Grant stood up, holding the phone up. “Go ’head, ’Mara. Do it up for all the treys of the world.”
As Nicki Minaj’s “Moment 4 Life” filled the empty room, Kamara flashed her sorority sign and started performing the party stroll that her chapter had designed for the song. Grant nodded his head to the beat as he admired the way her body moved. Seeing her rocking her hips in sync with the song made him smile. He had always thought she was cute, but seeing her now, in motion, and with such focus, made her much more than cute; she was sexy.
As the song ended, she reached for the bottle of water and finished it off.
“I love watching you move,” he said, before realizing how loaded his statement must have sounded.
She took her seat on the floor again, screwing the cap back on the empty bottle and setting it in front of her. “Thanks.”
Grant sat down across from her and reached for the bottle. Without thought, he began to spin it in a circle. Kamara laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“Reminds me of that game.”
“Oh,” he said, continuing to spin the clear, hollow bottle. “You must have had your first kiss playing Spin the Bottle.”
“No way. I played that game one time, but there were just too many ugly boys there for me. I was so glad it never landed on me. This one time it came close, like between me and this other girl, and we argued for like ten minutes over who the bottle had landed on. Finally, ol’ girl just said, ‘fuck it,’ and kissed that boy. Couldn’t have been me,” she said, laughing. “You ever play?”
“Nope,” he said. “I used to hear about other people playing it. That and ‘Sleepers’ and all those sixth-grade games.”
“You’ve never been slept?” she asked, incredulous.
“I haven’t been anything-ed,” he said, lifting the bottle from the floor and flipping it in his hand repeatedly.
“I feel like it’s my duty to make sure you experience something before you move away a
nd start your life in the ‘real world,’ ” she said, placing air quotes around the last two words.
Looking at the bottle, Grant imagined what it would be like to kiss Kamara. “I have an idea.”
Kamara nodded. “I’m all ears.”
He could feel his stomach begin to tense. If she was down, this would be a wonderful experience, but if she wasn’t, then she’d probably leave or steer the rest of the evening’s conversation into such platonic territory that he might as well just unroll the sleeping bag now and get an early start on the next day.
“We can take this bottle and spin it,” he said.
“Yeah. That’s an original idea,” Kamara offered, her voice tinged with sarcasm.
“No. Here’s the catch: If the bottle lands closer to me, you can tell me where you’d like me to kiss you, and if the bottle lands closer to you, I’ll tell you where I’d like you to kiss me.”
The fact that they had never kissed before seemed like an irrelevant point to Grant. He waited nervously, watching her consider his proposition. The fact that she did not flat-out say, “No,” made him even more nervous.
“Who spins first?” she finally responded.
Grant smiled and sat back down across from Kamara. He handed her the bottle. “You go first.”
She looked at him, a semi-smile resting on her lips, and lowered the bottle to the carpet, spinning it around with a quick flick of her wrist. The bottle spun in a circle very quickly before slowing down and angling just to his right side.
“Okay,” she said. “I want you to kiss me here.” She pointed at a spot toward the back side of her neck.
Grant rose to his knees and leaned toward her. As she turned her head away from him to better expose her neck, he placed his mouth against her soft skin, his tongue dancing in tender swirls along the length of her neck. He listened for a moan—or anything—but Kamara sat silently, allowing him to finish his kiss, before turning her attention back to the bottle. “Your turn,” she said.
Still savoring the taste of her skin, he leaned over and spun the bottle. Again, it landed just to his right.
“This must be my lucky night,” Kamara offered. “I can get you to kiss me anywhere?”
“Sure,” he responded.