Kiss Me at Midnight

Part 2

I stood completely alone in William's room. My heart was pounding- a mixture of being unexpectedly kissed by a handsome stranger, and then having him subsequently vanish into thin air. I looked around, but I saw nothing. I was the only person in the room. Where had he gone?

"Brenna? Are you up here?" I heard Katelyn call out again.

I took a deep breath, wiping a few stray hairs from my face. Hopefully I didn't look as flushed as I felt... damn hormones.

I walked over to the door and opened it. Katelyn was standing about ten feet away, her mask resting on the top of her head like a pair of sunglasses.

"There you are! Where did you go? I've been looking for you for the last five minutes... poor Adam is waiting downstairs for me."

I sighed, not wanting to reveal the truth- that I'd just been kissed and ghosted... maybe literally. "Just... exploring. I told you my goal was to see every nook and cranny of this place."

She looked at me skeptically, but smiled. "Well, c'mon! I owe Adam a kiss... and someone is asking about you."

"There's someone asking about me? Who?" I asked curiously. William, perhaps?

"You'll see!" she grabbed my hand and dragged me downstairs. I glanced back to William's room, hoping maybe that he'd be smiling at me from the doorway, his disappearance just a simple prank. But the room stood empty as it had.

The crowd downstairs was smaller than it had been when I'd disappeared up to the second floor. The young and young-at-heart who weren't used to staying up so late were all filtering out the door, some wobbling a bit. Oh, booze... the great debilitator.

Katelyn led me into the grand ballroom (yeah... a ballroom in the 21st century...), where Adam was standing near a dais of sorts. He looked a little forlorn, but his expression changed immediately as he saw us.

Adam was tall, with dark brown hair. He had tanned skin and brown eyes. He was just as popular as Katelyn, so it was no surprise that they gravitated toward each other. While Katelyn spent her days swimming, Adam was captain of the lacrosse team. They'd pined after each other for the last year (make a move already, am I right?), but finally started talking about two weeks ago.

She flounced up to him, and in true Kate fashion, planted a kiss straight on his lips. He looked momentarily shocked, and then he relaxed, sinking into it. As his hands slipped down her shoulders and around her back, I was getting more and more uncomfortable.

It was one thing kissing someone yourself, but standing awkwardly and watching as two people kissed in front of you? Ugh... Gross.

I grimaced, turning away. I took a look around the room at the remaining guests. Some were still clinking glasses and drinking happily, others were just standing around talking to each other. I still hadn't set eyes on the owners of the house- William's parents, most likely.

"Brenna?" a deep male voice called out from behind me.

I turned far too quickly, my hopes surging. William? Nope. Standing in front of me was Henry, Katelyn's nerdy cousin.

Well, he used to be nerdy... now he was... hot? When the hell did that happen?

I blinked rapidly, suddenly dumbfounded. What? Huh?

"Brenna? It's me, Henry." He repeated. "Do you remember me?"

I stared at him. Henry had always been a super nerdy guy- thick glasses, braces, pale skin, scruffy black hair. He spent his time playing D&D with a few other kids in his neighborhood and making stop-motion Lego movies. I'd always brushed him off- he'd tagged along on a good amount of our adventures, but mostly because Kate's parents made us bring him. He was a year younger than us, and he went to a Catholic private school, so I never saw him apart from his random visits to Katelyn's house in the summer. But he'd been off at camp all last summer, so I hadn't seen him in nearly a year and a half... and what a year and a half it'd been for him...