I wanted to say no, but for me, saying no to Susannah was impossible. Especially with her going through a divorce. I couldn't say no. So instead I said, "Um . . . maybe ..."

"Please, honey? I'd really like to meet him."

I caved. "All right, I'll ask. I can't promise he doesn't have plans, though."

Susannah nodded serenely. "As long as you ask."

Unfortunately for me, Cam didn't have plans.

Susannah cooked; she made a tofu stir-fry because Cam was a vegetarian. Again, it was something I'd admired about him, but when I saw the look Jeremiah gave me, it made me shrink a little. Jeremiah cooked hamburgers that night--he liked any excuse to use the grill, just like his dad. He asked me if I wanted one too, and I said no even though I did.

Conrad had already eaten and was upstairs playing his guitar. He couldn't even be bothered to eat with us. He came down to get a bottled water, and he didn't even say hello to Cam.

"So why don't you eat meat, Cam?" Jeremiah asked, stuffing half his burger into his mouth.

Cam swallowed his water and said, "I'm morally opposed to eating animals."

Jeremiah nodded seriously. "But Belly eats meat. You let her kiss you with those lips?" Then he cracked up. Susannah and my mother exchanged a knowing kind of smile.

I could feel my face getting hot, and I could feel how tense Cam was beside me. "Shut up, Jeremiah."

Cam glanced at my mother and laughed uneasily. "I don't judge people who choose to eat meat. It's a personal choice."

Jeremiah continued, "So you don't mind when her lips touch dead animal and then they touch your, um, lips?"

Susannah chuckled lightly and said ,"Jere, give the guy a break."

"Yeah, Jere, give the guy a break," I said, glaring at him. I kicked him under the table, hard. Hard enough to make him flinch.

"No, it's fine," Cam said. "I don't mind at all. In fact--" Then he pulled me to him and kissed me quickly, right in front of everyone. It was only a peck, but it was embarrassing.

"Please don't kiss Belly at the dinner table," said Jeremiah, gagging a little for effect. "You're making me nauseous."

My mother shook her head at him and said, "Belly's allowed to kiss. "Then she pointed her fork at Cam. "But that's it."

She burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing she'd ever said, and Susannah tried not to smile and told her to hush. I wanted to kill my mother and then myself. "Mom, please. You're so not funny," I said. "No more wine for Mom." I refused to look anywhere near Jeremiah's direction, or Cam's, for that matter.

The truth was, Cam and I hadn't done much else besides kiss. He didn't seem to be in any big hurry. He was careful with me, sweet--nervous even. It was completely different from the way I'd seen other guys behave with girls. Last summer I caught Jeremiah with a girl on the beach, right outside of the house. They were frantic, like if they hadn't been wearing clothes, they'd already have been having sex. I gave him hell for it the whole rest of the summer, but he didn't really care. I wished Cam would care a little more.

"Belly, I'm kidding. You know I'm open to you exploring yourself," my mother said, taking a long sip of chardonnay.

Jeremiah busted out laughing. I stood up and said, "That's it. Cam and I are eating our dinner on the porch." I grabbed my plate and waited for Cam to stand up too.

But he didn't. "Belly, calm down. Everybody's just joking around," he said, loading up his fork with rice and bok choy and shoveling it into his mouth.

"Way to keep her in check, Cam," Jeremiah said, nodding at him. He really did look kind of impressed.

I sat back down, although it killed me to do it. I hated losing face in front of everyone, but if I did walk out by myself, I knew no one would come after me. I would just be little Belly Button, off pouting again. That was my name when I was being a baby, Belly Button--Steven thought he was such a genius for thinking that one up. "No one keeps me in check, Jeremiah. Least of all Cam Cameron."

Everyone hooted and hollered then, even Cam, and all of a sudden, it was all very normal, like he really belonged there. I could feel myself start to relax. It was all going to be okay. Great, in fact. Amazing, just like Susannah had promised.

After dinner, Cam and I took a walk on the beach. For me there was--is--nothing better than walking on the beach late at night. It feels like you could walk forever, like the whole night is yours and so is the ocean. When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can't say in real life. In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.

"I'm really glad you came," I told him.

He took my hand and said, "Me too. I'm glad you're glad."

"Of course I'm glad."

I let go of his hand to roll up the bottoms of my jeans, and he said, quietly, "It didn't seem like you were that glad."

"Well, I am." I looked up at him and gave him a quick kiss. "See? This is me, being glad."

He smiled and we started walking again. "Good. So which one of those guys was your first kiss?"

"I told you that?"

"Yup. You said your first kiss was a boy at the beach when you were thirteen."

"Oh." I looked up at his face in the moonlight, and he was still smiling. "Guess."

Immediately he said, "The older one, Conrad."

"Why'd you guess him?"

He shrugged. "Just a feeling, the way he looks at you."

"He hardly looks at me at all," I told him. "And you're wrong, Sextus. It was Jeremiah."

Chapter twenty - eight

AGE 14

"Truth or dare?" Taylor asked Conrad.

"I'm not playing," he said.

Taylor pouted. "Don't be so g*y," she said. Jeremiah said, "You shouldn't use the word 'gay' like

Taylor opened her mouth and closed it. Then she said, "I didn't mean anything by it, Jeremy. I just meant he's being lame."

"Well, 'gay' doesn't mean 'lame,' Taylor, now does it?" Jeremiah said. He spoke in a sarcastic tone, but even mean attention was better than no attention. Probably he was just mad about all the attention she'd been giving Conrad that day.

Taylor heaved a great big sigh and turned to Conrad.

"Conrad, you're being very lame. Play truth or dare with us.

He ignored her and turned the volume on the TV up louder. Then he pretended to mute her with the remote, which made me laugh out loud.

"Fine, he's out. Steven, truth or dare."

Steven rolled his eyes. "Truth."

Taylor's eyes lit up. "Okay. How far did you go with Claire Cho?" I knew she'd been saving that one up for a long time, waiting for the exact moment she could ask. Claire Cho was a girl that Steven had dated for most of freshman year. Taylor swore Claire had cankles, but I thought Claire's ankles were perfectly slim. I thought Claire Cho was kind of perfect.

Steven actually blushed. "I'm not answering that."

"You have to. It's truth or dare. You can't sit here and listen to other people tell secrets if you're not going to," I said. I had been wondering about him and Claire too.

"Nobody's even told any secrets yet!" he protested.

"We're about to, Steven," Taylor said. "Now man up and tell us."

"Yeah, Steven, man up," Jeremiah chimed in.

We all started to chant, "Man up! Man up!" Even Conrad turned the TV on mute to hear the answer.

"Fine," Steven said. "If you shut up, I'll tell you."

We shut right up and waited. "Well?" I said.

"Third," he said at last.

I relaxed back into the couch. Third base. Wow. Interesting. My brother had been to third base. Weird. Gross.

Taylor looked pink with satisfaction. "Well done, Stevie."

He shook his head at her and said, "Now it's my turn." He looked around the room, and I sank deep into the couch cushions. I really, really hoped he wasn't going to pick me and make me say it out loud--how I hadn't even so much as kissed a boy yet. Knowing Steven, he would.

He surprised me when he said, "Taylor. Truth or dare?" He was actually playing along.

Automatically she said, "You can't pick me because I just asked you. You have to pick someone else." Which was true, that was the rule.

"Are you scared, Tay-Tay? Why don't you man up?"

Taylor hesitated. "Fine. Truth."

Steven grinned evilly. "Who would you kiss in this room?"

Taylor considered it for a few seconds, and then she got that cat-that-ate-the-canary look on her face. It was the same look she'd had on her face when she'd dyed her little sister's hair blue when we were eight. She waited until she had everyone's attention, and then she said, triumphantly, "Belly."

There was a stunned kind of silence for a minute, and then everyone started to laugh, Conrad loudest. I threw a pillow at Taylor, hard.

"That's not fair. You didn't answer for real," Jeremiah said, shaking his finger at her.

"Yes, I did," Taylor said smugly. "I pick Belly. Take a closer look at everybody's favorite little sister, Jeremy. She's turning hot before your very eyes."

I hid my face behind a pillow. I knew I was blushing even harder than Steven had. Mostly because it wasn't true, I wasn't turning hot before anyone's eyes, and we all knew it. "Taylor, shut up. Please shut up."

"Yes, please shut up, Tay- Tay," Steven said. He looked kind of red too.

"If you're so serious, then kiss her," said Conrad, his eyes still on the TV.

"Hey," I said, glaring at him. "I'm a person. You can't just kiss me without my permission."

He looked at me and said, "I'm not the one who wants to kiss you."

Hotly, I said, "Either way, permission not granted. To either of you." I wished I could stick my tongue out at him without being accused of being a big baby.

Taylor broke in quickly. She said, "I picked truth, not dare. That's why we're not kissing right now."

"We're not kissing right now because I don't want to kiss you," I told her. I felt flushed, partly because I was mad, and partly because I was flattered. "Now let's stop talking about it. It's your turn to ask."

"Fine. Jeremiah. Truth or dare."

"Dare," he said, leaning against the couch lazily.

"Okay. Kiss somebody in this room, right now ."Taylor looked at him confidently and waited.

It felt like the whole room was sitting on the edge of its seat while we waited for Jeremiah to say something. Would he actually do it? He was not the kind of guy to pass up a dare. I, for one, was curious about what kind of kisser he'd be, if he'd go for a French or if he'd give her a quick peck. I also wondered if it would be their first kiss, or if they'd kissed sometime earlier in the week, like at the arcade when I wasn't looking, maybe. I was pretty sure they had.

Jeremiah sat up straight. "Easy," he said, rubbing his hands together with a smile. Taylor smiled back and tilted her head to the side so her hair fell in her eyes just a little bit.

Then he leaned over to me and said, "Ready?" and before I could answer, he kissed me right on the lips. His mouth was a little bit open, but it wasn't a French kiss or anything. I tried to push him off, but he kept on kissing me, for a few more seconds.

I pushed him off again, and he leaned back into the couch, as casual as can be. Everyone else was sitting there with their mouths hanging open, except for Conrad, who didn't even look surprised. But then, he never looked surprised. I, on the other hand, was finding it kind of hard to breathe. I had just had my first kiss. In front of people. In front of my brother.

I couldn't believe that Jeremiah had stolen my first kiss like that. I had been waiting, wanting it to be special, and it had happened during a game of truth or dare. How unspecial could you get? And to top it all off, he had only done it to make Taylor jealous, not because he liked me.

It had worked. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was staring at Jeremiah like he had thrown down some kind of gauntlet. Which, I guess he kind of had.

"Gross," Steven said. "This game is gross. I'm outta here." Then he looked at all of us disgustedly and left.

I got up too, and so did Conrad. "See ya," I said. "And, Jeremiah, I'm getting you back for that."

He winked and said, "A back rub should make us about even," and I threw a pillow directly at his head and slammed the door behind me. The fact that he was being fake-flirty was the worst part. It was so patronizing, so demeaning.

It took me about three seconds before I realized that Taylor wasn't coming after me. She was inside, laughing at Jeremiah's dumb jokes.

In the hallway, Conrad gave me his trademark knowing look and said, "You know you loved it."

I glared at him. "How would you know? You're too obsessed with yourself to notice anybody else."

He walked away from me and said over his shoulder, "Oh, I notice everything, Belly. Even poor little you."

"Screw you!" I said, because that was all I could think of. I could hear him chuckling as he shut his bedroom door.

I went back to my room and got under the covers. I closed my eyes and replayed and replayed what had just happened. Jeremiah's lips had touched my lips. My lips were no longer my own. They had been touched. By Jeremiah. I had finally been kissed, and it was my friend Jeremiah who'd been the one to do it. My friend Jeremiah who had been ignoring me that whole week.