Page 35 of The Frathole

“Hey, hey, look at me. Mart, come on…look at me. Marty.”

He’s as stubborn as always, but he finally breaks, and I can see the hurt in the subtle downturn of his lips, the softness in his eyes. When he’s not being a complete dick, it’s possible for me to sympathize with him.

“This is clearly hitting a nerve,” I say. “I’m sure that wasn’t great to hear from girls, and it’s obviously left an impression, but if you want me to be honest with you—”

“I’d rather you not.”

I need to be more careful with my goddamn words because I don’t really care whether or not he wants me to be honest. “Even if you don’t want me to be honest, here it is: I think this is what’s getting in your way. If you felt confident about kissing, maybe you’d feel like you could hit on Angie or another girl because you’d know you have the skills to back it up with.”

He breaks eye contact. “I can’t say you’re entirely wrong.”

“I feel like I’m not even a little bit wrong.”

He shoots me another dirty look. He’s full of those tonight. But we might’ve hit onto his core issue around flirting, which is a win in my book.

“If it’s only kissing, that’s something we can work on,” I tell him.

“If you think you’re getting Gisele back so we can kiss, you are dead wrong.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, man. Or Gisele, for that matter, because wouldn’t that suck to team her up with someone who can’t even kiss?” I’m hoping the joke will lighten the mood.

It doesn’t.

I start to reach for him to rest my hand on his shoulder, but thinking about how he reacted before, I stop myself. As he notices, I say, “See? I can learn.”

He snickers, which makes me feel some relief, like I’ve broken through whatever barrier he was keeping between us.

“I’m not gonna bring another girl into this because with where you’re at, that’s too much.”

“Okay…” he drags out. “So you have some other plan for how to deal with me being a shit kisser?”

I take a breath, accepting this isn’t gonna be an easy job, but someone’s gotta do it. “You’re gonna kiss me.”

Seems like the obvious solution, but his eyes widen, and he jumps up from the bed, as though the suggestion meant I wasabout to lunge at him and force a smooch on his lips.

“The hell is this weird shit?” he asks.

“What? How is that weird?”

“How is thatnotweird?”

“We’re in frats. You had to have kissed guys before.”

“No, I haven’t.Youhave?”

He can’t be serious.

“You never played spin the bottle and it wound up on a guy? Or had a TaskFrat challenge where you had to kiss?”

“I don’t play spin the bottle for obvious reasons.”

Mmmm. That tracks. If I sucked at kissing, guess I’d avoid situations where I had to do just that.

“I should have figured that one out on my own.”

Maybe he’s right. I could just be an idiot. I sure am acting like one tonight.

“Well,” I go on, “having kissed guys before, I can tell you it’s not a big deal. And it’ll help me see where you’re at. Kissing can be taught. It’s a skill like anything else. And I don’t know if you think you need references, but I’m pretty damn good at it.”