by Susan Hatler
“I know!” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “That makes it so much worse. Not the kisses. Those were great.” My belly heated just thinking about how great they had been.
“You said Jackson’s amazing. He is amazing.”
“He is. But there’s no connection at all.”
Janine’s face fell. “Okay, I understand that one. But maybe I don’t feel a connection with Cody, because I’m too busy thinking about all the reasons we shouldn’t be together due to our different interests. I mean, who says he has to be perfect for me?”
I dropped my head to the table. I didn’t have to think of all the reasons Brian was perfect for me. Brian was everything I’d ever wanted . . . sweet, kind, funny, and the chemistry was off the charts with those kisses. Oh, baby! I was crazy in love with him and had been for as long as I could remember. But maybe that was where I was going wrong. I was concentrating on the reasons we should be together—hello? like the fact that I was in love with him—when there were so many reasons we shouldn’t be together.
For starters, if I won the art contest then I’d be working in Italy for a year. Brian was committed to the Inn at Blue Moon Bay and he said it himself that he’s a hometown boy. I mean, he broke up with Monica because she moved forty-five minutes away. I’d be going to an entirely different continent.
I lifted my head off the table. “I don’t know what to do, but please promise me you won’t say a word to Wendy or anybody about Brian and me.”
She gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze. “I won’t.”
“I need to just forget about it anyway.”
Janine asked, “Why?”
“He hasn’t called or come by my house. I don’t even know why he kissed me. It’s possible it was just the blue moon, you know?”
“Love is complicated,” Janine said, as she rifled through the dresses on the rack. “I’ve heard of the local legend making people stay in love forever but I never heard that it could turn men into kissing bandits. Maybe they should put a warning on that plaque.”
My mouth fell open. “Janine!”
She giggled, pulling a dress off the rack, swinging it from one hand. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood in here.”
“We definitely need a mood booster.” I picked at another flake of paint on my nail, and looked at her many discarded dresses. “Which dress do you like best?”
Janine bit her lip. “I love that silver one. I know it’s all wrong for a small town play, but that’s the one I want anyway.”
“I can so relate,” I joked. The possibility of Brian and me getting together seemed like a wrong fit, but I still felt it. I still wanted it to happen.
“I’m taking it. I’ll put it on my credit card.” Janine handed me the dress and we walked to the register.
As I rang her up, I decided I was going to stop thinking about that kiss, stop thinking about how perfect Brian and I could be together, and stop wishing there was a connection between me and Jackson. That shouldn’t be too hard considering I might not see him ever again.
I gave Janine my employee discount to help offset the cost of her dress and then handed her credit card back to her as the bell over the door tinkled. I glanced up to greet the customer, and my heart did a triple turn in my chest as Brian walked in. I was going to need a new plan.
Brian looked incredibly hot in a pair of faded jeans and a polo shirt he hadn’t quite buttoned all the way, so a slice of his tanned neck showed in the narrow V the shirt made. His broad shoulders were set tightly beneath the fabric and seeing him made all my resolve to get over him just melt away. Oh, wait. What if he was here to apologize for the other night? What if he says our kisses were a mistake? I didn’t think I could handle that right now. He had to go.
“Hi, Brian. How are you?” Janine smiled at him knowingly.
“Hi, Janine.” He gave the racks of garments an odd stare and his masculine form looked so out of place in the dress shop. I also thought he looked completely adorable standing there out of his element. I wanted to hug him. “Hey, Megan? Can we talk?” he asked.
“Um, I’m pretty busy right now.” I swallowed, gesturing toward Janine. “I’m at work and I have a customer I have to help.”
“Oh, no. I was just leaving, so go ahead and talk to him for as long as you want.” Janine grabbed the box I’d laid her dress in and her credit card. Then she grinned at me as she retreated from the counter.
Brian stepped toward me.
I gawked at Janine. “Janine, didn’t you say you wanted to look at that other dress? The one in the back? I’ll go get it for you . . .”
Surely she could see I was pleading for help!
“No, I’ve changed my mind.” Janine gave me a goofy grin. Then she pursed her mouth, wrapped her arms around her body, and pantomimed what I can only describe as a solo standing make-out session.
My face heated as I stared at her in horror.
Brian followed the direction of my gaze over his shoulder.
Janine quickly straightened, pretending to examine her dress box.
“Okay, I have a lot of work to get done right now. Um, stock. I have to stock the racks.”
“I’ll help,” Brian offered.
Janine took that moment to unzip her small purse, dig around inside of it, and then toss me a little plastic container that landed on the counter with a clatter.
Brian frowned. “What the . . .?”
My eyes widened. A box of breath mints? Was she trying to tell me something about my breath? I slapped my hand down over the container, hoping Brian hadn’t gotten a good look at what it was. “Oh, that’s where that tag went. So glad you spotted it, Janine. I would’ve hated for the shoplifting buzzer to go off as you went out the door.”
Janine’s face turned scarlet and it was obvious that she was holding in laughter. Both relief and tension stormed through me as she waved good-bye and high-tailed it out the door, leaving me alone with Brian.
I grabbed the closest thing to my hand. A stapler. I started stapling receipts to order sheets and to any nearby paper, just to look busy. Between the clunk-clunk-clunk sound of the stapler firing off, came Brian’s voice. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for kissing you the other night.”
My stomach dropped to my feet. The stapler dropped to the counter. Those were the exact words I’d dreaded. Of course he was sorry. He’d kissed his sister’s friend in a heated moment under a blue moon. Now that reality had set back in he was sorry. A lump formed in my throat, but I picked up the stapler and waved it at him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s forgotten.”
I tacked a gum wrapper to an invoice, then realized I was out of official things to staple. I needed something to take my mind off the huge swell of hurt battering at my heart. Brian hadn’t meant to kiss me and he was sorry that he had. Those were the facts. I had to accept it. Not.
“You were at the party on a date. That was a lame thing for me to do.”
Now our kisses were lame? This situation had hit a whole new world of low.
“Whatever, Brian.” I grabbed the steamer and came out from behind the counter. I didn’t say that my date hadn’t been all that wonderful in the first place, because Jackson was a really nice guy. I even liked him. But there was nothing electric or special between us at all. Even Jackson had to know that. “Don’t worry about it. You apologized. Now you can go.”
I hit the button on the steamer. A fine white mist bellowed out from its mouth just as Brian stepped between me and the rack of dresses. Unfortunately, he got a face full of steam. He wheezed, waving away the white. “Did you do that on purpose?” he asked.
“No,” I said, honestly. But I didn’t exactly regret it either. A red face wasn’t nearly as bad as what he’d done to my heart. Lame kiss? Ha! I looked around frantically and saw the dresses that had been pulled out of the boxes earlier. I’d steam them. I’d steam them like there was no tomorrow. I hit the power button again, working away with a vengeance.
“Listen, Megan. I need to te
ll you that I—”
“Thought the kisses were lame. Already noted for the record.” I waved him away, then steamed the length of a dress that didn’t have so much as one wrinkle. “Buh-bye now.”
“Would you let me finish?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I already get it. The whole blue moon over the ocean thing. Standing near the legend. It could happen to anyone.” I pointed the steamer a little closer to an actual crease in a dress and made long sweeping motions with my arm.
Brian stepped toward me.
I immediately backed away. I was still wielding the steamer with all my energy to keep from thinking too much. If I stopped steaming, then I might start crying. I didn’t want to start crying. It would make him feel even worse and it was obvious he already felt bad about kissing me in the first place.
“It wasn’t the moon,” he said.
“I didn’t mean the moon, per se. The legend. . . You know what? I don’t believe in the legend, either. But those twinkling lights and the soft music were such a romantic setup. It could have been anyone you were out there kissing. Even Chelsea,” I added, trying not to gag.
“If Chelsea had been there, the last thing I would’ve done was kiss her.”
“Interesting.” Huh. He really wasn’t interested in Chelsea then? I managed to drag in a breath then plunged on. “Besides neither of us have had the best dates lately. You’re actually having something of a dry spell lately. So, that was what it was. Either way, you don’t have to apologize for kissing me.”
That soured my mood even further. I started steaming a red dress, not even noticing that it was a silk dress until the fabric suddenly curled and little drips of color began to leak onto the floor. Oh, no. No! I’d just ruined a very expensive dress as well as my friendship with Brian.
“I’m not sorry I kissed you. I’m sorry I didn’t do it better.”
“Oh, you did it perfectly. I mean . . .” I whipped around and set the steamer on a shelf. I grabbed the ruined dress and clutched it to my chest. My elbow hit a rack of scarves and the pile knocked over on the shelf. I immediately tried stacking them with my free hand.
“Would you want to go out with me? On a real date?”
I paused, one hand hovering above a paisley cashmere scarf. Had I heard him right? “A date? You mean go for coffee like we used to do?”
He lifted my hand away from the scarf. “No, I mean a real date. Like two people going out, not two friends having a coffee date.”
My pulse quickened and a huge goofy smile spread across my face. Brian wanted to take me out on a date? A real date? A big yes nearly came barreling out of my mouth, but I clamped my lips shut. This was what I’d wanted for so long but it had come at the worst time. I couldn’t go on a date with him. I might actually win the art contest, and if I did, then I would be in Italy for a year and he didn’t do long distance.
The only reason I had to say yes was that I loved him. But if I really loved him I’d say no because my having to leave would hurt him. His parents had left him when he was young and I never wanted him to go through that feeling of abandonment again. Oh, I wanted to be so selfish right then. Just say yes and not worry about the rest of it. I wanted to not care if it would hurt later but it was not just me that would be hurting and that wasn’t fair.
My hand jerked away from his, knocking the rack with the scarves off the wall, so that the shelf and hooks and scarves fell to the floor.
“Oh!” I let go of the wrecked dress, dropped to the floor, and started scrabbling for the scarves. Brian knelt down. We bent and reached for the same scarf at the same time and our heads bonked. Hard. I cried out and lifted a hand to the crown of my head.
Brian held my upper arms. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
I opened my mouth to say something—I had no idea what—but whatever I was going to say didn’t come out of my mouth, because at that moment the only thing I wanted to do was kiss him. So, I did.
I pressed my mouth to his and he encircled me with his arms. Our mouths fused together and that kiss was just as mind blowing as the kisses we’d shared under the blue moon. Maybe more so now that he’d asked me on a date and I knew he didn’t mean this kiss as a friend-thing.
Those kisses stole every reason I had to say no to the date. They made me want to forget about the contest and any other problem standing in our way, because this was Brian. My best friend who I’d loved for as long as I could remember. When the kisses ended, I felt so dizzy I couldn’t think past the moment.
Brian lifted my chin, and I lifted my lashes. “I’ll take that as a yes to the date? Is tonight good?” he asked.
“No,” I said, running my tongue over my swollen lips. Wow. He was such a good kisser. But no night was good. I was afraid to mess up our friendship if I went out with him. And I couldn’t give up my dream to go to Italy for him. “Not tonight. I have an avocado rose class.”
“You’re making that up.”
“It’s the latest food craze,” I said, defensively. “Janine planned it.”
He stood and helped me to my feet. “Tomorrow night then. Say around seven? We’ll skip the diner since they probably have wanted posters up for your ex and they might recognize you.”
“That’s very funny.”
He chuckled. “Just kidding. I’m taking you somewhere nice.”
“Okay.” I wet my lips, trying to think how to mention to him that this might be a huge mistake. But he pressed his lips to mine and then walked out the door. So now I had an official date with him. And, truthfully? I was over the moon about it.
Chapter Seven
“Have I ever told you how much I love your cottage?” Janine asked, as she, Olivia, and I walked inside my house that night after our Avocado Rose class finished.
“Yes, about a zillion times,” I laughed, gazing around at the oddly slanted ceilings, shining wood floor, and multiple paint colors on the walls with a grin. “I love it, too. It’s quirky, but I guess that’s me.”
Janine gazed around. “I like quirky. This place has so much charm. Unlike my apartment.”
We headed past the living room and into the kitchen. I started a kettle and set some cookies on the table. Olivia sat at the table and reached for a cookie.
“I loved that Avocado Rose class, Janine.” Olivia chewed on a sugar cookie thoughtfully. “I’m trying to imagine how to make those avocado roses a part of Olivia’s Occasions. Maybe we could serve them to clients on toast points when they come for a meeting. Or we could offer them as one of our specialties for brunches.” Her brow furrowed and her fingers tapped against the table as she considered the possibilities.
Janine chewed on her bottom lip. “Mine was awful. It didn’t look anything like a rose. It didn’t help that instead of sprinkling the red pepper flakes on the plate—to make it pretty—I somehow managed to dump the entire spice jar on top of the avocado. My ‘flower’ looked like it had a bad case of rust.”
I giggled, then grabbed three cups and set a small box holding my teas on the table. “Your flower wasn’t so bad.”
In all honesty, I hadn’t paid enough attention to know what Janine’s avocado had looked like, or mine. I’d been stressed out about my upcoming date with Brian and whether or not we’d really kissed under a blue moon.
Olivia patted Janine’s hand. “It was fine, Janine, and that class was incredible. It was so intricate. I wonder if we could make flowers out of other fruits, like apples. The instructor did say it was all about knife skills and determination.”
I set a bag of soothing herbal tea into my cup and poured hot water over it. I couldn’t focus on their conversation at all. I needed to talk to someone about Brian, but only Janine knew something was going on between us. Olivia didn’t know anything, which I felt badly about since she was my friend, and I trusted her. But I wasn’t sure how she’d take my having feelings for Wendy’s brother. Most importantly, I had to find out if there had been a blue moon when he kissed me that night by the bay, and I had to fi
nd out before our date.
“Didn’t people used to make melon balls look like flowers?” Janine took the kettle and a tea bag.
Olivia nodded. “That was what the instructor said. But she also said they don’t turn out as pretty. Besides, fruit goes dark or discolored so fast . . .”
Janine heaved a sigh. “So do avocados. Mine was turning brown before I even finished cutting it.”
Olivia shrugged. “We could squeeze more lemon juice on it next time.”
Janine gasped. “Next time? I am never trying that again!”
I spotted my laptop on the counter and stared at it, while they argued good-naturedly over whether or not Janine should be trusted with that pulpy fruit again. I needed to know if there had been a blue moon the first night Brian kissed me and it just occurred to me that I could find out by using a search engine on my computer. Such a simple solution. That just went to show how crazy this whole situation had made me.
Would Janine and Olivia find it rude if I opened my laptop?
“Megan?” Olivia asked.
My head popped up. “Yeah, huh?”
Olivia gave me an odd look. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I just have to grab my laptop and check on something real fast. Hope you don’t mind.” Before either of them could speak, I stood, lifted the laptop and sat back down again, opening it so they couldn’t see what I was doing.
Janine sighed. “I like that we’re branching out into new areas. There’s a screen painting class next week. Maybe we could do that one?”
“I wonder if—” Olivia’s words were cut off by my gasp.
“What is it, Megan?” Janine asked.
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding. “Um, nothing?”
Olivia snorted. “Now there’s a bad cover up. What’s going on?”
I glanced back at the screen, hoping I had read the dates and the article wrong. But I hadn’t. I moaned out the words, “Blue moon.”
Olivia set her cup aside and leaned forward. “The night of Wendy’s party. I thought that was a double full moon.”
