Operation Cupid

Chapter Thirteen.

"I'm not doing anything." He told her, thinking that it was him.

"It's not you Jesse, it's this whole Liz and Jeff date. It just feels off somehow." Kenzie explained and Jesse nodded.

"Off how?" He asked, hoping that Kenzie would feel better if they talked about it.

"I don't know but I don't like it." She replied, taking a deep breath.

Jesse knew that Kenzie was worried about it, but he had no idea how to help ease her mind; she didn't seem like she didn't even know how to fully express her thoughts.

"Would it help if I gave you a hug?" Jesse asked seriously.

Kenzie looked at him and felt even more nervous. It was not what she needed right now but she didn't want Jesse to feel like he had done something wrong by asking her that.

"It's worth a try." She replied and Jesse bravely put the cushion down and wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close to him.

Kenzie would be lying if she said the warmth she felt radiating off him didn't feel comforting. Like nothing could touch her. Like she was safe with him. It felt amazing if she was being honest.

"Better?" He asked, feeling his own butterflies but for varied reasons.

Kenzie laid her head on his chest and sighed. It was helping a little bit.

"Slightly." She muttered, glancing up at him through her lashes.

Jesse looked down at her and smiled. Kenzie couldn't help but smile back. She found his smile infectious.

"That's good." He replied, his voice getting softer.

It was a tone that Kenzie wasn't familiar with, but she found her cheeks become warm and tingly at as her heart rate picked up and her breath hitched in her throat. Was this it, the moment everyone talks about before their first kiss? The clamminess of their palms, the feeling of their hearts being in their stomachs all while their mouths become dry and their brains malfunction. If the answer is yes, Kenzie was about to get her first kiss and she was petrified and excited at the same time. It helped her forget the worry about Jeff and Liz's date.

Kenzie could feel Jesse's breath on her lips as he inched closer to her, and it made her nervous for a whole new set of reasons. She was worried she wasn't going to be good at this and that she'd do something wrong but as she felt Jesse's lips mere millimeters away from hers, all those worries went away. She wanted to kiss him so badly; just as badly as Jesse wanted to kiss her.

"FUCKING DOOR!" Liz screeched as she practically kicked the door in, scaring the ever-loving shit out of the teens, making them scream and causing Jesse to push Kenzie away from him so forcefully that she fell off the couch with a loud thud.

"Kenzie!" Both Liz and Jesse hollered as they watched her roll on the ground with her hands over her face.

They thought that she was crying due to the fact that her body was shaking but it turns out that she was laughing hysterically at the reaction from Jesse. She also couldn't believe that she was so close to kissing him and Liz wrecked it and scared Jesse so bad that he yeeted her off the couch.

"Are you ok, honey?" Liz asked as she helped Kenzie up off the floor.

It took a minute or two for Kenzie to reply as she calmed herself down enough to form a coherent sentence.

"I'm fine you idiots." She told them, causing them to burst into laughter as well as they replayed the scene in their heads.

=

"Want some tea?" Liz asked Jesse and Kenzie as she walked into the kitchen, now dressed in comfortable pajamas and fuzzy socks, hoping to warm up after getting chilled to the bone.