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Zach Stone has never kissed anyone before. (Embarrassing, he knows.) He's supposed to go on a date with the hottest girl in his high school tonight, but since he has little to no experience with kissing other than a quick peck on the cheek, he was totally stressing out.
So, he does what any rational man would do - he goes to Greg for help.
"You want me to teach you how to kiss someone?"
Greg's tone of voice is awfully bemused, getting high and squeaky whenever he's shocked by something Zach says, which happens too many times to count. His face is all contorted and vaguely red and confused, and his arms are crossed in a disapproving manner.
"Yes, do I need to explain why again?" Zach huffs, running a hand through his hair.
"No, you-"
"You have all the kissing knowledge, Mr. I've Had Sex Before," Zach whines. "You don't even understand, man, if I screw this up with Christy, the Christy Ackerman, I'll be ruined for life."
"I think that's the overstatement of the year," Greg rolls his eyes.
Zach grabs Greg's arms and pulls them up to Greg's chest. He's making his best, most pitiful face - brow furrowed, lip quivering, the works. "Please, can you help me, Greg? Please? For me? Your best friend, Zach? Please?"
Greg lets out a long sigh and begrudgingly nods. Zach grins in response and pulls Greg into a hug.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, Greg, I swear you won't regret this, thank you," Zach says.
"You say that every time we do something stupid, and every time I do regret it," Greg mumbles, but Zach decides to ignore him. He takes Greg's hand and drags him into his house.
They pass by Greg's mom, who Zach waves to and she hums in acknowledgement, as if this were their normal routine. Once they're in Greg's room, Zach hops onto the bed and waits for Greg to do the same.
"Okay, we're talking verbal instructions here, right?" Greg asks, crouching down to dig through a pile of his stuff.
"Yeah? What else would it be?" Zach raises an eyebrow, looking down at Greg and wondering why the fuck he was looking through his items when he was supposed to be Zach's awesome teacher.
He watches Greg pause for a moment. "Um. The other way of learning."
Zach blinks. The cogs in his brain are turning and churning as hard as possible, trying to figure out what this other way of learning was, before a lightbulb practically appears over his head.
"Oh! Oh, no, I mean- Yeah, no, that would be weird," Zach giggles nervously. "Right? Yeah. I mean, unless it's easier, but like. Still."
"It probably would be easier, but yeah," Greg hums, picking a notebook out of the box-pile-thing and handing it over to Zach. "You'll need to take notes."
"Notes, right," Zach nods, taking the notebook from Greg's hand. He opens it up to where a pen was lodged in between the pages and prepares himself for writing. "I'm ready."
"So, like. The first step is noticing signals," Greg starts while Zach scribbles bullet points down in the book. "You gotta make sure the mood is right, y'know? You wouldn't want to try and kiss her when she's obviously not open for it."
"Mhm, I see," Zach interjects, biting his lip in concentration.
"If she seems up to it, you just lean in romantically and kiss her. Remember to tilt your head and put a hand on her cheek and stuff," Greg adds on.
"Is that all? That seems pretty short," Zach looks up at Greg, brow furrowed.
"I mean, yeah, there's not much to it. Don't try and make out with her right off the bat, don't fish-face her, don't-"
"Fish-face her?" Zach laughs, even more confused now.
"Yeah, don't go all gape-y with your mouth. You know what fish look like," Greg says with full confidence as if this is just a common phrase that goes around in teen circles.
"'Don't fish-face her'. Got it. So, see if the mood is right, and lean in and kiss her," Zach reads off his short list of notes and looks back at Greg for approval.
"Sounds about right."
Okay.
Theoretically, Zach could just get up and leave right now, thank Greg for the lesson and get ready for his date. It's realistically what he should do, but something feels unfinished. Something is just tugging at Zach's heart to do something, but he didn't know what.
Well, that was sort of a lie. He had an idea of what to do - he always did - but the logical side of his brain was screaming at him to not do it. He was stuck in limbo, stuck trying to decide whether he should stay or go.
"You okay?"
Greg's voice snaps Zach out of his thoughts. They'd been making eye contact for what felt like an insurmountable amount of time. Is this the signal? Should Zach go for it? Greg wouldn't be giving him the signal, what was he thinking, they were both straight. At least, from what he knew. But this seems like a pretty cliche situation, and it would be very unlike Zach to not take advantage of that...
"Yeah, I'm good. Uh, one more thing, before I go."
Fuck it.
Zach takes a deep breath, leans over and kisses Greg.
It was just a quick kiss on the lips, so it wasn't long, maybe a couple seconds? But it definitely felt longer.
He pulls away, biting his lip and glancing at Greg, who looked like he would fall ill at a moments notice. Zach's heart was pounding in his ears. This was not a good idea.
"Like that?" he says, voice low. He felt like he was going to be sick, or cry, or just straight up die right on the spot.
Greg blinks and clears his throat. "Yeah, like that. Although, I have some critiques."
"Shoot," Zach says, looking down at his shaky hands. Maybe it was a good idea? Greg apparently wasn't mad at him, that was pretty cool. It wasn't the worst thing in the world anyways, a quick kiss from a bro wouldn't cause the apocalypse after all.
"You'll definitely have to kiss her longer than that," Greg starts. "And don't just keep your hands at your sides, do something with them. Run them through her hair or something."
"Okay, very helpful, thank you," Zach replies and grabs his book again, quickly writing down Greg's words of wisdom. He looks back up at Greg expectantly. "Can I..."
Greg takes a moment to think, but nods. Zach nods back, and kisses him again.
The lead up is much shorter, but he does what Greg says and makes the kiss last longer this time. He brings a hand up to Greg's cheek, gently cupping it. His skin is soft and Zach's hands are clammy, which makes him internally cringe. That wouldn't be very fun to have on your face.
Meanwhile, Greg's hands wrap around Zach's waist. He makes a noise against Greg's lips in response, and they separate from each other.
"Sorry, was that too much?" Greg asks, concern filling his facial expression.
"No! Not at all, I just- I wasn't expecting it," Zach stutters. His heart is somehow racing even faster than before, his face feels warm and it feels like a swarm of bees were attacking his stomach. He should definitely leave now.
"Okay, good, I was worried I took it too far," Greg sighs in relief. "So..."
He definitely needs to leave.
"I don't want to leave," Zach mumbles, his voice no louder than a mouse. God damnit.
"What?"
"I don't... Greg, I don't think I want to go on that date with Christy anymore," Zach says. He feels like he's going to explode, what was he saying? Why wouldn't he want to go out with Christy, the most popular girl in his school? He should have every reason to, and yet.
"Why not? Wasn't that the whole point of you asking for kissing lessons?" Greg asks.
"Yeah," Zach laughs dryly. "Yeah, it was."
They sit in very awkward silence for a bit. He'd almost just borderline made out with his best friend, and the worst thing about it was that he didn't even hate it. It wasn't bad, it was honestly awesome - Greg's lips were surprisingly soft and he kissed Zach gently and slowly and just thinking about it made the bees in his stomach get even angrier.
He says something he really shouldn't have.
"Can I kiss you again?"
Greg blinks. "For practice?"
Zach just shakes his head, it feels like if he speaks even more than he already has, he'd vomit profusely. Greg probably wouldn't want to kiss him after that.
"Okay," Greg simply states.
Before he can second guess himself, Zach quickly kisses Greg again, doing the same thing he'd done before. The kiss doesn't last as long as before because Zach breaks it off before it can go too far (which he knew it probably would if he let it).
Their faces are still inches apart, as Zach's hand is still on Greg's cheek. He's tuned into Greg's breathing at this point and he just can't look away from him.
"Holy shit," Zach breathes.
"Yeah," Greg responds.
Zach slowly and reluctantly takes his hand off Greg's face. "I should get going."
"Okay, yeah," Greg mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah."
"Thank you for the help," Zach says, grabbing his notebook and hopping off of Greg's bed.
"Yeah, no problem," Greg replies, a small smile appearing on his face. "You still gonna go on that date with Christy?"
"I don't know," Zach sighs. "I'll see what happens."
"Okay," Greg says. "See you."
Zach did not go on that date with Christy. Instead, he spent the night alone in his room, mulling over what had happened with Greg. He honestly had no clue where all of that came from, but it collided into him like a semi-truck.
All he knew was that Greg was a lot better than Christy Ackerman.