Justin got chills. He got them at random like anyone else, but sometimes they'd come and be obviously related to or the effect of a particular person or occurrence. Little things like the perfect chord in a song, sending ice spiraling down his spine, down the back of his legs, and out his toes. He couldn't pinpoint when then they'd started happening, but the first one he remembered was the way his body jolted when Nick kissed him behind the metal slide at the neighborhood playground.
He never told anyone the story, no one but Trace, and even that wasn't intentional.
Everyone knew talking to him right before he dozed off was dangerous ground. In the middle of a conversation about hopes, dreams, and believing in having that one that got away, Justin mentioned something like, "He was great, man," and it could've easily been dismissed and as a mistake due to Justin's half-sleep state, except it wasn't--it wasn't a mistake.
Trace was pretty fucking cool about it, because Trace was Justin's best friend and a pretty fucking cool guy by nature; those were just the kind of people Justin associated with. He immediately shut up and listened to Justin reminisce and didn't antagonize or make jokes.
If either of them were thinking about Justin's confession the next day, neither mentioned it when Trace came by to play basketball.
So, even if they didn't ever talk about it, Trace was the only person that knew Britney wasn't really Justin's first kiss. Justin said that she was in interviews, because Britney thought she was and told people that. She didn't have a reason to think otherwise (Justin wasn't exactly forthcoming with the information) and the public liked the fairytale.
His real first kiss happened during early spring years ago. He remembered this because his mother made him where overalls, because it was during those couple weeks where the whether was sometimes too hot or too cool since the season hadn't officially started yet. Transition weather.
"You've gotta--" Nick had said. "Be still, Justin."
A grasshopper had jumped onto Justin's overalls, and Justin immediately lost his cool. He was looking at the creature in horror and frantically telling Nick to get it off. Nick grabbed Justin's left hand, pinning it to the ground to stop him from beating at his clothes fruitlessly, and plucked the bug off his clothes.
Justin's chest heaved.
"There. It's gone. Big baby," Nick said, throwing the grasshopper out a little ways.
Pouting, Justin said, "I'm not a baby."
"You are."
"It was staring me in the face! You saw it--the beady eyes. It would've eaten me if it was bigger."
Nick laughed. "My mom says that people should be comfortable in any situation."
Justin shook his head. "You mom has obviously never been in my situation. I mean, man-eating grasshopper, Nick."
"Any situation. Especially man-eating grasshoppers."
"Your mom was not talking about bugs. She was talking about, you know, other things. Like, um, accidentally going to school without you pants or kissing girls or something. You know, those situations."
"Whatever. You'd freak out in any situation, I think."
"I would not."
"You would. I could, like, pants you right now or kiss you, and you'd freak."
"I wouldn't! Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't--times a million, and Nick. Nick, you're not a girl."
Nick leaned over suddenly and pressed Justin's shoulder into the pole behind him. Spider webs, eugh, Justin thought and then, is he kissing me? Can he do that?
They paused. Nick craned awkwardly in front of Justin, face a little higher because he'd probably moved to sort of half-kneeling, their lips firmly pressed together. Justin exhaled through his nose. Nick moved his mouth, and Justin sank into the poles behind him. His body froze all over, and he thought about snow and melting and his legs shook lightly. Nick squeezed his hand and Justin realized that maybe they had been sitting that way the whole time--holding on to each other-- and hadn't paid it any attention.
Justin hummed softly to do...something. Nick sat back and looked at Justin bewilderedly as if he had just jumped into his own skin.
"Um," said Justin.
Nick released his hand and wiped his own on his shirt. Justin dug his fingers into the woodchips on the ground.
"Swings, yeah?" Nick suggested. Justin nodded and followed Nick away from the slide.
After Justin had told Trace the story, he'd said, "It was no big thing. Yeah, we kissed, or he kissed me, I mean, but. I don't know; I think about it sometimes."
"You guys were young, man," Trace said. "Like, what, ten? And you never told me?"
"Yeah," Justin mumbled into a pillow. "It was great, though."
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