His lips are soft. It’s not unpleasant. But I don’t know what to do. It’s supposed to be instinctive, or something, but what if it’s not? What if I’m not good at kissing? What if he tastes me and knows right away that I don’t know what I’m doing?

My hands find his shoulders. His tongue plunges in and out and I try to move mine in response. Like dancing, except not the way I usually step on everyone else’s toes. I hope.

My hands squeeze his shoulders and part of me wants to wrap my fingers around his neck and pull him closer, but how can he get any closer, and there is another part of me, in the back of my brain, that won’t let me lean into it at all.

My palms pump against his shoulder bones, pushing him away.

“What’s wrong?” Zeke is alarmed. “What happened? Did I hurt you?”

It takes a moment to catch my breath. Zeke’s hands slide down my back, soothing and comforting but also sending shivers through me. All my muscles are awake and intrigued by him.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

He rubs my back. “Don’t be sorry,” he says. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says. “Do you want to stop?”

“No. I mean … no. I don’t want to stop.”

Zeke waits anyway.

“It’s … there’s something you should know.”

“Okay.” He listens to me, all sweet and open. He’s paying such close attention, but how do I really tell him?

“I don’t, I mean, I haven’t … before. I’ve never…” Why is it hard to admit it out loud?

“You’ve never had sex?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He lets go of me altogether. I’ve ruined it. Now he knows and he can’t see me the same way.

“Is it, like, a religious thing?”

“No, I just haven’t had the opportunity.”

“That’s probably not true,” he says. “Lots of people have been into you. You just didn’t know it.”

It’s nice that he thinks that. “Maybe,” I say. “Except it’s me.”

Zeke frowns, making a the-whole-world-should-see-what-I-see face. “Don’t you know how amazing you are?”

My I-hope-it’s-sexy grin. “Sometimes.”

He leans forward. “Good.”

“It’s not that I doubt myself. It’s more like … I don’t think most people really see me.”

“I see you,” he says.

“Maybe.” I lower my gaze. It’s baiting and coy and I don’t like myself much for doing it.

“You are beautiful,” Zeke says. “And not just because you’re so freaking hot.”

I laugh out loud.