The McKay Boys

9| tacenda•

And that was when something immensely strange happened. My heart. It began to beat weirdly in my chest for a split second as though I was in the early stages of a cardiac arrest. My face felt hot, and my stomach was flipping with an odd sensation. I was not sure I liked it.

Khalil stared up at me as I gazed down at him. Confused and perplexed. I couldn't tell if he was feeling the strangeness of it all, but when he snaked his fingers around my nape and pulled me down on his lips, my eyes popped wide.

His mouth spooned mine in an intimate way, and in a fast motion, I shoved away from him and toppled back.

Kissing. Though I was the naivest of fourteen-year-old's when it came to intimacy, I knew kissing was to be done between people who were in love. And Khalil and I were far from that. My cherry lip gloss, the one I'd begged Meredith to get me at the mall was now on his lips, and when he raised his thumb there, his ring glistened in the dimness.

Nerves wracked my body, and I'd suddenly forgotten the letters of the alphabet. "W-what did you just do, Khalil?"

He blinked his eyes then, and his cheeks were a deep red. The moonlight gave them away.

"Y-you're not suppose to do that..." Was the only thing that left my mouth as I stared at him in shock.

He sat up on his elbows. "I-I am sorry..."

I turned away and ran out of the room. But his footsteps weren't far behind and when I reached the hallway, he grabbed my hand and spun me to face him. I was rubbing my lips off as though I had tasted poison. Sometimes I did admire Khalil. Like the deepness of his voice and the way his arms would raise when he wrestled with Kanan...but that was it. I saw him as a brother.

"Sorry. I just did it to cheer you up. People kiss all the time. It's nothing at all, Amelia. Y-you looked pretty when you were on top of me."

My eyes grew a little wider.

"I didn't mean anything. I know it's wrong; I won't do it again."

Some days I felt like I understood Khalil. But other days I did not. Some days he was mean and cruel and yelling at me. Then other days he uttered an apology as easy as he'd covered up Jacob's death. I knew then that he was complex, just like his two brothers, and it made him just as scary.

During the days I had stayed in my room, I began to read the novels Giselle had brought over. There was this particular protagonist that came home to me. Her name was Sarah, and she was saving her first kiss for a handsome 'jock' at her school. My first kiss just got stolen by Khalil. And he was not a quarterback or a jock or a 'mafia lord,' (another term I had discovered from another one of the books) but actually, he was my adopted brother. I decided then that it didn't count.

When Sarah finally had her first kiss, she described it as feeling clouds in her stomach and fireworks sparkling around her. Khalil's kiss was soft and uncertain. He was only fifteen and probably had learned the action by watching the lewd films he'd found interesting. He was only experimenting...but with the wrong girl, I guess.

The boys had always acted more mature than their age. They read a lot and could pass for eighteen-year-olds with their level of shrewdness. Sometimes it'd take them playing around or pouting over nonsense to remind me that they weren't far older than I was.

"Just come back into the room. I want to talk to you." He said in a lower voice. His cheeks were still red, and I knew mine were too.

"You can't—"

"I won't kiss you ever again. I promise."

His sky-like pits were filled with determination and hope.

I sighed and followed him into the suit. Suddenly, he didn't scare me so much. He did, but not as much as before. And it was probably because of his strange shift in disposition. It was like a 'power card,' something like that anime 'Yu-Gi-Oh' that Adam loved to watch. Khalil's sudden gentleness, patience, and kindness could leave people confused and letting their guards down. Like a predator petting its prey until it wanders into its haven trustingly. And then, it strikes. Ripping it to threads and destroying it as though it hadn't made a friend in it merely seconds ago.