Before We Say Goodbye

by Michelle Pennington

  I took the bobby pins out of my mouth to answer. “Yeah. Just a second.” I finished fluffing the six-strand braid I’d just perfected. “There. Let me take a pic and we can stop for now.” When I showed her the picture of her hair, her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Hey, wow. That’s pretty good.”

  Smiling, I continued to admire my work as we walked through into the kitchen. But I stopped dead when I saw that Tate was already there, sitting at the table with several cartons of Chinese takeout spread out around him.

  “Hey.” Why did I feel so shy?

  “Hey,” he said, not looking up from his food. But it wasn’t an “I’m more interested in my food” kind of thing but more of an awkward avoidance thing. Why did things have to get weird between us?

  “Want me to make a frozen pizza or some sandwiches?” Piper asked looking through the fridge.

  But the smell of General Tsao’s chicken and fried rice was dominating my senses. “I don’t know. I want Chinese now. Thanks a lot, Tate.”

  He looked up at me then, his tense expression melting into amusement. He moved over on the bench of the breakfast nook and tossed some chopsticks at me. “Help yourself. There’s plenty.”

  I didn’t hesitate to take him up on it, rushing around to sit next to him. As I opened my chopsticks, Piper came over too and sat across from us. “It’s all fried and full of sugar though,” she complained.

  Looking up at her mid-bite, I said, “That’s why it’s so good, hello?”

  “Who said I was sharing with you anyway?” Tate asked, pulling the carton of lo mein away from her.

  Pipers mouth dropped open as she gasped. “You’re sharing with Kat.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s different.”

  My whole body flooded with something that felt like sunshine. Unfortunately, it also made me blush. Piper looked back and forth between us suspiciously. “If I didn’t know you were just trying to make me mad, I’d be worried.” She grabbed the lo mein back. “But like you two would ever…”

  Feeling crazy awkward, I said, “He has a girlfriend, Pipes.”

  Tate cleared his throat while he swallowed. “Um, actually, I broke up with Amanda yesterday.”

  “What? Why?” Piper asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. What was she mad about? “You hated her, remember?”

  “But he didn’t,” she said, pointing at her brother accusingly.

  “Doesn’t mean I liked her that much though,” he said, still keeping his eyes focused firmly on his food.

  “You sure gave a different impression at the beach yesterday,” I said. “You did such a good job of getting her tanning oil evenly distributed.” Whoa. That sounded way cattier than I’d expected it to.

  He dropped his chopsticks then and turned to face me. “I’m surprised you even noticed with that punk tourist making moves on you.”

  Before I could answer, Piper jumped back in. “Yeah. And guess what? They’re going out tomorrow night and he can put on even more moves. That’s right. Kat’s getting kissed tomorrow.”

  Tate’s eyes had flashed to his sister as she spoke, but now they were once more uncomfortably focused on me. “By some punk guy you don’t know who’s just passing through town and you’ll never see again? Sounds special.”

  His sarcastic tone stung.

  “Who are you to judge me about that? That’s the only kind of girl you date.”

  “That’s different.” There was no mistaking the anger in his voice now. My own temper ratcheted up several notches.

  “Why?’

  Tate stood up and slid off the other end of the bench.

  But I wasn’t okay with letting him walk off on me without answering. “Why Tate? Why don’t I deserve for someone to want me? Anyone?”

  He spun around. Every muscle in his arms and neck looked ready to snap they were so taut. “Want you? Guys wanting you is not the problem. No, wait. That is the problem because they do. More than you realize. But what you deserve is to be with a guy who cares about you—who won’t hurt you with his own selfish desires and then be gone.”

  “Really? And who would that be? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll never find someone unless I try dating people.”

  He took a step back toward me and his voice softened, gentled. “Sure, but not like this. Why are you in such a hurry anyway?”

  A single tear scalded my cheek, surprising me. “Because I’m about to lose everyone and everything. I have to leave Mom and you guys and all my friends and go off to some school I don’t even care about. And I have a lot of growing up to do. Apparently. I mean, you think I’m still a baby.”

  “You have no idea what I think about you.” Then, like a complete jerk, he strode out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, the slamming of the front door let me know he was gone.

  Feeling shell-shocked, I collapsed back onto the bench and only then realized I was still holding my chopsticks. I tossed them down and pressed my hands to my face, trying to hide my emotions from Piper.

  After a silence that felt way too long, Piper asked. “What is going on?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Kat…do you—” She stopped.

  I looked up at her, knowing what she wanted to ask. “Do I what?”

  “Like my brother?”

  At that moment, I didn’t like him at all. Not even a little bit. I stood up, unable to deal with any of this. “No. I’m pretty sure I might hate him.”

  And then I left too. Though I did not slam the front door, because I was way more mature than Tate, whatever he thought.

  Chapter Nine

  “Katriel, can you hold this tray for me?” Chloe asked. She was the stylist with the bright pink hair and an even brighter personality.

  There was an urgent tone to her voice, so I jumped out of my desk chair and hurried over. Truthfully, I longed to do something besides answer phones and wade through the swamps of schedules. It was going to take me a couple of weeks at least to figure all of this out, and I was enthusiastic about the whole thing. But getting closer to the action was even better.

  Chloe handed me the tray from her work station. It had five different colors of dye with brushes and foil laid out on it. I was having a difficult time not squealing in excitement. “Are you doing unicorn hair?”

  She grinned, and so did the pretty girl in her chair. “Oh yeah. But I have to be fast on this last bit, so if you could follow me around with the tray, that would be awesome.”

  “No problem.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, I did just that, not even minding when my arms began to burn a little from the weight of the tray. But I was fascinated by the precise sections Chloe made with her comb, the quick, even coat of dye she brushed onto each strand, and her masterful folding of the foil around each one.

  Chloe must have noticed how closely I watched her, because she asked, “Do you want to do the last one? You don’t mind, do you, Sara?”

  When the girl smiled and said she didn’t mind, I felt a surge of excitement. “I’d love to.”

  She took the tray from me. “Put some of the purple on it.”

  But I already knew which one was next. I felt clumsy and awkward, but it was too much fun for me to worry much about it. I got the last strand of hair thoroughly coated and folded up the foil like I’d watched her do so many times. The foil packet looked slightly askew compared to the others, but it wasn’t terrible and she hadn’t corrected my work.

  “That was great. You’re a natural.”

  My eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Definitely. Have you ever thought about going to beauty school?”

  “Not till I started working here.”

  “Well, you should. The school I went to in Destin is enrolling right now.”

  I almost told her I was going to the University of Florida, but the phone rang and I had to rush to answer it. After that, the conversation shifted away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Beauty school? Huh. Unlike anything I’d ever considered as a
major at college—business, engineering, accounting, law, medicine—this gave me a spark of excitement. Surely that meant something.

  Not that I could ever, and I mean ever, go to beauty school instead of college. My mom would have a heart attack. But then again, if I didn’t do it now, I never would. There was no way I could go to school for six or more years and probably rack up a large amount of student loan debt, then go off and do something completely unrelated that wouldn’t pay that much.

  Of course, I had no idea how much I could earn as a stylist. Maybe I should figure a few things out and just sort of consider it.

  The girl getting the unicorn dye job walked out of the salon with the coolest hair I’d ever seen in my life. I was both envious and impressed that she could choose something so crazy and vibrant. I looked in one of the many mirrors and tried to decide if I was brave enough to add a little fun color to my hair.

  “Whatcha thinkin’ about?” asked Meredith, another one of the stylists, as she swept up the hair scattered over the floor in her work station.

  “Dying my hair.”

  She laughed. “Any time it gets slow around here, we start experimenting on each other. Just wait. It won’t be long before you become our guinea pig. In fact, if you want to do something right now, I wouldn’t mind staying late.”

  Man, I was so tempted. “I would in a heartbeat, but I have a date tonight with this guy so it’s not the time to go too crazy, you know?”

  She gave a little squeal. “Like, a date with someone new?”

  I only nodded, not wanting to get into all the complications around it—like that I wasn’t even that interested in the guy and that I actually liked someone else who was my best friend’s big brother who was acting really weird. And kinda like he was way too interested in my personal life for it to just be normal concern.

  “Well, at least let me curl your hair or something. Come on, sit down. I haven’t unplugged my flat iron yet and it won’t take me long. I’ve been dying to get my hands on your hair all day anyway. It’s so long and silky. Does it hold curl?”

  I felt like I was being hammered by a wave as she talked to me…and then immediately tossed in the wake of another one. But the force of her enthusiasm and personality pulled me along in her wake so that I found myself in her chair.

  And I watched every move she made, taking note of what styling products she used and her technique. When she was done, I had soft beachy waves that I adored. “Thanks! It looks perfect.”

  “No problem. Go make your new guy fall hard.”

  I smiled, but awkwardly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that.

  When I got home, I changed my clothes. I was careful not to mess up my hair, but wondered if there was some way to get out of this.

  My stomach felt unsettled and tight like I was nervous. Not in the normal first-date kind of way but in an I-really-don’t-want-to-do-this kind of way.

  Even after I’d put on my makeup, I only felt apprehensive and not excited at all. When I heard a knock on our apartment door, it felt like a rock dropped in my gut. And since my mom was gone, I had to be the one to go answer it.

  When I opened the door though, it wasn’t Jack I saw standing there, but Tate.

  We stared at each other for way too long while I felt waves of intensity radiating off him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Piper said you were going on your date tonight.”

  “That’s right.” My voice was too belligerent. I needed to calm myself down somehow. “He should be here any minute.”

  “I see. Can I come in?”

  I had no idea what was going on, but I stepped back and held the door open for him.

  As much time as I’d spent at his house, this was the first time he’d ever been in mine. But you’d never know it by the way he paced across the living room floor to the kitchen and back again. He had to be here for a reason, but I wasn’t going to push him into saying what it was. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know. Regardless, I sure didn’t hate being alone with him.

  But his restlessness ended abruptly and he turned to face me. “I wanted to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Till you turned eighteen. It just seemed better. I’m only a year and a half older than you though.”

  “I know that, Tate. What’s going on?”

  “I just can’t let your first kiss be with some random guy.” He came closer. So close I could see the different shades of blue in his eyes and the texture of his tanned skin. “Not when I’ve been wanting to kiss you for way too long.”

  Okay, that statement flooded me with questions, but I forgot them all as he reached out and caught me around the waist, pulled me into his arms, and stared down at me, his face inches from mine. “Tate?”

  But then I got all the answers I needed when he tilted his face and pressed his lips to mine.

  Every girl should be kissed by someone who knew so perfectly how to do it. His kisses were both a gentle, sensitive exploration and an urgent, driving onslaught of sensation. He caught my bottom lip between his, tugging gently as his warm breath fanned against my skin. He tilted his head the other way, seeking a deeper connection, nipping at my lips with firm insistence. I held back, overwhelmed and insecure because I had no idea what I was doing. I could only follow his lead and respond to the immense delight his kisses gave me. But I was too shy to.

  “Kat,” he said, a note of fierce hope in his voice. “Let me show you.”

  I sighed deeply, giving in—unable to withstand both his desire and mine. I ran my hands up over his shoulders to clasp them at the nape of his neck, then rose up on my tiptoes to kiss him again, and this time, I let my lips part beneath his. If the kiss before had been intoxicating, this kiss melted my bones and sent my mind spinning in an orbit around each dizzying progression of this kiss.

  Kiss. What a simple and inadequate word to describe this.

  And then, there was another knock on the door. I pulled away with a gasp, reality raining down on me like ice water. “Holy crap. What am I supposed to do now?”

  Tate hadn’t released his hold on my hips, but now he reached up and ran his finger over my lips, which still felt soft and electrified. “Whatever you want to do. We have time to figure this out. I just knew I was about to lose my chance for that—and I couldn’t. Call me later.”

  He let go of me then. I watched him walk to the front door, speechless and feeling like I’d been cast adrift on the open sea. The whole thing felt like a dream sequence as Tate opened the door, nodded that tough guy-nod thing at Jack and walked away like he hadn’t just smashed my equilibrium into shards at my feet.

  Jack came in but looked back over his shoulder at Tate. “Hey. Who was that?”

  I clenched my teeth together a moment, trying to get control of myself. “That was…my best friend’s brother.” That was still true, even though an enormous, undefined shift had just happened in our relationship.

  “Oh. Cool. Well, are you ready to go?”

  “Sure.” Because it wasn’t like I could just ditch the guy right at my own door. But this was going to be a nightmare.

  I was going to murder Tate for doing this to me.

  Chapter Ten

  No two hours in my whole life had ever felt longer than the ones I spent with Jack that night.

  Not that he wasn’t fun or attractive or a good date. He was. He took me out to a nice seafood restaurant down at the harbor, and then we walked around enjoying music from a live band, trying our luck at a few carnival games and sharing cotton candy. As a way to get to know someone, it was perfect. Unfortunately for Jack, my brain was somewhere else the whole time, no matter how I tried to focus on him.

  But Tate had freaking kissed me!

  I’d spent so much time around Tate that I knew his every expression, every inflection of his voice, every sport he’d played, every movie he liked, and so, so much more—but I somehow had missed that he had been wanting to kiss me for a long time?

  All night, my brain ha
d been running full-speed in the background of my awareness trying to figure it out.

  He was a little older than me and a lot cooler than me. Over the last six years or so, he’d become affectionate, protective, and playful toward me. I’d always figured that he saw me as an extension of his sister because he was all those things with her as well—but maybe there had been a difference after all. But definitely not one that I’d picked up on.

  Had he just been hiding the way he felt like I had been?

  “So, is there anything else you want to do?” Jack asked as we got to the end of the harbor walk and circled back around.

  I felt terrible, but dragging this out any longer wouldn’t be fair to either of us. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d better get home. I just started a new job and I need to be to work early tomorrow.”

  His smile was slightly crooked, dipping down on one side. “Sure, no problem.”

  Luckily, the drive back to my house only took a few minutes because I literally had nothing else to talk about with him. Like a true southern gentleman, Jack came around to open my door and help me down, averting his eyes when the skirt of my green sundress caught on the seat and slid up as I slid down. If things were different, he was just the kind of guy I’d be interested in.

  As we walked up to my front door, he put his hands in his pockets and sighed. “So…”

  Oh crap. Did he want to kiss me? “Yeah?”

  He motioned between us. “This didn’t really go the way I’d hoped, and I can’t help wondering if it had to do with that other guy that was here.”

  My cheeks went hot and I bit my lip. “How’d you guess?”

  He laughed. “You guys felt like two ends of a lightning bolt. Plus, there was no misunderstanding the look he gave me on his way out. It was a hands-off warning for sure.”

  “Oh man. I’m sorry. This all just kind of blew up on me. I never meant—”

  “Hey. Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I expected anything to come of this when I live so far away. And it was still fun. You’re a beautiful girl and very sweet. He’s a lucky guy.”