Pam didn’t suspect a thing, which is a minor miracle since I was so giddy from my first kiss I could barely keep it together. When we got back to Anais’s house, we huddled outside the door for a moment, whispering, jiggling the keys as quietly as possible. We crept inside and there she was, sprawled out on their worn leather couch, obviously sauced from wine at dinner, watching some black-and-white movie with Marilyn Monroe and some dudes in drag. I guess it was supposed to be funny, but it really wasn’t funny.
“Girls!” Pam cried, outstretching her arms to us.
Anais shut the door behind her, regarding her mother quizzically. “Uh, hi,” Anais said. “How was your date?”
Pam shrugged. “Bald,” she replied.
“You mean bad?” Anais asked.
“No, I mean bald, as in he had no hair. His head was so shiny it nearly blinded me,” she sighed. “God, I’m old.” I snickered. She was acting pretty loopy. “How was the movie?” she asked. I turned to Anais.
“Good,” Anais replied, her voice raised ever-so-slightly to suggest innocence. “I had already seen it,” she said.
“What was it?”
“Breathless.”
Pam frowned. “The one where Brigitte Bardot sunbathes naked the whole time?”
“No, that’s Contempt. Breathless is the one about the car thief,” Anais corrected, inching toward the door to her room. I trailed Anais wordlessly, following her lead. “Anyway, we’re pretty beat,” she said. “We’re gonna go, um, hit the hay.”
“Okay. ‘Night sweetheart,” Pam slurred, her glassy eyes fixed on the television.
We shut the door behind us and immediately started giggling. “Hit the hay?” I chuckled. “Who says that?”
Anais gripped her stomach, collapsing onto the bed laughing. The thrill of the whole night washed over us. The paparazzi snapping my photo. Brushing elbows with Katy Perry. Making out with Baron Caldwell. Making out with Baron Fucking Caldwell! Getting the goods to become the next Perez Hilton. (A hopefully less crotch shot-centric Perez Hilton.) Pam, drunk on the couch. And Anais. Well, Anais was in love. She buried her face in her pillow and screamed as loud as she could.
“Somebody had fun …” I teased.
She threw the pillow at my head. “Shut up,” she said, grinning.
“Should we do it again tomorrow night?” I asked.
She frowned, propping herself on her elbow. “I don’t want to push it with my mom,” she said.
I sat down next to her. She had to understand that in the grand scheme of moms, her mom was pretty awesome. Doing the Kardashians’ hair, dating bald men, getting drunk? These qualities were pretty out of the ordinary for parents of teenagers.
“But,” I started, trying to tread lightly, “Don’t you want to see Austin again?”
She smiled, sitting upright. “Okay, you talked me into it,” she said, smirking. I laughed. “But Vaughn,” she said, her voice all stern and annoying, “if we’re gonna do this gossip site thing, you need to get one hundred percent on board. I don’t want to be stuck blogging away on my own.”
“But you won’t be on your own,” I said, “You’ll be with Austin,” I teased.
She shook her head and stood up, reaching for her laptop. “What about you?” she said. “I’d think your tongue would be pretty exhausted by now, what with all the strenuous kissing.”
“Save it for the site, lady,” I snapped, peering over her shoulder at the laptop screen. She smiled and signed on to Lunarpages to check URL availability. “What should we call it?” I asked.
She paused, looking at me. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. I frowned and watched as she typed the words “kiss and tell” into the search box.
“Kiss and Tell. Now that’s actually not bad,” I remarked.
“Too late. It’s unavailable,” she sighed.
I squinted at the screen. “But it says here we could use kissandtell.net,” I suggested.
“Everyone knows dot net URLs are the worst,” she groaned.
“Do they?”
She looked me in the eye. “The. Worst.”
I sighed, taking the laptop from her. “Lemme try something,” I said. I typed in “fully frenching” as a joke, but Anais wasn’t amused. She rolled her eyes. The good news was, fullyfrenching.com was free to purchase and a viable back up if all else failed. Then I figured it out. I tried “kissntell” instead of “kiss and tell” and there it was. KissnTell.com was available for only 180 dollars a year. “We’ve got to get it,” I said. “Right?”
Anais nodded. “But how do we pay for it?” she whispered.
I shrugged. “My emergency credit card?” I squeaked.
Anais frowned. “You call this an emergency?” she retorted dubiously.
“It’s only fifteen dollars a month! Darlene and George aren’t gonna make a big thing out of it,” I justified.
“Vaughn,” Anais said. She was talking to me all low and slow like I was mentally challenged or something. “Your mom is the most frugal person I know. She thought Supercuts was too pricey.”
I shrugged. “I’ll tell her I’m on birth control,” I said.
“What?” Anais squawked.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You think that’s going to appease her?” she pressed.
I averted my eyes, staring at the textured plaster ceiling. “I’ll tell her I’m still a virgin but want to be prepared in case the big day comes along. It’s responsible!”
Anais scoffed. “Do me a favor and don’t call it ‘the big day’ when explaining the charges to your mom. Which reminds me,” she said, crossing her legs, “is she really going to believe you’re buying birth control from a website called Lunarpages?”
“Lunar, like lunar cycle. It works perfectly!”
Anais rolled her eyes and put up her hands in surrender. “Hey, it’s your life. Do what you want.”
I grinned, leaping from the bed for my wallet and retrieving my basically untouched AmEx card. Once the URL was ours, we created a logo, which was cute and blue and pink with a heart dotting the “i.” For some reason, it kind of made me think of Selena Gomez eating Pinkberry, which wasn’t such a terrible image to conjure. Like a true geek, Anais had taken an HTML elective last semester and spent the rest of the evening—well, technically morning—hunched over her notebook, designing a simple but fun layout for the site.
While she was working, I lay on my back pondering my first kiss. It wasn’t what I’d imagined. I know it’s ridiculous, but I had still hoped Xander would have a change of heart, apologize profusely for everything he had put me through, kiss me and fall in love with me (not necessarily in that order). Or, if not Xander, someone else. Call me old fashioned, but I did want to be in love, or at least in like with the first guy I kissed. Not to mention it could’ve been somewhat … softer. Baron borderline choked me with his monster tongue.
I rolled into the fetal position. My head was heavy, but my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Not many girls can boast having their first kiss with their television crush. That’s like if my mom had made out with Charles in Charge or if my dad had locked lips with one of Charlie’s Angels. And it’s not like it was a one-night thing; we exchanged numbers. What if I started dating Baron Caldwell? What if we became, like, an item? I’d have to start wearing dark sunglasses everywhere so the paparazzi wouldn’t catch me with my eyes closed. I’d have to install tinted windows in my car. I’d have to get a car.
“Hey, wake up,” Anais said, shaking me.
“I was awake,” I said groggily, sitting up.
“Check it out,” she said, turning her laptop to me. I squinted at the screen. Anais had uploaded the photos from my phone and posted our first story. “What do you think?” she pressed. There it was in its grainy, amber and black glory: Baron and my silhouettes against the glow of Trousdale’s bar.
BARON BITES MYSTERY BRUNETTE AT TROUSDALE
Last night, sources spotted Bloodletting hottie Baron Caldwell ditching a table full of models to spend some Q.T. with a tall brunette at the bar. From the looks of it, this vampire sucks hard. More juicy photos below!
Every image was stamped with the KissnTell.com logo, so if anyone tried to repost the photos, they’d hear about our site.
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, “You did all this before dawn?”
Anais grinned. “Now we just have to leak it to Perez, Just Jared, and whoever else you think should have it,” she said.
I sighed and collapsed on the bed. “Admit it,” I said. “My plan worked.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I started, taking a breath. “It made us … happy. Gave us purpose.”
“We had purpose before,” she countered.
“I guess, but this is so much more fun.”
Anais laughed, shaking her head. But deep down, I knew she knew it was true.