No mistletoe required

Butterflies swirled around my stomach as I climbed the steep, dark stairs up to the projection room. Ants was a flirt with everyone, but the flirting had intensified between us in the weeks preceding this Christmas Eve shift at the theater and I knew that something was going to happen when I got upstairs to share my break with him.

Every girl's first kiss is permanently etched in her memory and mine is the same. I can't describe how the moment came about, but I can't forget how he tasted (like vanilla candy canes), how he smelled and how his lips felt pressed against mine.

I hugged the moment close to me all afternoon. When my mom arrived to take me directly to my grandmother's for oyster stew, I slipped down to the theaters to get a surreptitious kiss goodbye before floating out the doors behind her.