appeared to be a cigarette, although Lauren knew better.

“Hey,” she said when she reached them. “Have you seen Michael?”

The one she knew was named Phil turned toward her, looking bored. “Michael?”

“Del,” she clarified, and Phil smirked.

“What do you want with Del?”

“To talk to him,” she said, folding her arms and looking up at him. For as long as she’d known Michael, she never really warmed to his friends. They embodied the persona that Michael portrayed to other people, except with these guys, there was nothing else underneath.

“Well then you’re out of luck, little girl,” Phil said, pausing to take a long pull of the joint at his lips. He exhaled, and most of the smoke wafted into Lauren’s face. She jerked her head back and coughed, and he smiled. “I don’t think Del’s much in the mood for talking right now. But he’s over there somewhere,” he said, gesturing toward a cluster of trees.

Lauren turned from them, ignoring the giggles from the girls as she walked in the direction Phil had indicated. She found herself having to focus against the darkness as the trees became more dense.

Lauren stopped walking, allowing her sight to adjust to the deepening shadows, and for a second, she thought maybe Phil had sent her on a wild goose chase for his own amusement. Just as she was about to turn and walk back out toward the crowd, she heard a rustling and snapping of thy not?”

“Hey,” she said, and Michael glanced up, catching sight of her.

“Hey Red,” he said with a smile. “Where’s your other half?”

“She disappeared with Trevor McLaine a little while ago,” Lauren said with a shrug, and Michael threw his head back and laughed.

“Well, I’m glad she took my advice, even if Dennis didn’t get to reap the benefits. Hopefully this will mellow her out a bit.”

Lauren half smiled. “Listen,” she said, the alcohol in her system making her bold. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I just…,” she said, faltering now that the moment was upon her. “I just…I wanted to talk about…what happened before.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked up at him; his expression was completely relaxed.

“I mean,” she cleared her throat. “I mean before. On the tree.”

Lauren watched as his expression changed; he pulled his brow together and tilted his head, a small smile on his lips. “Oh, come on. You’re not mad at me, are you? It was just a dare.”

Before she could even respond, there was a crunching sound, and Lauren looked up to see a girl approaching them, coming from the same direction Michael had just appeared from only moments before.

She was giggling, one hand adjusting the straps of her tank top and bra while the other tried unsuccessfully to make her disheveled skirt presentable.

She walked right up to Michael’s side, wrapping her arms around his waist, still giggling as she planted open-mouthed kisses along the side of his neck.

Lauren swallowed, her eyes pinned on the girl. For some reason, the only coherent thought she could come up with was that she was wearing too much makeup. Her eyeliner and lipstick were both heavy and dark, making her look harsh instead of feminine. Her name was Tanya. Or Tina. Something like that. But despite not knowing her name, her reputation was something Lauren knew well.

She watched her lavish Michael’s throat with attention, and she couldn’t help but notice how her lipstick was smudged around her mouth.

She didn’t want to think about how it had gotten that way.

Lauren ripped her eyes away from the girl, looking back up at Michael. He seemed completely oblivious to the person at his side, sucking on the skin just below his ear. His eyes were on Lauren, his expression gentle.

Concerned.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re cool, right?”

It took every ounce of strength in Lauren’s body to pull a smile, but she managed a shaky one. “Yeah, I’m cool,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t falter. “I just meant that…I wanted to ask you to take it easy with Jenn. Quit instigating her, okay?”

Michael grinned then, a combination of relief and mischief chasing the concern from his eyes. “No promises,” he said. He walked the few steps over to her with Tanya/Tina in tow and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

And then he turned and walked back toward his friends with another girl’s lips all over his skin.

Del sat on the floor up against the side of his bed, his head bobbing slightly to the song thumping out of his stereo.

And then he grit his teeth and took a swig from the bottle in his hand as his mind went back to that afternoon.

To the moment Tanya had smacked him across his face.

In front of the entire cafeteria.

Del shook his head, swallowing his mouthful of whiskey. That fucking bitch. He could not believe he spent the last month of his life with that girl. And he had an even harder time believing that the slap she bestowed on him wasn’t just a ploy for attention.

He knew she didn’t really care about him, just the way he didn’t really care about her. They never even pretended to care about each other. So honestly, how upset could she have been that he had grown bored with her? After all, their entire relationship was a joke. In fact, even referring to it as a relationship was a joke in itself; anything that began with a girl on her knees in the middle of the woods could hardly be constituted as anything meaningful, at least not in his eyes.