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Seventeen-year-old Barry sat up in his bed after having collapsed on it half-hour ago since coming home from school. Iris was down the hall in her bedroom diligently avoiding her homework, no doubt. But there was no party tonight. Stacy or Jen wasn’t coming over, and she wasn’t going over to see them. He didn’t have a huge load of homework tonight either. It was the perfect time for his long-delayed challenge to himself, and to the whole of app-users alike.The kiss your best friend TikTok challenge.Barry wasn’t really a big TikTok fan. He didn’t understand the hype. But he’d seen a lot of different trends come and go on the app, because Iris loved it and engaged in it often. She was always sending him videos, and he was pretending they were funny. So much to the point that he started checking out TikTok himself even when Iris wasn’t ordering him to. Just out of boredom obviously.And that’s when he saw this particular challenge. It made him blush honestly and made him incredibly insecure. Because Iris partook in a lot of the challenges, but she hadn’t once tried to kiss him for this one.Maybe it was because she didn’t like him in that way or because she knew how he felt about her and didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. He didn’t know. But, given his own lack of courage in telling her how he felt about her, he’d decided this was just the thing to get it out in the open. And if she reacted badly, he could just say it was for the TikTok challenge and brush it off as that.At the end of it all, she’d probably just be excited he was finally getting into TikTok with her, even if it was just for this one thing.He got out of bed and snatched his phone off the bedside table. Then he propped it up in his little phone stand on his desk and turned on his computer, so he’d have something for her to look at as a distraction while he prepared to kiss her.He was a nervous wreck and could barely turn on his phone, let alone fumble with his computer to get everything set up. But, he managed it, and when he was ready – which, honestly, he never really was – he cleared his throat and squeaked into the void.“Iris!” he called.No response.She was probably listening to music with her earbuds in.He took a deep breath and sauntered down the hall. Thankfully Joe was downstairs probably reading the newspaper or maybe making dinner, so he didn’t have to worry about an interception that way. He knocked on Iris’ door, and when she didn’t answer, he turned the knob and pushed it open slightly.As expected, she had her ear buds in, but what had he hadn’t planned to see was her dancing around with her eyes closed, and damn, if it wasn’t some of the most sensual dancing he’d seen from her yet.She was absolutely breathtaking. He had to fight to snap himself out of the trance she’d put him under.“Iris,” he said again, this time sounding more in control than he felt.He must’ve said it loud enough for her to hear, because she turned to face him, and immediately looked horrified.“Barry!”She pulled her ear buds out and threw them onto her bed, the music still booming away quietly from them, which told him it had to have been loud.“What- Um…what is it? Do you need something?”Now her voice squeaked, and the corner of his lips twitched a little.“Can you come to my room?” he asked, then blushed at the implication. “I need to show you something.”“Uh…sure.” She avoided eye contact a little, but as soon as they entered his room, she seemed to have recovered. “What did you want to show me?”“It’s on my computer,” he said, glancing at his phone recording them that thankfully she didn’t seem to notice. “Just let me pull it up.”“Okay,” she said, and placed one palm to his desk, staring intently at his monitor as he scrambled to pull up the picture of a sunset he’d looked up on a whim. She frowned. “I don’t get it.”“It, uh…reminds me of you.”“Huh?”She turned to look at him at the same moment he looked at her, and their faces at equal level, he leaned towards her and planted his lips on hers.She didn’t pull away, which he took as a good sign, but she didn’t exactly respond either, which still made him nervous. He pulled back and looked at her. Her eyes were shut, so he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.But then she opened her eyes, and he saw disappointment, clear as day.“This is for the TikTok challenge, isn’t it?” she asked flatly.He blinked, and his brows furrowed.“I thought you’d be happy.”Without a word, she shook her head and left his room, slamming the door shut to her own room seconds later.Barry sat, dumbfounded at what had just happened. Despite everything in him screaming at him not to, he got up and walked down the hall. He knocked on her door and was shocked to hear her sniffling when she answered him.“Go away.”He turned the knob for the second time that day and pushed the door open. He stared at her, astounded to find tears in her eyes as she lifted her head up from her bent knees where she sat on her bed.He walked in and shut the door behind him.“You don’t listen very well.” She sniffled.He waited, walking into the room only a few steps and then grabbing her desk chair to sit on.Iris sighed loudly and eventually tucked her legs beneath her as she addressed him.“Do you know why I never did that challenge with you, Bear?”He ran his hand through his hair.“Because you didn’t want me to get the wrong idea probably,” he admitted sourly, which made her blink and refocus on him. “Because you have to know how I feel about you.” He paused when she didn’t respond. “Right?”Her lips parted.“How you feel about me?”“Yeah. That I have feelings for you. Romantic ones,” he muttered, looking away.She wiped away her tears, her jaw on the floor. Then she got up, crossed the room and straddled his lap.“Iris, wha-”She tilted his head back and kissed him, sticking her tongue in his mouth and flicking it against his until his moaned.He opened his eyes slowly when she broke and squeezed her hips where his hands had somehow landed.“Whoa.”“I didn’t do the challenge, because of how I feel about you,” she said softly. “I didn’t want you realizing how I felt, in case you didn’t feel the same away.”He swallowed, his heart beating so fast he thought it’d burst out of his chest.“Barry, I…I’m in love with you.”He reached up to pull her face down to his and kissed her again.When he pulled back, he moved just an inch or so, only enough to still brush his nose against hers and rub his thumb against her cheek.“Iris, I’ve loved you since forever.”Iris bit her bottom lip.“Yeah?”“Uh-huh.” He nodded.“Well, damn, Barry, we have some catching up to do then.”Their eyes locked, and then at the same time they dove in and kissed each other ravenously, hands roaming, Iris grinding against him, both losing all thought of time or space, until…“Kids! Time for dinner!”They froze, then pulled back, looked toward the hall leading to downstairs and then to each other, their minds instantly on what Joe would think of this little development.“Oh, shit.”