To Warm Frozen Fingers // A Short Story Collection

Day Six: The First Kiss

Open up a dictionary to a random word and writeabout it. 

"Outtake n.: Unreleased take from a recording session, film or TV programme." – Collins English Dictionary.

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This was it. The kiss scene. The one James had been dreading.

He shifted around on his feet, did little, uncoordinated and very dad-dancing-like dance moves, and looked anywhere but at her. She was beautiful, funny and kind, as well as exceptionally talented – better than he– but by Jove he was terrified of her. And then he had to kiss her. What if she literally ate him alive?

Well, at least it wasn't sex.

He tried to big himself up, give himself a pep talk. "Don't worry, James. You've kissed loads of girls. Okay, so maybe not loads, but at least a few... Okay, so that girl a few years ago. As in your girlfriend. But you've kissed other people. Like that guy in spin the bottle... and it all went wrong and ruined your friendship. But hey! It can't go any worse than that!"

One of the runners gave him a strange look. He smiled at her but his lip curled up where it was cracked dry and he probably looked like a dog trying to crap on the rug. He might as well suck in his balls and get on with it then, lest they got chopped off.

Maybe his mum would do that eventually, if he couldn't find anyone to marry him. At least it'd be a decent excuse. "Hey, why aren't you marrying? Don't you want kids?" "Na. Mum chopped them off. Accidentally, mind you." Then he'd snigger and run back to marathoning TV programmes.

"FOCUS, James!" he told himself sharply. He was trying to make a TV programme, so the least he could do was pay attention.

"Okay. Okay," he replied... to himself. "Just remember it can't go any worse than spin the bottle."

A few minutes later, he wasn't so sure. Did head-butting her, giving her a nosebleed and not doing anything about it except for cackling wildly count as worse?

Thankfully, she saw the funny side. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, coming over to with tissue paper stuck up her nose. "That was hilarious! I hope they caught it on camera. That better go on the gag reel!"

--

When the DVD came out, James slightly awkwardly watched the gag reel with his co-star, who laughed loudly when it replayed The Head-Butting Incident (as it had come to be known). "Wow, James." She wiped her eyes and smeared mascara all over her hands. "I can barely believe you did that!"

"No!" He laughed in a pitch that probably only dogs could hear. "Neither! I hope it didn't hurt too much." She waved a hand in his general direction.

"The next day it ached like hell, but I'm fine now." She smiled at him, with perfect teeth and bright eyes. They stared at each other, both grinning widely like happy maniacs. James looked away and blushed. "So... fancy a takeaway?" They were in James' flat in the city, and he already knew the only thing in his fridge was some literally-solid milk and a few, probably rotten eggs. Oh, and a bottle of ketchup. It went with everything and masked his horrible cooking fairly well.

"Sure," he said, smiling. "Wine?" he asked.

"Sure," she replied, winking. "Although I won't be able to drive home. I'll have to crash here for the night."

"Fine with me," he said, completely missing her point. She coughed and raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh. Oh. Uh, yeah. Sure. That's fine with me. Completely fine. Happy to have you." He choked on his own air and flailed a little whilst she looked on and laughed. When it became apparent James was still struggling to breathe, she stood up in panic.

"Oh, God. Oh man. How do you treat someone who's choking if they're not, y'know, choking on something?"

"W-water," James gasped. "I need water."

"Water, water," she repeated loudly, running into the kitchen and grabbing a glass.

It was certainly an interesting start to their relationship.