How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You Read online

  There were about five seconds of illogical agony in which I wondered whether the mouthwash had failed me and the smell was coming from my own breath, before I realised what I was actually smelling. My hair was on fire!

  The thought screamed through my brain, shocking me out of my kissing reverie completely. Forget the notion of ‘the heat of the moment’ — I was literally going up in flames!

  My eyes flew open, but I couldn’t look down to see how much of my hair was on fire because Hayden and I were still in liplock. All I knew was that I didn’t want the flames to reach my face. The hairspray I’d so liberally applied earlier was probably acting as an accelerant — I might only have seconds to spare!

  I threw up my arm to push Hayden away and felt my hand make contact with one of the heavy candles positioned between us. I heard the clunk of the glass holder hitting the table the same second as I felt boiling hot wax spill onto my arm.

  My whole body jolted from the searing pain of the wax coating the delicate skin of my wrist. My teeth slammed together in an instinctual reaction and I bit down on Hayden’s lips, which were still intertwined with mine. Hayden let out a muffled shout.

  I ripped away from him and stared in horror at the gash in his bottom lip. But there was no time to apologise yet. I snatched the burning ends of my hair from the candle jar, then threw my glass of Coke over them, thankfully extinguishing the flames before they got any closer to my head.

  My wrist was prickling with pain from the blisteringly hot wax. I needed ice. I needed liquid of any description. I snatched up Hayden’s Coke and poured it onto my arm. As my pain level dropped from all-consuming smart to a bearable throbbing, my attention snapped back to Hayden. He had leapt to his feet and was clutching his mouth. Blood was trickling between his fingers.

  Blood. My kiss had actually drawn blood. And not in a sexy Twilight way. I felt like I wanted to be sick.

  ‘Hayden!’ I leapt up from my cushion too.

  ‘I have to get to the bathroom before I get blood everywhere.’

  He pushed past me, his words muffled by his hand, and took off down the hall to the downstairs bathroom.

  I ran to the kitchen for the first-aid kit. I needed gauze, antiseptic and a time machine to take me back half an hour so I could stop myself from lighting the now blindingly obvious fire hazard that were candles positioned between two people. I grabbed the kit from the pantry drawer and ran back down the hall. I wanted to cry, from both the extreme embarrassment of having sunk my teeth into my Potential Prince and the throbbing pain of my wrist. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, pushing away tears. I had to stay calm. Medical emergencies called for a steady head. I would have plenty of time to reflect upon my disastrous attempt at acting the siren once Hayden’s lips weren’t streaming blood. Right now I had to focus on helping him. Not that he’d be likely to trust me anywhere near his face. He was sure to snatch the medical kit from me and slam the bathroom door.

  Hayden turned as I entered. He had one of our white hand towels pressed to his lips. I gasped when I saw that the hand towel was no longer white but almost completely red, soaked with blood in the two to three minutes he’d been in the bathroom.

  ‘It won’t stop bleeding,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll have to go to the hospital.’

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Jelena said. ‘He’s never going to forget your second kiss.’

  ‘How can he?’ I wailed, and buried my head in a couch cushion. ‘Every time he looks in the mirror, the scar is going to be right there in front of him. I have actually scarred him with what is, for most normal people, a straightforward action. Two sets of lips meeting! Simple! Wasn’t that what we said?’

  Later that night, Jelena, Sara, Cass, Lindsay and I were sprawled out across my lounge room. I’d sent the girls a text with a brief explanation of the debacle while Hayden was signing hospital release forms, so by the time we’d arrived back home and I’d said my mortified goodbye to the Parises and their lip-savaged son, all four of them were waiting on my doorstep, even though it was close to 11 pm. True besties always come to the rescue, even late on a school night.

  I couldn’t believe the hospital had called Hayden’s parents. I’d thought my mortification couldn’t get any worse, but seeing Mr and Mrs Paris choke back laughter after the doctor’s highly unprofessional comment of ‘nothing to worry about, just a bit of a perforation from some overenthusiastic necking’ (who uses the word ‘necking’ these days?!) had left me with a face as red as the burns on my wrist.

  ‘A kiss normally is simple. You just had bad luck.’ Cass, sitting next to me on the sofa, gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  ‘Odds of a million to one,’ Jelena muttered.

  ‘Jelena, we are trying to be supportive here.’ Sara tossed a cushion at her. ‘I.e. make Aurora feel a little better?’

  ‘I am!’ Jelena tossed the cushion back at her. ‘I’m stressing how unlucky and unexpected Hayden’s night with the needle was! Aurora, consider it this way — you always said he looked too perfect.’

  ‘That was before I fell for him! How did my attempt at Romeo and Juliet become a scene out of Fight Club? Actual blood was lost!’

  ‘Don’t stress. Men can carry off a scar,’ Sara said. ‘It’s that rugged look. Think a cowboy in the Wild West — he’s crossed paths with a coyote and lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘I don’t want my Potential Prince to look like he’s faced off with a coyote!’ I put my head in my hands.

  ‘Faced off and come out the victor, Aurora,’ Sara said matter-of-factly. ‘And now he’s left forever brutish yet sensitive-looking.’

  Lindsay frowned. ‘Isn’t that a contradiction? Can you be brutish yet sensitive?’

  ‘Suffering makes a man complex, Lindsay.’ Sara shook her head and let out a sigh. ‘Like in To Tame a Texan, Carter Janson seems the rough type, but when he starts whispering to Eliza on the porch as the rain pelts down onto the dusty earth —’

  ‘For god’s sake, Sara!’ Jelena interrupted. ‘You call yourself a feminist and you read that junk?’

  ‘But Hayden’s personality isn’t brutish!’ I protested. ‘This new look doesn’t go with his school-council-leading, animal-rights-promoting persona.’

  Neither of them took any notice of me.

  ‘A feminist is just someone who believes that women should have equal rights and opportunities, Jelena,’ Sara shot back. ‘It doesn’t mean I can’t read romance novels.’ She tossed her copy of To Tame a Texan onto the coffee table.

  Jelena picked the novel up and flipped through it, her eyebrow raised. ‘Alright, so you don’t think Carter “savagely dragging Eliza’s slight form toward him while his lip curled in triumph” followed by an inner monologue of “he would have his way, make her succumb to him under the magnolia” is a little evocative of male domination?’

  I lifted my head from my hands. ‘Can we please forget cowboy Carter? I don’t even know if Hayden’s lip will ever curl again, triumphantly or not!’

  ‘Hayden’s lips will restore themselves to their former glory,’ Jelena said, pushing the novel back across the coffee table to Sara. ‘If not, there’s always plastic surgery.’

  I gave her a look.

  ‘Aurora isn’t concerned about that,’ Cassie said. ‘She’ll love Hayden regardless of a scar. You’d never want him to get plastic surgery, right?’

  I let out a groan. ‘No! But can we please assume that I haven’t majorly disfigured the boy I’m yet to complete an entire date with?’

  ‘Aurora, his lips aren’t going to be permanently affected,’ Lindsay said reassuringly. ‘His lower lip might just be a little … bigger … than it was before.’

  ‘Bigger?’ I wailed.

  ‘For a while! The swollen factor. But it’ll go down.’

  ‘And hopefully not leave a puckered scar,’ Jelena added.

  I turned to her in horror.

  ‘Five words for you, Aurora,’ Sara broke in. ‘Clark Gab
le as Rhett Butler.’

  ‘I don’t remember Rhett Butler having a puckered lip,’ Lindsay said.

  ‘He had big lips,’ Sara replied. ‘And a brutish appeal.’

  ‘Oh my god! Can we get off the Southern theme!’ Jelena flounced over to her bag to grab her mobile. ‘Mum’s texted me. She’s picking me up in five.’

  ‘You’re leaving me already?’ I said.

  ‘You should get some rest, Aurora. Though if I was you, I’d be making an emergency appointment at the salon. Instead of stressing about Hayden’s future physical appeal, can you please turn your attention to your own? Singed strands are so not hot.’

  ‘This is exactly what I’m talking about!’ I said, following my friends down the hall. ‘If Jelena’s being harsh on my locks now, imagine the scrutiny Hayden’s going to face from a whole schoolyard of taunters tomorrow!’

  Jelena rolled her eyes. ‘Aurora, I doubt there’ll be actual taunting. You’re taking this a bit far.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the salon at 7.30 am tomorrow,’ Cassie said, giving me a hug as she exited the front door. ‘I’m sure they can fit you in for a quick trim. And I want to talk to them about highlights anyway.’

  I gave her a weak smile.

  Sara bounded past me as Jelena’s mum beeped the horn. ‘Just keep reminding yourself, Aurora — Rhett Butler and his brutish mouth are still legendary seventy-five years later. This could actually be a boon for Hayden.’

  ‘I ended up watching Gone with the Wind last night after all of Sara’s talk,’ I said to Cassie as we stood at the school gate the next morning. ‘I kind of got the impression that Scarlett O’Hara was fooling herself once Rhett packed up and left.’

  ‘You watched through to the end?’ Cassie’s eyes widened. ‘That movie is like four hours long!’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ I took another sip of my coffee, hoping it might clear a bit of my brain fog before classes began. ‘It was a choice between my memory of Hayden’s lip being sewn up by the doctor while he grimaced in pain, and Rhett Butler’s lips snarling, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Epic battles and civil-war-era costumes won out.’

  ‘Did it make you feel any better?’

  ‘I guess it put things in perspective. I mean, I’m not having to defend my once-majestic-now-war-racked Southern plantation with a shotgun. My incisors severing Hayden’s lip has to pale in comparison, right?’

  Cassie grinned. ‘Now you sound more like the bestie I know. The woe-is-me attitude so wasn’t you.’

  ‘I’m glad Aurora’s resumed her positive attitude, but that haircut is a bit …’

  ‘There’s no pleasing you, is there?’ I said as Jelena joined us at the gate. ‘I thought you’d be glad the “singed strands” were gone.’

  ‘Of course! It’s just that even Victoria’s moved on from the Pob.’ Jelena arched a brow at my new haircut, like the goddess Juno surveying a substandard offering at her temple.

  I sighed. ‘The Pob was my only option. A good section of hair on the left side had been incinerated and I’m not bold enough to pull off an actual bob. Thus the graduated length.’

  ‘You and Hayden can bear your respective injuries as a united front,’ Jelena replied.

  ‘In the spirit of my newly resumed positive attitude, I’m going to ignore that comment,’ I said, and tossed my empty coffee cup into the bin.

  ‘You could have asked about her actual injury, Jelena,’ Sara said, strolling in while checking Facebook on her iPhone. ‘The one involving her left hand.’

  ‘That’s been treated so it’s of no concern to me.’ Jelena gestured at my bandaged hand. ‘The other, unfortunately, is an ongoing and unsightly head wound.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to class with said unsightly head wound.’

  I gave Jelena a wave, and Cassie and I climbed the steps to our history classroom. Cassie pulled out her lip gloss in preparation.

  ‘Any word from Hayden post-incident?’ she asked.

  ‘He sent me a text with a smiley face and the words My lip isn’t numb any more, Princess! at about seven this morning. So I guess he’s not holding a grudge.’

  ‘That’s sweet!’ Cassie said. ‘He obviously doesn’t want you to worry. I’m telling you, you guys are going to be fine.’

  ‘If he doesn’t tremble in fear when he sees me approach his desk, maybe we’ll eventually get to a second date,’ I said.

  My eyes immediately leapt to Hayden’s usual spot in the history room. He hadn’t arrived yet, despite the fact that class was due to start in about three minutes. He couldn’t have passed out from blood loss, could he? I imagined his hazel eyes rolling back in his head as his knees buckled and he collapsed in the schoolyard. My stomach flipped over. Could someone faint from the after-effects of a split lip? I wouldn’t have thought so, but he had lost a lot of blood last night.

  ‘Cass, I think I’d better go see if I can spot Hayden,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave my stuff here and dash back once I know he’s okay.’ I almost spilt the contents of my pencil case as I hastened to put my things down.

  ‘Are you sure he hasn’t decided to take the day off?’ Cass’s brow crinkled as she took in my presumably nerve-racked expression. ‘Maybe he’s embarrassed about turning up with an obvious injury.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, you know him, he’s not vain about these things.’

  Scott gave Cassie’s hand a squeeze as he slid into the desk next to hers, then turned to me. ‘Hayden’s on his way. What happened anyway? All he’s told me is that he’s got a split lip.’

  I leapt up from my desk. ‘If he’s coming to class, why isn’t he here? He’s passed out under the pines, I know it!’

  Mr Bannerman entered the room and put his books down. Darn it, slipping out the door wasn’t an option any more — not without a viable excuse. Did I really want to tell Mr Bannerman — and everyone else — about Hayden’s mishap? I sat down again.

  ‘Alright! I know the morning debriefing is akin to coffee in terms of vital rituals, but can we give it a rest now?’ Mr Bannerman clapped his hands above the cacophony. ‘Jeffrey!’

  Jeffrey Clark, class clown supreme, paused in his re-enactment of his most recent nudie run, thankfully not sans pants. ‘Seriously, sir? I was just getting to the best bit!’

  ‘Or bits, if we’re getting graphic.’ Travis Ela gave a hip thrust.

  ‘OMG, ew!’ Juliet Bryce threw her backpack at Travis’s gyrating pelvis. ‘We all know the story by heart anyway. He does a nudie run almost every weekend.’

  Maybe I should just make a dash for it. There was enough distraction to allow me to shout a vague excuse to Mr Bannerman as I hightailed it out the door. By the time he registered the fleeing member of his class, I’d probably be halfway down the hall. I stood up again.

  ‘Technically, last weekend was all about mooning, not nudie runs,’ Jeffrey corrected Juliet in a serious tone.

  ‘Just open a nudist camp already,’ she shot back.

  ‘Ingenious,’ Jeffrey whispered, his eyes widening in undeniable appreciation of the suggestion.

  ‘I repeat! Will all talk of weekends, including future hypothetical ones spent at Jeffrey’s nudist camp, please cease!’ Mr Bannerman shouted.

  That very instant, Hayden strode in the door and the female members of the class let out a collective gasp.

  Any illusions I might have had that Hayden’s lip had healed overnight were instantly annihilated. Lindsay had been spot on about the swelling. Coupled with the purple, indigo and black bruising surrounding the stitches, the overall effect was horrific. Hayden did, indeed, look like he’d faced off with a coyote — the coyote in question being me.

  The room exploded in a chorus of ‘what happened?’. I wanted to open my desk lid and stick my head inside.

  Cass turned to me, her perfect lips drooping in distress.

  ‘You see why I had to watch Scarlett and Rhett flee a burning Atlanta in order to get this whole thing in perspective?’ I whispered.

>   ‘Seriously, man, what’s the story?’ Jesse Cook asked.

  ‘A bar brawl, right?’ Bruce Cornwell evaluated Hayden’s lip critically.

  ‘How’d he get into a bar?’ Gemma Thomson sneered at Bruce. ‘He’s underage, idiot.’

  ‘He got caught with a fake ID and the bouncers trounced him!’ Travis said, leaping up from his seat to get a closer look, along with half the guys in the class. ‘Those jerks always go too far. Just last weekend —’

  ‘Seems we can’t get off the topic of the weekend, can we?’ Mr Bannerman shook his head and started handing out photocopies, regardless of whether the recipients were at their desks or not. I guess he figured there was no hope of competing with underage bar-brawl stories.

  ‘No, it wasn’t bouncers,’ Hayden replied, looking amused at the suggestion.

  ‘I literally inflicted such a bad injury that people are hypothesising it was the work of a professional thug!’ I whispered to Cassie. ‘I am never pressing my lips against a boy’s again!’

  Scott tilted Hayden’s jaw up. ‘I don’t think it’s that bad.’

  Not that bad? Was his assessment based on Hollywood-style grotesqueries like those sported by the soldiers in Saving Private Ryan? If a girl had walked in with bruising like Hayden’s, her friends would be in hysteria within seconds.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Hayden said. ‘Seriously, everyone, these things happen. Sorry, Mr Bannerman.’

  ‘Thanks, Hayden.’ Mr Bannerman walked back to his desk. ‘Everyone, back to your seats. You want to talk injuries, then let’s take it to another level. Year: 1380; warfare exerted with trebuchets and flaming arrows. I have faith in your ability to focus on grisly historical events, so don’t let me down.’

  As Hayden made his way to his desk (the one right in front of mine), my heart seemed to do cartwheels. Not in a ‘there’s the guy of my dreams’ way, but in a ‘there’s the guy of my dreams and he may now despise me’ way.

  Hayden dropped into his seat and turned to face me. His eyes weren’t angry — ten years of observing their moods told me that. ‘Hey, Princess.’ He reached over and took my left hand, carefully avoiding the bandage round my wrist. For a second I felt as close to him as when our foreheads had touched the night before.