Kiss Me Already (Regan Stone Series Book 2)

by Sally Henson

  She whirls around, knocking her coat off her shoulders. I can see the pain on her face, her entire body flinches from her movement. Uh, oh. I’ve seen that look before.

  “I don’t know, Lane, why would I run away from you? After humiliating me with Stacey, going to the bar without mentioning it, telling me how hard it is to be more than friends, watching you live a separate life with separate friends up here today, grasping to find a way to be a part of it, and I find out you and her are together?” Her arms are flailing around. She’s does this when she’s flustered. “Gee … maybe it’s because you’ve been lying to me for weeks, leading me on with your kisses and cotton-candy words.”

  Lying? Leading her on? She’s throwing verbal jabs to my gut. “Re- “

  She cuts me off and steps closer. Closer’s good. “You lied to me.” Her voice is pain in the form of sound waves. “We’re supposed to be best friends. You said that wouldn’t change. Remember?” I look down at the space between us. Maybe closer isn’t good. I should’ve told her I was going to Ross’s show; I didn’t know it was going to hurt her like that. And Johanna—argh! “Best friends tell each other the truth.”

  I hold my hands out in surrender, though I haven’t lied to her, not really. She knew Johanna was on campus, just not that she’s in my class. But all that other stuff, I don’t know what she’s talking about. “I have be—”

  She cuts me off again. “I like you in a way I promised myself wouldn’t happen until after college. You knew I was afraid I wouldn’t make it out of Stelmo, afraid I wouldn’t finish college, and now you’re ripping my heart to shreds by making everything that Linc, and Dad, and Susanna said would happen come true.” I’m not trying to rip her heart to shreds. She needs to hear me.

  I reach for her with wide eyes. She wants to lean into me, I can feel it, she almost does, but she stands there looking tortured inside and out instead. It’s killing me.

  I slowly shake my head. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but there’s nothing going on with her.” I step closer so we’re toe to toe. “It’s only you.” Why is she—ugh, I don’t understand why she comes back to this. How many times do I have to tell her? Don’t I show her she’s the only one?

  Regan shakes her head. “Don’t.” Her ragged voice is tearing me up. She starts crying. “Please.” Her faint plea knocks the wind out of me.

  I want to reach over and grab her up in a tight hug and not let her go until she listens, until we hash this out. But I can’t. She’s damaged, and I don’t want to hurt her anymore.

  She reaches for her coat lying on the concrete beside her. The pain from the burns is evident even though she closes her eyes and presses her lips together to try and hide it.

  My body aches, my stomach twists and turns. I reach out to her, but drop my arms when she turns her head. She might as well have drop-kicked me in the nuts. I look up to the sky and close my eyes. Lord, please. What do I do? The cold air burns my lungs. Suddenly, it hits me. Thank you!

  “At least come back to the dorm so you can clean up.” She looks away again. Not good. “Please. We’re not far from there.” I give a heartfelt plea and have to blink the moisture away. What this girl does to me … she has no clue. If she walks away now, it’ll be over. She’s so hardheaded sometimes, and once she’s decided, it’s nearly impossible to change her mind.

  Regan does anything and everything to keep her eyes off me. The thought of her walking away causes my stomach to lurch, but I’m able to keep its contents where they belong. Please, don’t let her walk away.

  It’s taking her too long to answer. I can’t tell what she’s going to do. My shoulders fall when her body begins to turn away from me. The agony of defeat slowly swallows me up and I close my eyes, silently crying out once more for help.

  I open my eyes to see her nod. “Okay.” Her voice is a crackling whisper and she still won’t look at me, but I’ll take what I can get.

  Immediately, the veil of darkness lifts and I beam with hope, but I’ve got to control my smile. I don’t want her to think this is a contest of winning or losing … I just need her in my life.

  She waits for me to come alongside her to lead the way. It’s freezing cold out. The thin blanket of snow that’s fallen is beginning to melt, though it still manages to amplify the silence between us. I have my hands shoved in my coat pockets, because it’s cold, because if I don’t I’m liable to lace our fingers together and she’s not ready for that. At least not yet.

  Though I still feel like someone’s kicked the crap out of me, I’m on cloud nine. Sparks fly like it’s the fourth of July between us, smoothing the knots in my lower back. The chemistry between us is still there. Think! Time’s running out. What are you going to say once you’re there? How’re you going to get her to see it’s always only her?

  I open the door to my dorm building. Regan walks in without a word and heads in the wrong direction.

  I tilt my head. “Where you going?”

  Her face is void of anything positive. “Bathroom.” And so is her voice.

  I catch up to her and gently slide my hand in hers, tugging her with me. “Na-uh. You're coming up to my room to change your shirt. I'm sure I have something you can put on.”

  She lets me hold her hand until we step into the elevator. And then it’s silence again, but I swear she’s screaming, “Hug me.”

  We exit the elevator. “Is your roommate here?”

  I push my key into the lock and turn. Before I open the door, I take a deep breath. The churning in my gut subsided as soon as she let me touch her downstairs, as short lived as it was. We’re going to be okay. I can feel it.

  Here goes everything.

  29

  Regan

  “I think he has class right now.” Lane opens the door, stepping aside for me to walk in ahead of him.

  The white, narrow, cube-like living room at the end of the hall looks like it came out of the 1980s, old. It’s so plain, so not Lane.

  He reaches around me and opens a door to our left, motioning for me to go in. “In here.”

  A warmth fills my belly when I see the dart board the gang gave him at his going-away party. It's stuck on his window, with the darts lying on the window sill. I gently slide my coat off and drop it on the bed on my way to stare out the window. Lane rummages through his dresser when I pass him. The view is nice, a view of the baseball field. That might be the softball field on the other side.

  I pick up one of the darts from the ledge and twirl it between my fingertips, remembering his going away party. Those were good times … before he left, before Johanna walked back into our lives, before he started his new life. I should’ve known he liked her that much back when I was in junior high. She was his first kiss. My chest grows heavy, laboring my breathing. My first kiss meant something to me. A silent sob ripples through my chest and shoulders.

  She kissed him in front of everyone at the coffee house, right after we shared a special moment. It was a special moment to me. I thought it was a way of proving I wanted to be his girlfriend no matter where he’s at. But he accepted Johanna as if he and I were no big deal … as if they always kiss like that. Maybe they kiss more than that, more than us. The image of the two of them together drags me down like an anchor searching for the floor of a bottomless sea.

  I never thought he’d do this to me. His words and actions have always seemed so sincere. But he’s here all week without me, and Susanna said guys can’t handle that kind of separation. The twisting and turning of my stomach kicks up again. He’s here all week with Johanna to keep him company.

  Lane makes a frustrated grunt. I turn to see what’s going on with him. He glares at my saturated shirt, shaking his head, his lips twist to one side. A thin white undershirt hangs from his hand. He shoves it at me. “Will this work?”

  I shrug. It's a white undershirt. I have a black bra on; it'll probably show through. I don't want to complain. I just want to get out of here, and I’ll take whatever he's willing to giv
e me.

  “Trade me places. I'll turn around and you can change.” Is he going try to start bossing me around?

  My lips spread into a thin line, but I nod in agreement. I shut the door, in case Ross and his friends come in, unravel the scarf, and slip my shirt over my head. The skin on my upper back pulls and stretches as I lift my arms. A groan of pain inadvertently rumbles in my throat.

  Lane starts to turn around. “No! Don’t.”

  “Are you okay? What's the matter?”

  “Don't turn around.” My bra’s soaked too. No wonder I was so cold on the way here. What I can see of my chest, it isn’t too bad, I don’t think I have any blisters. But this bra’s going to need to come off. I can’t go around in a thin white T-shirt without a bra on either, though.

  I growl and clench my teeth. I don’t want anything from him, and now I have to ask for more. This is why you should’ve stuck with your no-dating plan. I close my eyes and humble myself again. “Um, can I borrow your sweater too?”

  “Sure.” He tugs it over his head.

  “I’ll wash everything and drop it off at your house before the weekend.” I drop my bra on the floor and slip the T-shirt over my head, wincing again, but this time without noise. Lane shifts his weight from one foot to the other, folding his arms in front of him. It’s awkward standing here with no bra on right now, naked from the waist up, so I hurry and slip the T-shirt over my head.

  I sigh and gently fold my arms in front of my chest. “Okay.”

  He turns back to me and walks around the bed with his sweater in hand. “Let me see your back.”

  I frown and grit my teeth together. “It's fine.”

  “Let me check it.”

  I glare back at him. There’s no way I’m going to let him look at my back.

  “Please.” He uses his soft low voice.

  I soften, but I don’t move. “I’m fine.” I reach for the sweater so I can put it on and get out of here.

  Lane pulls it out of my reach behind his back. “Let me see your back, and I’ll give you the sweater.”

  That does it! I narrow my eyes, reaching for my coat. “Fine.”

  “Ah!” He snatches my coat out of my fingers. “You’re not leaving until you let me see if you need something on the burns.”

  If it were physically possible for steam to blow out my nostrils from being as totally ticked off as I am, it would be happening right now. The only way I can get out of here is to leave without my coat, and I can’t do that braless with this skimpy T-shirt he gave me. “Fine!” I spin around, fuming, breathing in and out of my nose loudly enough Lane can hear me.

  He slowly lifts the back of my shirt. The cool air of his room washes my exposed skin from my waistband to my neck. It sends a cold chill through me, but it feels good on the splotches where the hot liquid made its mark.

  “Dang, Regan.” His voice is a combination of compassion and disgust. “We have a first-aid kit. It should have burn salve in it. Lay down on the bed. I'll be right back with it.”

  I roll my eyes even if he can’t see me. “It's not that bad.”

  “You have quite a few blisters and a lot of red skin. If we put something on it now, maybe it’ll heal faster.”

  When Lane and the girls surprised me this morning, I thought this day was going to be fantastic. “Great.” I grumble to myself. I was wrong. “Get the stupid salve so I can get out of your space.” I was wrong about a lot of things, evidently, and this may be the worst day of my life.

  Lane just stands there with my shirt up forever. He slowly guides it back down away from my skin. “Okay.” He speaks as slow as pond water and moves about the same speed out the door.

  While he’s gone, I look at my chest again. It’s barely red. My back took the brunt of the hot liquid. The scarf and my bra probably saved my chest. Oh! I snatch it off the floor. That’s all I need, Lane getting a look at my skivvies. “Lane.” I call out through the crack of the door. “Do you have a small trash bag I can put my wet clothes in?”

  “Yeah. I'll bring one.”

  I hide my bra in the middle of the wet shirt I just took off and wrap my dirty scarf around it, tossing it on the floor. Grrr! Every time I think things are going good, something like this happens. Oh, no! I left Tobi’s hat at the coffee shop. My shoulders droop even more, if that’s possible. I’ll buy her a new one.

  I smooth my hair back with my palms. Eww. My nose wrinkles at the nastiness that’s my hair. The back is matted and wet. In my bag is a ponytail holder. I rummage through it and find it at the very bottom hiding in the corner. I’ll have to use the comb I saw on Lane’s dresser.

  It hurts when I raise my arms, but this mess needs to be combed out or everyone will be asking what happened to me and spark another gossip feeding frenzy. I don’t have Tobi’s cap to hide it under. How am I going to comb this mess? I struggle through it, grunting in pain every time my shoulder blades squeeze together. My nose scrunches at the smell of my hair. It stinks like dirty coffee from wallowing on the floor of the coffee house. It’s full of knots and is going to take forever at the rate I’m going to get this mess combed out.

  Lane steps back into the room with a first-aid kit and some other things, coming to a stop when he sees what I’m doing. In my peripheral vision, I can see his entire body scowl at me when he sees me flinching in pain, trying to comb this tangled, dirty mop on my head. He growls at me and sets his stuff on the bed.

  Neither of us says a word to each other. That’s okay with me. I’m done talking. He stands in front of me, reaching his fingers for the comb. I move back and he begins to tug the comb away from me.

  We stare each other down when I tighten my grip, but he peels my fingers off. Tears pool in my eyes. I can’t even comb my own stupid hair. Lane just ruined our friendship and everything I thought we had … I don’t want his help, I just want to get out of here.

  My chest tightens even more. Why didn’t I think to take off when he was out of the room? It would have been easy to slip on his sweater, grab my coat, and leave for the bus. He’s got my brain all messed up.

  The comb catches on a knot in my hair, snapping my head backward. “I’m sorry, I’m trying not to pull your hair.” He’s trying to be gentle, but it’s next to impossible when my hair is this ratted up.

  I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything right now unless I want to start bawling.

  “There. I got most of it combed out.” His voice is so sweet, so gentle.

  I reach back and try to put my hair in a ponytail, but Lane takes the rubber band out of my fingers and winds it around my hair for me. “Let’s get this over with.” I turn and crawl on the bed without looking at him.

  The bed sags where he sits beside me. Everything feels as if we’re moving in slow motion, especially when his fingers graze across my skin as he slides my shirt up, leaving a wake of tingles. The reality of this situation causes a shudder to run through me. It’s over.

  He pauses his actions. “Sorry.”

  Ugh, he noticed my shiver.

  “Tell me if it hurts, I'll try to be gentle.”

  Don’t you dare go there, Regan. Don’t let his touch erase everything he just put you through. Snap out of it.

  “Did you wash your hands?” I try to sound snippy for my own benefit.

  “Yes, Dr. Stone.” He’s trying to lighten this weight that’s bearing down on us, but I resent he doesn’t care that he’s ended twelve years of friendship. “One, two ... five blisters. Hopefully they won't get any bigger.” His fingers are cold and I flinch when he touches me. “Sorry.”

  “Your hands are cold.” At least that’s the lie I tell him and myself.

  “Oh. I guess I should’ve warmed them first.” He teases, and I hear the smile in his voice.

  “Just get this over with so I can leave.” My tears stain his comforter under my head. He dabs the wash rag on my back, cleaning my skin. It hurts, but not as much as my heart does—not as much as knowing we’ll never be the friends we use
d to be or that he’ll be kissing someone else.

  “She took notes for me in one of my classes today. She was just sending them to me on her phone, that’s all.”

  Unbelievable! I squeeze my eyes tighter and clench my teeth so hard it makes my jaw hurt. “She’s in one of your classes?” I bark out a bitter snarl. “Isn’t that convenient.” Jerk-face!

  My eyes close with every exhale of breath and open as air fills my lungs, as if they’re wired together. I unload on him. “You mean you never thought about telling me the first girl you ever kissed, your old girlfriend, was in the same class with you? All the times we’ve talked about your classes and professors and campus and everything, it never crossed your mind that maybe you should tell me that?”

  His fingers continue to hover over my back, nursing my burns with cold salve. “I know you don’t like her and didn’t want you worrying over nothing. Your family already have you worked up about things that aren’t true.” He lets out a big huff of a sigh. “I see her in class and that’s it. Today’s the first time I’ve seen her out around campus.”

  I roll back on my side and glare at him. “Oh, is that how you greet her in class? A big hug and a kiss?” I’m scouring every inch of him, waiting for evidence of his lie. His brows shoot up, eyes as big and wide as Texas. “Busted.” I was seriously thinking about believing him until he revealed his guilt with that response. I’m out of here.

  I push up on my hands and knees to crawl off the bed. Lane pushes me back down. “I’m leaving.” I try to slide to the end of the bed.

  He hooks my belt loop on my jeans. “No. You’re not.”

  I turn to him. Every muscle in me is coiled, ready to spring. If I could shoot lasers out of my eyes, he’d be cut in two. I grit my teeth and practically spit the words out. “Yes. I. Am.”

  “I barely talk to her, I never hug her and never ever kiss her.”

  “Ha! I saw you!” My body collapses and a sob convulses through me. “Why would you do this to us?” My head swivels from side to side. “You’ve changed.” My body betrays me again before I can get control of myself.