roisa high school fake dating au pt. 5
“I dare you to kiss me.”
It wasn’t as though Luisa hadn’t said those words a bunch of times during games of Truth or Dare. She had. A lot. A lot a lot. Not always with pleasant results. Sometimes people would get around it by kissing her cheek or her forehead or her hand or something like that. Never her wrist, which she thought would be super cool. Once her neck – which was admittedly a lot nicer than she thought it would be – but that was because it was a Halloween party and the girl was dressed up like a vampire (which was really hot) and it was on brand or whatever.
Of course, she had also been dared to kiss people fairly often, too. Usually boys. She hated that. She hated that someone would dare her to kiss a boy. Usually it wasn’t the guy who dared her to kiss him but one of his friends or something like that. And while yeah, sure, of course a guy was going to think she was attractive and want to kiss her, it would be really nice if they realized that she didn’t want to kiss them. Most of the time she found a way to loophole around that. Then a guy turned so that when she was blatantly trying to kiss his cheek she ended up kissing him instead.
Boys were gross and now she only played Truth or Dare with girls. With her friends. Or with guys that she knew weren’t going to dare her to kiss them. Which was rare enough that for the most part she just didn’t play with guys. At least she respected other people’s boundaries. She wasn’t going to dare a straight girl to kiss her. Most of the time. (Although, admittedly, guys would do that, too. More reason to not play with guys. Ugh.)
And there was that time with Caroline because she was pretty sure that she had a crush on her, too, and that kind of blew up in her face.
Sweet Caroline. BA BA BA.
But she hadn’t done it after that. That was a bad idea. Caroline had been mad at her for weeks. It wasn’t like there had been rumors or anything. It was just Luisa. Everyone wanted to kiss Luisa or wanted someone to kiss her or whatever. Something like that. Still.
But, since Clara had admitted that she’d been thinking about kissing her – which had been really, really cute, the way she hadn’t been able to look at her and the way she’d blushed so red that her freckles seemed to fade and the way even when she had looked at her she hadn’t been able to keep from looking at her lips – look. If it was just general curiosity, then she was fine with Clara kissing her. And the way Clara had blurted out very quickly that she was very definitely into girls—
And she’d already kissed someone, which was a plus. Luisa was tired of being every lesbian around the school’s first kiss just because she was the one everyone knew, just because she was the one who was out and loud about being out. And then getting left high and dry because now that they were comfortable with themselves they could go be with the girl they really liked. It was a little like being the school whore who everyone knew they could sleep with to lose their virginity and then yay they were an adult now whoop de freaking do.
Not really the same because kissing and sex weren’t the same. No. Ew. And she didn’t—
No. She hadn’t. Not that she hadn’t, you know, thought about it. But she didn’t like anyone at school enough for that. Besides, there were statistics involved with relationships in high school and how long those lasted and maybe she’d find her soulmate or whatever – and maybe you could have sex with someone without that and maybe in the future she’d be like that – but. Call her old fashioned, she wanted to wait for someone she was in love with.
And also to not be living with her dad or her brother because gross? At least in college she would have her own dorm room. Okay, maybe she’d have a roommate, but they could schedule not being in there at the same time. Or, you know, she’d be really cool and date an older girl who lived off campus and had her own apartment and then they could just, you know, her place.
Didn’t matter, wasn’t part of the equation, why was she thinking about this?
She wasn’t.
She was thinking about Clara, who she actually kind of liked and who was really cute, who was sitting just next to her, so close that they were touching, who she’d dared to kiss her, and who she’d also told didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. Well, she did want to, they’d clarified that already. But if she didn’t want to like this or right now or because of a dare or something like that. Dares were just a good way to break the tension.
Clara wasn’t looking at her. She was very still and had gone very white, instead of very red, which made each of the freckles on her face stand out like a constellation. Her hair was frizzy and red and Luisa thought maybe if she got really anxious it would all stand on end like a cat’s would. It wasn’t doing that now. And that wasn’t…that wasn’t a thing that people’s hair really did. She just thought it would be cute.
“Clara?” she asked, staring at her, watching her. “You don’t have to, you know. I told you you didn’t.”
Clara shook her head. “No take backs.”
Luisa smiled, but it was a soft thing, as soft as she could manage. “I could dare you to do something else. I don’t want to make you do something uncomfortable, if it makes you uncomfortable. I just thought—”
“No, it’s…it’s okay.” Clara looked up and met Luisa’s eyes and then bit her lower lip. Her gaze flicked to Luisa’s lips again. “If your dad walked in…that would just be like pretending we were girlfriends, yeah? So it’s good practice?”
That wasn’t why Luisa had dared her to kiss her. That wasn’t why she’d dared her to do that at all. “Yeah,” she said, disappointed. “It’s good practice.”
“So I should just—”
Clara leaned forward and all at once she kissed her.
Sort of.
Luisa wouldn’t even really call that a kiss. It was far too quick and far too short and far too chaste and more of a peck really but it was something. It was a start.
“Is that really what you wanted to do?” Luisa asked.
Clara shook her head. “No,” she admitted, and then her eyes went wide. “But I’m not going to say anymore because it’s your turn. Truth or Dare.”
Oh. Well. Okay. Luisa sighed. “Dare,” she said again, hoping.
“Coward.”
Luisa shrugged. “I like dares better than truths. It’s a natural thing. I can change it if—”
“I dare you to kiss me.” Clara met Luisa’s eyes, fierce and determined. She took a deep breath then nodded, as though assuring herself that’s really what she wanted. “I dare you to kiss me.”
Finally.