Pucker Up

by Virna DePaul

  I search his face for any hint of anger toward me but he’s just humming as he walks into my kitchen and starts unpacking the groceries. Maybe he doesn't know.

  “Um, Lee?”

  “What's up, Jenna?”

  “What are you doing?”

  He grabs my pink apron and ties it around his waist. How does he make even a woman's apron look good?

  “I,” he says, pointing to his chiseled chest, “your hero, am making you my world-famous hangover cure.”

  I stumble my way to the kitchen and sag into a bar stool as he starts to chop vegetables. He’s brought lots of stuff. Hot sauce. Fruity Pebbles. Coors Light. Limes. Bacon. Chicken broth.

  “What about the blog post?” I ask.

  “Where are your pots?” Lee flings open cabinets before I guide him to the right one. “And frying pans?”

  “There.”

  He sets water to boil in the pot and pours some liquid I don't recognize into the pan.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” He looks up from the chopping board.

  “What about the blog post, Lee? What are you going to do about it?”

  “Jenna, do you remember the last time I was hung over?”

  I frown. Lee parties more than anyone I know and yet ... “No.”

  He winks at me. “Exactly.”

  I excuse myself to change into sweats, partially because of the blush that has hotly flooded my cheeks, and partially because I'm suddenly aware I'm still wearing just a robe and bra in front of him.

  Alone in my bedroom, I try to get myself together. Play it cool, Jenna. Cool and casual, cool and casual.

  Once dressed, I walk back to the kitchen. I lean over the pot Lee’s stirring with one hand while wafting the steam with the other hand.

  “So, what gave away my plight?” I ask. He smells like ginger and citrus. He always smells like ginger and citrus, and he always smells so good.

  “Well, if the vomiting wasn't a giveaway, I'd say it was your lack of witty retort to my continued stupidity.” He laughs.

  “I don't think you're stupid, Lee.”

  “See,” he says, pointing at me with a celery stalk and squinting his eyes. “Healthy Jenna would never, ever say that.”

  He rests the back of his hand against my forehead and I resist leaning into him. For a moment, his touch lingers, and something in his expression makes my breath catch, but then he grins and pulls away. “Healthy Jenna also would have bit my finger if I touched her.”

  “Am I really that scary?” I ask, grabbing a spoon.

  “Yes.”

  I pause with a steaming spoonful of soup over the pot and look at Lee.

  “Yes,” he says again, his expression serious.

  I sip the soup and flick him with the spoon. He winces and laughs. “One sip of my hangover miracle cure and mean, scary Jenna is back. I'm a genius.”

  Yeah, he is a genius. I won't ever tell him, but he is.

  “Throw some of those Fruity Pebbles into the pan with the bacon,” he instructs as he stirs the soup.

  I frown at Fred grinning back at me on the box of cereal. “Are you sure? Have you done this before?”

  “Nope.” Lee grabs the box and holds it out for me.

  “But what if it screws it up?”

  “How can you screw up bacon?”

  I cross the kitchen and retrieve the bacon packaging from the trash bin. I show him Exhibit A.

  “There is no mention of Fruity Pebbles on here.”

  Lee opens the box of cereal. “Open your mouth.”

  “No.”

  “Jenna.”

  “Lee.”

  “Open your mouth.”

  I relent with a sigh.

  “And close your eyes.”

  I hear the crunch of the cereal and then Lee's placing a Fruity Pebble on my tongue.

  “What do you taste?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Keep your eyes closed.”

  He gently picks up the Fruity Pebble from my tongue and moves it. “What about now?”

  “Lee.”

  “What about now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Patience, Jenna Harrison.”

  I shift from foot to foot and he places his hands on my shoulders.

  “Patience,” he whispers.

  Then he moves the Fruity Pebble again with one hand, while the other slides down to my waist. His breath tickles my ear, and the memory of last night comes back to me in a shudder.

  “What about now?”

  “It’s sweet,” I say suddenly, overcome by the realization.

  I open my eyes and see him smiling at me. He's leaning down, eye to eye, and I catch his gaze slipping back down to my mouth. He licks his lips.

  “Here's a tip for you,” he says, slow like sweet honey. “Make sure you don't neglect any part of the tongue.”

  “In cooking you mean?”

  I feel faint. He grins.

  “Yeah, Jenna. In cooking.”

  Chapter 5

  Lee

  * * *

  Other guys have complained to me about girls falling asleep in the crook of their arm, causing their arm to fall asleep. They’ve told me their different exit strategies for moving, as if they’re a Seal team extracting a prisoner from enemy territory. I didn’t pay attention at all. I've honestly never needed a plan to get my arm loose from the tangles of a lady's body. By the time it even gets to cuddling, I’m usually long gone.

  But right now, I wish that I’d been listening to those guys instead of checking out some waitress's ass, because Jenna is dozing on my arm and I don't want to wake her.

  With a quiet moan, she shifts, and I’m thinking this is my moment to try and get up, but then I feel her breath against my skin and I stop. It's frightening how intoxicating those gentle little breaths feel. I've seen the most gorgeous triple D tits with the perkiest nipples, and I wouldn't suffer through these pins and needles in my arm for them. I've run my hands along asses as round as beach balloons, and I'd pop them without hesitation to get away from how uncomfortable my arm feels right now. Oh, and the legs I've placed on my shoulders, golden and long and toned. I'd rather deal with the pain of watching them walk away than the pain of stiffness and numbness in my arm.

  My goodness, it hurts. But I keep telling myself I can handle it for a bit longer. Just another thirty seconds. And another thirty after that.

  All for Jenna's tiny warm breaths against my arm.

  Some television show is on, there’s a mess in the kitchen and a mess in the sink and a mess on the coffee table, and all I see is Jenna.

  With the smudges of mascara and stains of lipstick she doesn't look as intimidating as she does in her lawyer get up, but her vulnerability, in a way, is even more frightening. The gentle curve of her eyelashes terrifies me. The red of her cheeks scare me. Her bottom lip makes me want to run away and never look back. Because what I really want to do is touch it all. Touch her eyelashes, touch her cheeks, touch her lips.

  I should probably stop staring. How terrible it would be if at this exact moment, she stirred awake and opened her eyes to see me watching like a creep –

  Oh, shit.

  Her doe-like eyelashes flutter up and catch me staring. I freeze. I'm about to look away when I realize she isn’t.

  I’ve stared at plenty of girls. I appreciate beauty and think it should be celebrated. But with other girls, when they caught me staring—mostly because I wanted them to catch me—they would always look away with a giggle, then sneak a bashful gaze back to check if I was still looking.

  Never before has a girl stared back. Jenna does, and she doesn't flinch.

  Her eyes entrap me. There’s colors in her eyes I’ve never seen before: little flecks of gold and amber and even what looks like a deep purple. Still, she doesn't look away. It's as if she's daring me. Challenging me.

  I lean down just a hair to test the waters. She blinks slowly, seductively. I lower my head further. Her lips part and
a quivering breath escapes. Goosebumps shoot up my arm and down my spine. Her eyes search mine. What is she looking for?

  Closer ... closer ... closer ...

  Something rings and I jerk back. Suddenly, I hear the television again, a laugh track on some 90s sitcom. I hear the New York City traffic below the loft. And most importantly, I hear the Goddamn beeping of my Goddamn phone.

  Jenna laughs and smiles and shifts away from me on the couch. Feeling suddenly floods back into my arm, and I have to grab it with my other arm to even move. I fumble for my phone amongst the stuff on the coffee table and check the text message.

  “Hot date?” Jenna asks.

  She’s staring at the television screen and playing with the loose hem of her sweatpants.

  “Um...” I double check my phone for the date and time, and I sigh. “Um, yeah, actually it is a date.”

  Someone on the TV tells a God awful joke and Jenna giggles as if it was the funniest thing in the world. I try to catch her eye, but she's fixated on Ross making another lame joke about dinosaurs.

  “Jenna?”

  “Have fun, Lee.”

  “Jenna.”

  “Get that cushion for the push-in.”

  “Jenna.”

  “Tap dat ass.”

  “Jenna.”

  “Crush that strange, brah.”

  “Jenna.”

  She turns to me and punches me in the shoulder.

  “Really, Lee. Thanks for making me your world-famous hangover cure.” She pats my knee. “Go have fun. I’m all healed up.”

  “But I haven't cleaned or anything and there's a big –”

  “Lee.”

  “But the dishes aren't –”

  “Lee.”

  “We haven't had dessert.”

  “Lee.”

  “And it's not a big deal if I cancel or –”

  “Lee.”

  “I can stay here with you and –”

  “Lee, can you please do something for me?”

  I wait to hear her request. It makes me nervous that I think I'd do anything for her.

  “Can you hand me the remote on your way out?”

  I sigh, then toss it gently at her and stand up. She nestles back on the couch, already flipping through channels, already acting as if I’ve gone. At the door, I peek back at her and half-expect her to be looking back.

  But she's closed her eyes, and I leave without a goodbye.

  In the cab on the way to my restaurant, I skim back over the Tinder profile of the woman I'll be meeting tonight. I keep having to read and reread what she wrote about herself. I just can’t remember if she’s a dentist or a writer or a police officer. Who am I kidding? She's a model. Of course, she's a model. I glance through her photos: her in a bikini, her on a photo shoot, her topless in a bathroom selfie, her topless at the beach. And the requisite picture of her with a puppy. It's all there. It's all the same. It's always the same.

  I pay the cab driver and head in, apologizing to Gina for being late and kissing her on the cheek. She's stunning.

  But sitting across from a girl in stilettos, I keep thinking about a girl in sweatpants. I’m imagining Jenna on the couch in her granny panties, while Gina is guaranteed to be wearing a thong, or probably nothing at all. I want to be running my hand over Jenna’s uptight bun, even as Gina tosses her beachy blonde waves over her shoulder with a bright white smile.

  “So, Gina?” She giggles like we're at a comedy club, and I try to figure out what I said that was so funny. “What do you think of my restaurant?”

  “Oh, I think it's just the best ever. Like the best food. Like ever.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Anything you think could be improved?”

  “No, of course not. Like, seriously, Lee.”

  Gina leans over the table, the glass of wine sloshing in her hand. I assume I'm supposed to notice her cleavage. It's damn near perfect, but it’s not doing anything for me.

  “It's perfect. And you're perfect.”

  I nod and tap my finger against the tablecloth. “Did you see the blog post from that anonymous critic today?”

  Her face turns into a wrinkle-less frown. “Lee,” she whines. More leaning, more cleavage. “Lee, none of that was true at all. Well, except for the part about your ass.”

  Her foot pokes into my crotch and I jump. Gina winks. I smile and try to gently set her foot back down on the floor.

  “But, what about the part about the food? And me? Like my drive and conviction to my craft?”

  I see a flash of confusion across Gina's face. “You're just so perfect, Lee. Just like so perfect.”

  An awkward silence passes between us. We reach for our glasses and both find ourselves suddenly very interested in something across the room. I don't know what I wanted Gina to say. But that blog post runs through my mind, and I keep thinking more and more that maybe the blogger was right.

  I've lost the passion for my restaurant. I've stopped innovating. Hell, I've practically stopped cooking. I worked so hard to get where I am, and maybe I've lost myself in all the side benefits. I have no idea who wrote that blog, but it wasn't someone like Gina.

  “Should we order another bottle of wine?” I ask, staring at my salad plate.

  We're only on the salad and we're nearing the end of bottle number one. We'll definitely be needing more wine.

  Gina says a little too quickly, “Yes.”

  For the rest of dinner, I listen to Gina talk about her Instagram and her Snapchat, her exes, and something about a client accusing her of being a size two when she is clearly a size zero. I listen and I drink. I listen and I drink and I think about Jenna.

  Soon, I stop listening.

  Chapter 6

  Jenna

  * * *

  I pretend-laughed at Ross's lame joke about dinosaurs until Lee got to the door. I’d looked over to see if he looked back but he just slipped through and closed it behind him without even a goodbye.

  Then I laughed at my own stupidity. For just the briefest of seconds, before his phone rang, I’d thought he was going to kiss me. That he might have romantic feelings for me. But how could he have feelings for me when he dated so many women, women that were nothing like me?

  I mope on the couch for a few more episodes, only barely watching, and then I decide that the best remedy for stupid mistakes and a lingering hangover is a warm bath with candles and bubbles.

  I head into the bathroom and draw the bath water. I sit on the edge of the tub, quietly stirring up the bubbles. When it threatens to brim over the side, I turn it off, dim the lights and light every candle I own.

  I strip off my sweats and slip into the water with a deep sigh. I dip down until the warm water comes up to my chin. My body instantly relaxes and the pressure in my head eases. If only I could get the storm outside my head to calm down as well.

  I shouldn't have cuddled with Lee on the couch but it had felt so good.

  I shouldn't have given away that I wanted him to kiss me but it had felt so right.

  And I shouldn't have posted that blog post but I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it.

  That post is the root of all this mayhem. Damn you, red wine.

  You know what? Damn white wine, too.

  I’d been perfectly fine with suppressing my feelings for Lee. I’d been happy convincing myself that I’d rather be dating a respectable lawyer with a trust fund and Harvard degree. I’d been okay with pinching my leg whenever I saw Lee with yet another one of his gorgeous dates and wanted to claw her eyes out.

  I’d dammed up my feelings but good, only now it's like hairline fractures are spreading across the cement wall of the dam. It's only a matter of time before the waters spill out.

  Or is it?

  Duct tape. That's all I need. Just a little bit of duct tape over the cracks and I'll be fine.

  I will always be Bryce’s little sister. Lee isn't interested in me that way, and I've known that my whole life.
He wants something that isn't me, or more accurately, someone who isn’t me. And I'm not one of those girls who thinks guys who never change for anyone else will magically change for me, as if I’m some sort of magical princess. Lee is who he is: a charming, successful, attractive, oh so attractive, player.

  I'm not going to fall. I'm not going to fall. I'm –

  Suddenly, I hear something outside my bedroom, and fear floods through me. I didn't lock the door. I'm going to die, and I didn't tell Lee how I feel about him. I should have told him I thought he was daring and brave and inspiring. I could watch him cook in the kitchen all day: the way he moves, the way he bites his lip when he contemplates, the way he dips his pinky into everything, even the hottest sauces, to taste.

  I should have told him I wanted him to taste me, too. Shit!

  I close my eyes as I hear the door to my bedroom open, and I realize I spent my last moments thinking about Lee, rather than trying to save my own ass.

  Suddenly, Lee bursts into the bathroom.

  At first, he doesn’t seem to see me, naked in the tub. He's out of breath and his shirt is untucked and God knows what happened to his nice leather jacket. His eyes finally land on me, and he freezes. My heart is still racing from lingering fear, and maybe that's why I say what I say next. I can justify it in a million ways, but it doesn’t change the fact that the moment I say it, I know it’s a mistake. I don't care.

  I stare Lee straight in the eyes, and ask: “Are you just going to stand there staring at me or are you actually going to kiss me this time?”

  He looks shocked, and I worry he’s going to tell me he only returned to deliver horrible news about my family or to announce he's engaged to the date he’d just met.

  Instead, his expression clears and he walks toward me.

  He doesn't stop to take off his shoes or pull off the jeans that hug his ass so brilliantly. He doesn't stop to tear off his shirt, that white V-neck that drives me absolutely, positively crazy. He doesn't stop at all.

  Instead, he walks right up to the tub and, fully clothed, steps inside with me while water splashes over the rim of the tub and spills across my tiled floor.

  I laugh and duck under the bubbles. He lowers himself until he’s sitting in the tub directly across from me, settles himself, then runs his fingers over my hand, which is gripping the edge of the tub, and is the only part of me showing besides my head.