What am I doing? Whenever he’s around, I lose my mind, don’t I? Something is wrong with me, absolutely … I’m so stupid! 

Thomas’ smile never faded, nor did it grow. He simply placed his glass onto the coaster on the counter, and it confused me when he rose to his feet, towering right in front of me and looking down on me with such a friendly gaze. 

Between his fingers, he held my face, caressing me all the same. Forcing me to keep the eye contact up, forcing awkward confidence into me because I was the one who’d asked for it. 

One step towards me, he took, and I stuttered backwards in sudden shyness, dropping right onto the barstool behind me. Now, my feet dangled off the chair, and my hands clawed into my jeans, looking up at him as if I expected something else entirely. With a chuckle, he commented my reaction, and his eyes glittered as if he was completely endeared by me. 

He leaned in closer, forced my heart into a race, only to pause when my lips already shivered in anticipation. 

“You’re using me to get over your ex?” Thomas wondered, and out of sheer embarrassment, I could only apologize. 

“Well, I don’t mind. If that is what you want,” he whispered against my lips, nudging my face closer to his, and I was reminded of the last time we’d been this close. When I’d cried, and he had cheered me up, lent me his jacket and sat beside me with his raw honesty … 

My heart rose higher and higher. That wood-scent of his ruined me, and how close he was, I could barely comprehend. I must have gone crazy, asking him to do something like this with me. I clenched my eyes shut, and my whole body turned tense, and then—

I melted away. 

From the lips, to my mind, to my entire body, everything turned to a softness I’d never known before. My lips reached a prickling high when his lips gently touched mine, and my mind was as high as the clouds, and my body relaxed immediately, practically slumping into him. 

It was a simple kiss, at first. An innocent little kiss that lasted only a few seconds, if even. Thomas still held my face, but retreated just a few millimeters to gauge my reaction. My mouth remained half-opened, and my eyes clenched shut.

My fingers, they moved all on their own, clenching up into Thomas’ vest to keep him close, but they trembled so incredibly, he chuckled right against my lips before leaning in once more. 

His hand slid sideways, tickled my ear and played with my hair, thumb caressing my cheek. And it warmed me inside out, the way he held me and nudged me back into another kiss, and this time, it was even more incredible than that first little kiss he’d gifted me. 

Now, after having received my consent a second time through my body language alone, his lips were much more daring against mine, opened wider and kissed me in a passionate way I’d never been kissed before.

Gentle, yet intense.

So hot, and yet, I shivered all over. 

His warm lips moved against mine, and my mouth opened all on its own, allowing his tongue to slip into mine, and I could feel all kinds of spots along my body turning to intense little jitters that made me flinch. 

When he retreated, I followed, keeping our lips connected for a few more seconds, for an eternity longer. He understood me and my body completely, and leaned right back into me, lips turning sensitive all over the longer this went on.

There was no need for air, because his lips had come my lifeline. My body tingled everywhere, butterflies being born that very moment.

His heated breath mixed with mine, and not only did it feel so amazing, it also smelled so good with Thomas' perfume wrapping all around my senses, and it tasted so, so, so good, too ...

It was just a kiss …

The best kiss … ever …

Thomas ended the kiss rather softly, left my mind boggled and overwhelmed, and as he rose, my head was too heavy and too weak to keep steady, and I drooped right against his chest.

“Wow … You definitely … didn’t lie.” 

I still trembled all over, and I clung to his suit, and I hid my face, twitching from head to toe in prickles I’d never known before. Thomas tousled through my curled hair while it took me forever to recover from the sheer impossibility of that kiss we had shared. 

“I feel like … I’ve been kissing fishes until now …”

“Now, that’s no good,” Thomas chuckled, still running his fingers through my hair. Every now and then, he tickled my nape, and it only worsened my ruined state. 

How could this even compare? This really was out of this world! So, so, so good! Was Vince that terrible, or was this guy just that good? Just how many people had he kissed to become this skilled, to ruin me so easily? 

I can’t handle it at all! What an idiot I was, asking him to kiss me like this … And for him to go along with it so easily, I truly had no idea what to think it! Well … he was interested in me, so, of course, he wanted to kiss me. Right? The way he complimented and flirted with me, hadn’t he hoped for this?

But now, Thomas did nothing. He waited for me to recover from that one kiss, and never took it even a single step further. He enjoyed running his fingers through my hair, and that was that.

How could he be this respectful?

If this was Vince, he would have long tried to rip my clothes off of me. Vince would have turned my back towards him, bent me over the counter, and done whatever he wanted. But Thomas did nothing of that sort, absolutely not, and when I dared to look up at him through my glossy, embarrassed eyes, he simply smiled. 

He totally enjoyed seeing my flushed face, and every now and then, he’d tuck my curls behind my ear just so he could see the pink blush on my cheeks all the better. 

“How many partners have you been with?” Am I one of many? Will you forget about me soon enough? Are you obsessed with me for the moment, and then, you’ll throw me away?

Why was I wondering these stupid things? Had my heart begun to fall for him?

Thomas chuckled, pet my face, and sat back down beside me on his barstool. Allowing himself a sip of his diluted Old Fashioned, he answered only after. “Why don’t I tell you that when we know each other a little better?”

I pouted. “So, a lot. It sounds like you're making excuses.”

“Does it?”

“Like, you can’t remember how many. Is it more than ten? Twenty? Or is it in the hundreds, are you that popular?”

“Now, you’re being crazy,” Thomas laughed, drinking another sip, shaking his head at my silly assumptions.

Honestly, I loved how he’d kissed me so sensually, and how we returned to a rather normal conversation right after. As if I had no need to be embarrassed of what had just happened. Like I didn’t need to think about it twice, and if I had enjoyed it, that was good, and if I hadn’t, we never had to talk about again.

Thomas charmed me, and kept the perfect amount of distance at the same time, as though not to overwhelm me with it all. 

I totally like that … With Vince, it never felt this easygoing to talk. After we slept with each other, Vince always fled as if we’d committed some great sin, so we didn’t even get to have conversations like this after. 

“It has to be a lot,” I mumbled. “It’s a compliment, you know?”

“I feel oddly interrogated, though,” Thomas said with a soft smile. “And I do not see why it matters, if my attention right now is fully on you.”

“Eh—“ I blushed, gulped, and ran back around the counter right after he’d said that. He was totally right, wasn’t he?! What did his past relationships matter to me? Right now, he looked at me with such intent eyes, and he talked to me, and he’d never once gotten distracted! 

Right now, I was the only one he saw!

Why did that make me so … giddy? I giggled to myself, hid my face from him, and I realized Thomas didn’t care about how many partners I had had, either. Well, it wasn’t a grand number, and so, for some reason … I felt like telling him.

Whenever I was around Thomas, my mouth turned loose and willing to discuss just about anything. 

“Including Vince, I’ve been with four people,” I whispered, distracting myself by cleaning and drying some glasses. “Um … in high school, I dated an upperclassman. He wanted to keep it secret, though, and then someone found us kissing in the locker room, and he broke up with me, and never spoke to me again. Then … In my last year of high school, I dated a college guy, but … once we slept together, I never heard from him again.” 

I felt Thomas’ stare on me, as if my stories confirmed what he’d always said: You have horrible taste in men. 

“My third boyfriend … I guess he was alright, but when his family found out, they told him to break up with me, and he did. And now, well … Vince.” 

“I suppose you’re into handsome men, and that’s all.”

“N-No!” I whipped around to face Thomas with a deep sulk. “T-That’s not … I fell for him because he was ambitious. He wants to be a prosecutor, and I thought that’s amazing, so I … I liked that.”

“But you’re ambitious, too,” Thomas said. “Why look for that in someone else, and ignore everything bad?”

“I’m not … not like that.”

Thomas stared at me, a little dumbfounded by my comment. Leaning back in his chair, he let out a quiet sigh. “How so? You go to university, and you work two jobs to afford it, and to keep your independence. Is that not ambitious in your eyes?”

“I … I mean, that’s just … I’m studying just to get some lame job after. I don’t care what it is, as long as it pays.” 

Cocking his head to the side, Thomas gazed me up and down. “And what’s wrong with that? Is that any less ambitious?” 

“I … don’t know.” 

Thomas sighed. “I studied Finance. You think it’s because I have some innate passion for numbers? It was merely to get some lame job after. Knowing all you’ve told me about your ex, do you think he’s ambitious and passionate about law, or does he simply want to be someone important?”

I gulped. “… I’ve never thought of it that way.” 

“Now, get all that out of your head, darling. I see a hardworking man dealing with life all by himself, and that’s just as ambitious as everything else.” 

My chin had quivered long before he’d finished speaking, and once he did, my sob already slithered out of me, making it impossible to stop as soon as it had rolled off my tongue. Tears dropped out of my eyes uncontrollably, and Thomas stared, lowering the glass he’d just wanted to drink out of. 

“Did I say something wrong?” he said in a genuine worry, and I shook my head and pressed my towel into my face, my breath turning shagged as I held the next sob.

I just couldn’t hold my tears when my efforts were realized that way, and with that praise he’d practically given me … The overflow of emotions, I couldn’t stop.