Chapter 1
"Liv, you can't seriously be asking me to spend an entire night with him and his idiot friends." I paced around my room, phone to my ear.
"C'mon, Emma! We always have a sleepover at my house the night before the first day of school! It's tradition! So what if Jackson invited a few of his friends over? You can't break tradition!" Livvy tried to convince me.
Livvy Locke and I met when her family moved into the house next to mine when we were in kindergarten. We had been best friends ever since. Jackson was her asshole of a twin brother. He was the epitome of a high school popular guy stereotype: arrogant, attractive, and a total player. And don't think player is an exaggeration. He is with a different girl every day and you never see him with the same girl twice. Honestly, he changed girls the way most girls changed clothes.
"C'mon are you really gonna let Jackson be the reason we skip the annual Labor Day slash end of summer sleepover?" She said it innocently enough, but I knew better. She knew me well enough to know which buttons to press to get me to do what she wanted.
Regardless of the fact, she was right. There was no way in hell I was gonna miss out on something just because of Jackson.
"Fine, I'll be over in five," I sighed, already regretting my decision.
"Yay!" she squealed before hanging up.
"I'm sleeping over next door, Dad." I said as I came down the stairs. He was sitting in the living room in his favorite recliner watching a football game, his business papers scattered on the coffee table in front of him, forgotten. I rolled my eyes. Those same papers had been sitting there since noon. He was a lawyer, a damn good one, but his love for sports sometimes prevented him from finishing his work at a decent hour.
"Sure. Have fun at school tomorrow." He said without lifting his gaze from the television screen. Ugh. Don't remind me, I thought.
A few minutes later, a backpack full of clothes and school stuff over my shoulder, I was walking into the house next door like I owned the place.
"Hi, Lilah," I said, as I passed through the kitchen. Livvy and Jackson's mom was in the kitchen baking her legendary chocolate-chip cookies.
"Oh, hi, Emma! Take a cookie! Everyone's downstairs," she gestured with one of her flour-covered hands to a plate of warm cookies.
Grabbing one, I stuffed it in my mouth and closed my eyes as the deliciousness.
"Thanks, Lilah," I mumbled around the cookie as I made my way down the stairs.
"Truth." I heard Livvy say.
"Okay, Livvy, who was the last guy you kissed?" I heard someone ask as I entered the basement.
Livvy, Jackson, and a few of Jackson's friends from school were lounging around in a poorly formed circle on the floor.
"Hey, look, Emma's here," Livvy said a little too quickly. I looked at her curiously, but from the panicked look she was giving me, I knew better than to ask in front of everyone.
"Hey, Emma," a few of the guys greeted me. The others, another guy and a couple girls, ignored my presence and I was fine with that.
"Hey, Chris, Jesse."
"You wanna play?" Jesse asked.
"I-" I was about to politely decline, when Jackson interrupted.
"You can't be serious? It won't be any fun if she plays! Princess always picks truth." He complained, daring me with his eyes to contradict him.
Challenge accepted, I thought.
"Don't call me that, and yeah, I'll play," I said. Chris moved over so I could be a part of the circle.
"Truth or dare?" Jesse asked. As a total perv, I always dreaded whatever truth or dare he came up with.
Even though I wasn't looking at him, I could feel Jackson's eyes daring me to say truth just so I could prove him right.
"Dare," I said confidently.
Jesse grabbed an empty beer bottle that someone had drank.
"You have to kiss whoever this bottle points to, boy or girl, for at least fifteen seconds," he said as he reached for his phone to start a timer.
"Fine." I tried not to look nervous as he spun the bottle. It spun quickly for a few seconds and I could feel my poker face falter with each passing second as the bottle finally slowed to a stop.
I looked up at who the bottle was pointing at to see who was unlucky enough to face this humiliation with me.
My gaze locked with a pair of smirking blue eyes.
"HELL NO!" I exclaimed, pretty loudly.
"It looks like you have to kiss Jackson!" Jesse sputtered out between bouts of laughter. I didn't see the humor in this particular situation. It was no secret that Jackson and I despised each other.
Jackson just laughed, the asshole. If he had to kiss himself, he'd protest too. How many girls had he kissed with that mouth? I shuddered just thinking about the numerous diseases that could be lurking in there.
"No! Absolutely not!" I adamantly refused.
"You have to! The forfeit is to run around the block naked," Livvy said, giggling. Of course she was enjoying this. She'd always believed that the reason Jackson and I constantly bickered was because of some underlying chemistry we shared or something ridiculous like that.
If this was any other neighborhood, I would have definitely chosen the second option, but this was my neighborhood, and I didn't want my neighbors, or, oh god, my father, seeing me in my birthday suit if they happened to look out the window.
Somehow, Jackson knew that my resolve was weakening.
"Pucker up, Princess." He smirked, giving me his signature panty-dropping smirk.
"Kiss him, Emma!" Chris cheered.
"Yeah! Just kiss him." Didn't they have anything better to do with their lives than to force girls to kiss assholes?
The only way to shut them up would be to get the damn kiss over with.
Sighing in defeat, I walked to the other side of the circle where Jackson was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. He watched me with amusement as I sat down next to him. The way he was sitting made it awkward for me but I leaned over him, bringing my face closer to his. I made the mistake of keeping my eyes open.
"Eww, eww, no." I backed away. I heard the amused chuckles behind me but ignored them as I tried to mentally prepare myself for this nightmare. I suddenly understood how Tiana felt in Princess and the Frog. I would have burst out laughing at the thought of Jackson of all people being a prince, but scowled instead. This was no laughing matter.
"What, you afraid of kissing little ol' me?" His eyes glinted with amusement, a smile playing at his lips.
I gritted my teeth. Fuck it, I thought. So what if I would need years of therapy after this kiss? It would be worth it to wipe the annoying grin off his face.
Leaning down again, I screwed my eyes shut as I crashed my lips to his. He must have been surprised at my sudden change of mood, but he didn't mention it as he kissed me back.
If I had thought that kissing Jackson Locke would be an unpleasant experience, I was wrong.
As soon as our lips touched I felt this weird electricity flow between us. It felt unlike any other kiss I'd had before and I became more into the kiss. He kissed me back with equal fervor and I tangled my fingers in his dark hair as he pulled me down onto his lap.
When his tongue stroked mine, I let out a quiet moan, and I heard a chuckle behind me.
It was at that moment that I remembered two things: 1) We had an audience, and 2) the person I was kissing so passionately was Jackson. Jackson freaking Locke. My sworn enemy. He seemed to realize it at the exact moment I did and we both pulled away from each other. We both stared at each other, neither of us saying anything. Just stunned by what we had just done.
A loud cheer erupted among the guys in the circle and I felt a blush creep over my face as I wiped my mouth with my hand.
"That was a whole minute," Jesse said, looking up from his phone with an awed look on his face.
"Best kiss you ever had, Princess," Jackson whispered in my ear. I involuntarily shivered.
"Ha! As if," I denied as I got up and moved away.
"I gotta go to the bathroom," I announced to no one in particular. I could hear the game continue on as I locked the door behind me.
I looked in the mirror. My cheeks were brighter and my lips were red from my intense makeout session. I involuntarily brought my hand up to touch my lips.
I had never had a kiss like that.
Ever.
And to make things worse, the person I had shared that kiss with was Jackson Locke.
Shit.