Today was the day my Aunt was going to get married. She and my uncle had been together for over 20 years and finally decided it was time. They already had had kids and were always faithful to each other. I was happy that they found the love they deserved, but I didn’t believe that I would ever have anything like that. Just because I didn’t believe in relationships for myself, didn’t mean I didn’t believe in love for other people. I mean, look at my parents, my dad was rarely home yet they were still so in love.

I had actually gone out to buy a beautiful floor length pink dress, and making high heels. And because it was such a special occasion I actually decided to put on full makeup. Jack was sitting on my desk chair - he had arrived an hour ago to come pick Cameron and I up - as I was working on my eye makeup in the bathroom. I wasn’t wearing my dress yet, so I had the door only opened ajar so I could still talk to Jack without him seeing me.

“My aunt is probably going to going crazy and will ask you if you’re my boyfriend,” I said as I was applying my winged eyeliner over my brown eyeshadow, “the answer to that is no, you are not my boyfriend, you’re just kind enough to be my date because you’re an amazing best friend and felt bad for me.”

“Well, I do feel bad for you. That Brian guy really sounded like an asshole to me,” Jack commented.

“He really was, I hope to never see him again,” I quickly put my natural hair into a side ponytail that draped over my right shoulder and took out some smaller pieces at the front to frame my face, “pass me my dress, will ya?”

Jack hummed in response and in no time Jack was handing me my dress with his back towards me. I took it from him and pulled it over my legs, my hips, and the rest of my body. The day that I bought this dress was very hectic. I didn’t have anybody to go with; I tried calling Abagail, but she kept ignoring me and sending me to voicemail. I didn’t understand why she was doing it though, maybe she was mad at me for interrupting her intimate moment with Jack, maybe she was mad that Jack went after me instead of staying with her. If that was the reason, it really was a shitty one. She kept telling me to get together with him, yet she also slept with him. Maybe it was just a cover up for her feelings. But it was also possible that she was just busy with work, she had ignored me before because of that, but that was normally only a couple of days, not two weeks. I really hoped I hadn’t lost my only friend that was a girl.

But anyway, back to the day I went dress shopping. I had been to a ton of different shops looking for dresses. My parents had given me some money to buy something nice. Normally I would have declined it, but I was broke and really wanted to look nice for my aunt, I would pay them back someday. All the dresses I had tried on did not fit. Either the chest was too tight or the rest was too loose. You see, I was cursed with the fact that my breasts were slightly larger than average. I might not sound that bad, but it was terrible whenever I wanted to wear a dress and I couldn’t wear low cut shirts. I wasn’t a girl who liked showing cleavage, so I often covered up with loose fitting shirts that had normal necklines or even ones that came up to my neck. When I had tried on 20 different dresses I was about to give up until I saw this one. It fit perfectly and the color complimented my brownish yet pale skintone and my dark chestnut hair. I was so relieved and happy that I went home and fell asleep immediately.

So, here I was, in my bathroom, putting on my dress and having troubles with my zipper. Luckily there was a gentleman in my room who looked awfully hot in suit and tie. I walked out, holding the back so I wouldn’t fall out of the dress. Jack turned around and saw me. His eyes went wide as he gulped. I had never seen him so infatuated by something.

“You look- umm, you look,” he cleared his throat, “you look very amazing. You’re so beautiful.”

I smiled shyly and walked up closer to him, “You look pretty hot yourself.”

“I don’t want to be called hot, I want to be called beautiful,” Jack said in a terrible girl voice, which he oddly enough did quite often.

“Well, you look beautiful,” I kissed his cheek and turned around, “Can you zip me up?”

Jack took a step closer in response and put his hand on my back to steady the dress, his other hand going for the zipper, “I mean it, you really look astonishing.”

I tucked some hair behind my ear as I looked down to hide my blush, “It’s probably all the makeup making me look like a normal person for once.”

I could feel Jack’s fingers carefully caress my bare back as he moved the zipper up. The touches sent small shocks through my body, wishing they would stay longer. “You always look stunning,” Jack breathed out as he reached the end.

His hands lingered and then slowly lowered back to his sides. I could still feel his hot breath in my neck. Instead of it slowly going away it came closer and I slowly turned around. My face was just inches away from his, our breathing molding together. I couldn’t stop staring at his lips, the lips that looked so kissable. It was so wrong, yet I needed it; I needed to feel his lips against mine. I looked up at his eyes to ask for permission, but instead he was staring at my lips just like I was staring at him. I looked back down just as our lips were nearing before they finally touched. This, in my mind, was my first kiss, yet I still knew what to do. His mouth tasted sweeter than I would have expected it to when his tongue carefully started testing, tasting, and feeling. I wrapped my arms around his neck to bring him even closer to me as he took hold of my waist to do the same. My mind just completely stopped; time stopped as his movements become more passionate: pressing his lips harder against mine, becoming more needy of the feeling of my lips. It was so wrong yet so right. I didn’t want it to stop.

“Guys are you ready!” Cameron knocked on the door making Jack and I jump apart.

“Umm… yeah,” I couldn’t stop staring at Jack, “one sec.”

Jack started talking, “I-”

But I interrupted him, “You go, I’ll be there in a bit. I just have to finish off doing… umm… yeah… and my shoes…”

Jack nodded and hesitantly took his eyes off me before turning around and going out of my room. I hurried into my bathroom and looked in the mirror. Luckily I wasn’t wearing any lipstick yet, or that would have been a dead giveaway to Cam, this longlasting lipstick was really difficult to get off. If I hadn’t had any other makeup on I would have definitely splashed water in my face. I shakingly put my lipstick on before resting my hands on the counter and staring at myself.

I had just kissed Jack Barakat: a guy who doesn’t do relationships, a guy who sleeps with a ton of girls, a guy who is my best friend. What the fuck had I done. Our whole friendship was probably going to be ruined. Why didn’t he push me away? Did he have feelings for me? If he did, since when? But he didn’t do relationships. He fucked a girl and then went on to the next one. I couldn’t handle being one of those girls. All I could think about was Jack, Jack, Jack. But that’s when I suddenly realised something. Did I have feelings for him?

I quickly slipped on my shoes and walked out to where the two boys were waiting on me. My eyes immediately fell on Jack who was staring back at me. Was he overthinking this as well? Cameron got up and walked past me to the front door. When he realised nobody was behind him he came back and looked between me and Jack.

“What’s up with you guys?” He expertly raised and eyebrow.

This was enough for both me and Jack to snap back to reality. I was about to respond to Cam with a ‘nothing’, but decided it was better not to. The kiss Jack and I shared wasn’t nothing, as much as I wanted it to be. It was on my mind constantly when I was sitting in the passenger seat of Jack’s car, looking out of the window. My mind knew kissing Jack was terribly wrong and told me to run away while I still could, but something else inside of me wanted Jack to kiss me again. I was in a constant battle with myself.

----

The wedding was beautiful. Some people shed some tears and the vows made others laugh, but I couldn’t really get into it. My mind was elsewhere. Cam had sat between me and Jack, which was a complete coincidence that I was so grateful for. I didn’t need more awkwardness between us. We hadn’t said a word to each other, not even at the reception till my aunt came towards us.

“Ireland! You look so beautiful!” She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek before turning to Jack, “and who’s this?”

“Umm, that’s Jack,” I introduced him.

“Ooh! Is this the Jack I hear so much about!”

“Uh, yeah, that’s him, I don’t know any other Jack’s in my life except Jack Daniels.”

Aunt Doreen chuckled, “Well, it’s nice to finally meet your boyfriend, Ireland.”

“I’m not, umm…” Jack scratched the back of his head.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I finished off for him.

“Oh, what a shame. You really should get together. Ireland’s a good catch,” Doreen winked.

“She’s a really cool girl. Too bad the last guy fucked it up,” Jack replied instead of staying quiet like I had expected him to.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, he was a real douchebag. The guy wouldn’t shut up about his money,” I clarified

“Oh, isn’t that what most girls want?”

“I’m not most girls,” I laughed.

“I can agree with you on that one,” Aunt Doreen smiled between me and Jack, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go talk to some other people. Nice to meet you, Jack.”

“Nice to meet you to,” Jack nodded his head and Aunt Doreen left us.

“How about we go sit…” I mumbled and pointed at the table Cam was sitting at.

“Umm, sure,” Jack followed me and sat to my right.

Cameron kept trying to make small talk, but with Jack and I not really talking to each other, it was kind of impossible. I often just hummed in response and answered with 3 word sentences, while Jack never answered with more than 7, trust me I counted. Knowing Cam, I could see he wanted to ask us what was wrong and what was going on between us. But he didn’t, which was very unlike Cam. I guess he just knew it was better to leave it alone. How was I going to talk about it if I didn’t even know what was going on myself?

When Cam got up to get something to drink, Jack started talking to my surprise, “So, umm, want to dance?”

I shook my head, “I’m sorry, I don’t dance.”

Jack nodded his head, “Oh, okay. That’s fine.”

A few minutes of silence later Jack got up and walked away without saying a word. I couldn’t find out where he was going and I didn’t see a sign of him till a lot later, when the party was almost over. He was on the dance floor, slow dancing with one of my younger cousins who was 17. I was slightly disgusted by it. She was all touchy feely and I knew how Jack was. It technically wasn’t illegal, but there was still an age gap of 10 years. Jack didn’t even seem to care even though he told me he was always careful with how old the girls were. When Jack realised I was staring at them, he excused himself and came back over to me.

“So, my cousin, huh?” I rocked my glass back and forth.

“She’s a pretty cool kid,” Jack shrugged.

“You know she’s 17, right?”

“Oh god! You- you actually thought- oh god no!” Jack made a disgusted face.

“What should I think?”

“She thought she had recognized me, but that there was no way. When she saw me coming out of the bathroom she realised it was me. So I started talking to her. That’s what I do, I talk to fans.”

“I didn’t even know she liked your kind of music. She probably only likes it because everybody in your band is good looking.”

“She was very touchy. Like, very very touchy. I mean all up in here touchy,” Jack laughed. I laughed along with him when your eyes locked. We stopped laughing and only smiled at each other. God, everything about him was perfect. Jack and I both started leaning in before we realised what we were doing. We quickly jumped away before getting close and sat in our seats awkwardly. The only reason we were still at this party was because we were waiting for Cam. But that didn’t last long either.

“I’m going to go back to mom’s and dad’s,” Cam told us, “you guys can go home if you want.”

Jack and I both nodded exhaustedly and immediately got up to say goodbye to anybody of importance. My aunt did her ‘you guys should be together’ speech again and I told my parents I would visit pretty soon. Before there were anymore people that would want to start a whole new conversation, Jack and I hurried to his car.

This ride was more awkward than the way to the wedding. Cam wasn’t with us to fill the silence, and the music we had playing wasn’t helping at all. Instead of going to Jack’s like we had planned, I had asked him to drop me off at the apartment instead. My excuse was being too exhausted and feeling sick from all the alcohol I drank, but we both knew that wasn’t true. I barely had had anything to drink. The situation between us right now was just too confusing to handle.

Jack stopped in front of the building, “I had fun.”

“Yeah, me too,” I lied.

Silence consumed us. It was something that rarely happened to us, especially after we had gone out. Normally we would be telling the same stories over and over again and Jack would make the cheesiest dick jokes ever. But it wasn’t like that anymore.

Jack looked like he was about to kiss me, but went for my cheek instead. He quickly pulled away, “So, umm, bye.”

“Yeah, bye,” I opened the car door and hurried into the building, not looking back at the car like I would normally do. This was really awkward.

Notes

So... Is this a new beginning or is this the end of their friendship? This is the longest kissing scene I've ever written, and I also think it's the best (even though it's still pretty crappy) so please tell me what to improve.