Cherry by Lindsey Rosin

somehow smush her brain up against her skull and destroy her entire capacity to function.
    Emma shook her head no.
    â€œDo you actually want to watch something?” she asked back.
    Nick shook his head no too.
    Clearly, Nick had come over (with beer and lube), planning to have sex. But judging by his quickening breath and the sweat on his forehead, he was still nervous about it . . .
    Weirdly, Emma wasn’t nervous.
    Excited? Sure .
    Awkward as hell? Always .
    But not nervous .
    Emma tried to tell herself that was a good thing, and she almost managed to believe herself too. Then, she looked at Nick again and absentmindedly licked her bottom lip. Suddenly, she was extremely aware of the all blood flowing through her body, especially the part that was pulsing past her hips and up between her legs like a not so subtle reminder that she had hormones and hands and boobs and a vagina, and they were all demanding attention, all at once.
    Emma’s lack of nervousness, combined with the foamat the bottom of her beer bottle and all the buzzing in her body, pushed her head forward until her lips slipped onto Nick’s lips and her tongue pushed into his mouth, and finally all of the thinking stopped and the bubbles and biology just took over and that next, first kiss, the newly crowned most important one, was the perfect combination of sloppy and sweet. It was casual but also special all at once . . .
    . . . and the next ten, twenty, one hundred –something kisses that followed soon after were similarly enjoyable. And the best part wasn’t just that Nick knew exactly what to do with his tongue, which he did, or that he knew exactly how hard to press his lips against hers, which he also did, but that Nick’s kisses seemed to have the ability to listen to her kisses. They knew when to speed up or slow down, pushing harder or softer, always perfectly in rhythm with Emma. And then Nick pulled back, catching Emma’s eyes, as if to ask, one more time, Are we really doing this?
    Emma smiled back at him. Yes, we really are .
    The next two, five, ten-ish minutes felt like they happened all at once.
    Emma and Nick moved off of the floor and up onto the couch.
    Nick’s kisses moved to Emma’s neck and then onto her chest.
    Emma’s bra came off.
    Nick’s pants slid down.
    Her hands moved to his waist and then between his legs.
    She got up to turn off the lights, but, then again, Emma might’ve done that before any of the kissing even started . . .
    Even as it was all happening, she couldn’t quite remember the order.
    It all felt like a series of jump cuts, moving from one moment to the next. From fumbling to closeness to nakedness. It was all cold and hot and the whole thing made her want to giggle and cry at the same time, not because she was happy or sad, but because she was entirely, completely, 100 percent in the moment. She was so in her body and out of her head—a rare feeling for a champion overthinker like Emma—that she did everything she could to embrace it. And she could tell that Nick was appreciating all of it just as much as she was, in the same way she was, and the truth was that it was actually way more special than casual, which felt like a good thing. And then Nick pulled away for a minute to put on a condom. He opened the packet with his teeth, rolled it on rather quickly, and then squeezed some lube on top of it. As Emma watched him from the couch, feeling naked and exposed, she greatly appreciated the fact that he’d done this before.
    Then he climbed back on top of her with a big, boyish grin on his face. Emma made sure to take a mental picture of him and the muddy green glint in his eyes, and his accidental half-Mohawk, and the palpable glow that seemed to wrap around his entire face, his entire being. . .
    And then, finally, without much fanfare he slid inside her.
    â€œPushed”was actually probably a more accurate