Life on the Porcelain Edge

by C. E. Hilbert

  Ryland’s back muscles rippled in response to Joe’s question.

  The head-bump nausea rolled through her. Was he sorry he kissed her? Of course he was—he said as much. Blinking back tears, she stretched her grin wider and closed the distance to Joe. “I’ll admit I was inspired this morning, and when class was dismissed early, I thought I could get a few extra notes down in the quiet.” She slipped on her coat and slid the journal in her bag.

  He nodded. Dropping his arm over her shoulders, he tucked her to his side. “What’s your story, Jessup? Seems like you’d want to get out of here as quick as possible. I’d think Emma would want to go sledding or snowman building or whatever. Don’t you need to be a dad or something?”

  Steam from Ryland’s breath fogged the window before he pivoted to face them. His arms remained locked across his chest. “You’re right. I was just stopping to see if Tessa needed a ride home, but you can clearly take care of her.” His gaze landed on her. “Watch your head.”

  Her hand instinctively shot to her temple and the firm bump beginning to form. “Thanks. Have fun making snow angels with Emma.”

  He turned back to her. “Why do you think we would make snow angels?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Just something my daddy and I used to do when it snowed.”

  His lips drew to a tight line. “They’re her favorite thing. Good night.” His sneakers squeaked against the tiled floor, echoing as he walked down the hall.

  “Night.” Joey hollered. “What’s wrong with your head?”

  18

  “Here you go.” Tessa handed a cup of steaming hot chocolate to Joe.

  She curled her legs underneath her as she settled on the opposite end of the overstuffed couch in the sun porch and then propped her own cup of chocolate on her knees.

  “Ouch. Hot.”

  “It’s called hot chocolate.” She giggled, taking a tentative sip.

  Joe licked the whipped cream off the top of his cup.

  When she’d briefly explained the bump on her head, he insisted on driving her home. The roads were barely touched and the snow was falling nearly an inch an hour. She was surprised when they made it to her house without having to abandon her car.

  With the crazy weather, she’d assumed Joe would cancel dinner, but instead they ate a frozen pizza with her dad. Her father retired to his study before the paper plates where in the trash can. Daddy was sweetly trying to give her and Joe space, but he left his door cracked just enough to hear them in the house.

  “I had a good time tonight, Joey.”

  “Me, too.” He swiped a finger through her whipped cream and patted her lips with the sticky sweetness.

  “Hey,” she licked her lips, the cream sugary to the taste. “Keep your fingers on your own cup Mr. Baseball Player.”

  With a chuckle, he shifted on the couch, draping a long arm along the back, and nearly touched her shoulder. “So Miss T.T. why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to the last eight years—give or take the last few weeks.”

  “Not much. Went to college in Louisiana and stayed. I’m a ghost writer.” Or I was until the terrible, awful day my life went down the toilet with a break-in and a flush.

  “You write ghost stories?” His brow pinched together. “You don’t seem like someone who would be into all of the creepy creature of the night stuff.”

  “I don’t write ghost stories. I’m a ghost writer.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I write other people’s stories—generally biographies, too many parties, bad celebrity choices, and the like. No one but my publisher and the client know I banged the words together.” Eyeing him over her mug, she waited for his reaction. Most people thought her career choice was interesting, but for a celebrity it could be perceived as one step up from gossip journalist.

  “Huh…” He drew his arm back off the couch and clutched both sides of his mug, staring at the contents.

  Tessa bit her bottom lip. For someone like Joe, who endured the plastering of poorly shot photos of him in compromising positions throughout his career, she imagined he was quietly condemning her. Her clients often felt a similar repulsion when they first met her. How could she make a living capitalizing on sharing the darkest parts of their stories? But quickly, all her clients learned she was trustworthy—a human vault who released only the stories her clients wanted to share. At least she’d been trustworthy until her refuge—her loft in the warehouse district of New Orleans—was breached. Tears burned the edges of her eyes, threatening to spill. “Joey, I don’t tell stories without permission. I’m not that kind of writer. I help people with a story to tell, tell their story. And until recently, I was very good at my job.”

  His shoulders relaxed and he lifted his gaze to hers. “How do they find you—the people with a story?”

  “My publisher specializes in celebrity tell-all’s. They give various clients the opportunity to share their sides of their stories. Too often, someone in the press is giving a pretty one sided view of a tragedy or event. E&E allows celebrities of all kinds to share their stories in their own words. I’m just there to help put the words together in a way that allows for a readable book.”

  He nodded, setting his mug on the coffee table. “I should probably get going. It’s been real nice catching up with you, Tessa.”

  Her heart pinched at the use of her name. She reached, clasping her slim fingers around his formidable man-hand. Suddenly she was filled with an urgent need for him to stay. To understand her. “Please Joey, let me explain. I love writing people’s stories. But I also understand the weight of responsibility attached to knowing the deepest, darkest secrets of someone’s life. I only write what I’m given permission by my client to reveal. I don’t sell secrets. I don’t share. I listen. I record. I write. I don’t pass judgment or give an opinion on life choices. I truly try to be their pens. Nothing more. And hopefully, through me, each of my clients ends up with a book on which they are proud to have their name.”

  “I get it.” With his free hand, he twisted the small space connecting his neck and his shoulders, where his unruly hair hit.

  Squeezing his fingers, she drew his gaze back to her. “Joey, I want you to understand. I don’t sell secrets. I don’t tell stories unless someone wants me to share.” She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. “You can trust me.” She needed him to understand. She didn’t know why, but she was desperate for Joey Taylor to know he could trust her.

  With a slow, smooth move, Joe wove his fingers through hers and matched the gentle stroke of her thumb, sending soft feathers of heat floating up her hand and arm. “Tessa Tarrington, I want to trust you. But I’ve had a couple bad trust situations in the past few years. You seem kind and earnest. I’d really like to get to know you better.” He tugged her to his side of the couch and wrapped his free arm around her shoulders. His dark chocolate stare melted through her. “Do you mind if we start now?”

  Nodding, her breath quickened.

  A soft smile tilted the corner of his full mouth. He drew a single finger over her cheek, lifting her chin, his focus dropping to her lips. His mouth brushed hers with the barest of pressure.

  A sweet pool of light flowed through her at his touch. Warm and gentle. No fireworks, only tender comfort. Kissing Joey Taylor was not the dream of her teenage years, but it was deeper, richer, than any fantasy she could have concocted on her loneliest day.

  “Well, that was a nice hello.”

  “Joey…” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. Did she tell him just this afternoon his best friend kissed her with sweet tenderness contrary to their troubled past? Wait…had she really kissed two men in the same day? She couldn’t remember a time when she’d kissed two men in the same year, let alone the same day. How could she kiss someone—two someones—she barely knew and with her father just a cracked door away? Sucking in her bottom lip she twisted away from Joe—pulling her legs to her chest.

  “Hey, Tessa, look at
me.” The low timbre of Joe’s voice tugged her focus. “Are you OK?”

  She nodded. She was OK. Well, at least as OK as a PK feeling the burn of a Scarlet Letter splashing around in her toilet bowl life could be.

  “Listen,” he shifted to face her. “I’m guessing you don’t typically kiss on a first date.”

  She shook her head, resting her cheek on her knees and lifting her gaze to his. “Not that I’ve been on many first dates.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” He brushed a stray blonde lock off of her forehead.

  “Being known as Pee-Pee Tee-Tee until I was thirteen didn’t lay the groundwork for a healthy teenage dating frenzy.”

  “But what about college? After college? I can’t believe someone as beautiful and smart as you hasn’t been the target of every male in New Orleans.”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “High school taught me to keep to myself and I wasn’t very adventurous in college. I joined book clubs and hung out with my sorority sisters. I had dates to formals—the standard events—but those were mostly friends from class or the brothers of friends. I wanted to excel in school since it was costing every penny I had saved since childhood, and a fair number of my parents’ pennies. It just seemed safer to study.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much fun.”

  “I imagine your college experience was different.”

  “I definitely didn’t focus on book studying. Studying my swing, yes. Studying for exams, nope. I didn’t graduate. I jumped straight from the college World Series in Omaha to the Double A system for Minnesota. I played one season of Triple A ball. When I was called up that September, I never looked back.”

  “But I bet that didn’t stop you from dating.”

  “Dating is a loose term.” He winked. “I definitely traded phone numbers with a fair number of women. But none are quite like you, Tessa Tarrington.”

  “No man I’ve ever met has quite lived up to you, Joey Taylor.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I had a pretty big crush on you when we were in the praise band.” She buried her face in her knees.

  He brushed his hand tenderly over her hair, his warm breath caressing her cheek. “I had a pretty big crush on you, too.” He whispered in her ear.

  Her heart sped. She tilted her head to face him. “What?”

  A soft grin deepened his ever present dimples. “I spent most of high school trying to figure out how to ask you on a date.”

  “Get out!” She punched him in the shoulder.

  “Oww!” He rubbed the point of contact. “Bad shoulder, remember?”

  Her hand shot to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “I don’t believe you really wanted to ask me out. You dated Mary Lou Bennett most of high school.” Her mind flashed to the yearbook photo of Prom King Joe and Prom Queen Mary Lou.

  “Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to date you. Why do you think I joined the praise band?”

  “Your mom made you.”

  “She thought she made me. I refused until she told me there would be other kids my age in the band. You, Emory Grey, and Jessup were the only other kids my age in church. We all know Jess sings about as well as a tone deaf hoot owl, and Emory wouldn’t be bothered with something as trivial as a church obligation.” He winked, stretching the smile that made him the cover of every major league baseball promo.

  “OK, let’s say I believe you—which is a pretty wild ‘let’s’. Why didn’t you ever say a word to me other than, ‘hey T. T., is that my stool.’?”

  “You made me nervous.”

  “BAH!”

  “Seriously. You were the pastor’s kid. You were one of the best students in school. You never talked, so no one knew what you liked and didn’t like. Getting intel was nearly impossible. I bet if you ask, nearly every male in our graduating class had a crush on you at one point.”

  “And yet I sat at home alone on prom night.”

  “Not saying the male of the species is quick or brave. You were one tough nut to crack, T.T.”

  “Hey, enough of the nickname.”

  His head tilted to the side—an expression of complete confusion marring his brow. “What’s wrong with T.T. I think it’s cute.”

  “How would you like being reminded of the most humiliating moment of your life nearly every day for over thirteen years?”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “To whom? You? Marshall Smith? Ryland?” Heat chased up her neck at the mention of Ryland. She had told him that the nickname hurt her feelings. Actually she’d yelled at him. And then she let him kiss her. No. Shaking her head, she focused on Joey. She would deal with Ryland another day.

  “Why not? You know we teased you because we all wanted to ask you out. Of course, none of us had it quite as bad as Ry.” He chuckled. “I can still remember how many people he asked to find just the right present for you when we were six.”

  “And yet, he bought me ‘Days of the Week’ underpants.”

  “Hey, that was my idea.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. I thought it was pretty genius. Of course, I was six years old so in retrospect the idea of giving a little girl underwear for her birthday doesn’t seem as awesome as it did when I was six and my favorite thing in the world next to my baseball mitt was my superhero underwear.”

  The heat that had raced up her neck flared against her cheeks. “Twenty years later, and I’m still embarrassed.” She tried to hide her face from him, but he seized her jaw in his wide grip.

  “I like you embarrassed. You are an excellent blusher.”

  “Really? Blusher?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers.

  Warm pools of light washed through her, heating her from belly to fingers. With a hand on either side of her face, he deepened the kiss rolling waves of shivers through her body. She slid closer to him, tentatively draping her arms across his shoulders. He heaved her to his chest, tightening his grasp as he lifted his lips from her mouth, peppering her cheek with feather-light kisses.

  Her breath quickened, short staccato rhythms rushing through her mind and filling her ears.

  “Ahem.”

  She jumped out of Joey’s arms at the sound of her father’s cough. His entrance drowned her in humiliation. Staring at the worn rug beneath her feet, her breath burned her lungs with compromised mortification.

  “Snow’s let up some. You might want to get on your way, son.” Her father offered from the doorway.

  “Yes, sir. Pastor Tom, sir.” Joey coughed, folding himself into the far corner of the couch.

  “I think you’ve both said enough good nights for the evening. No need to dawdle.”

  “OK, Daddy.” Tessa said to the floor. “Do you mind checking to see if the walk was cleared by Bode and Jared?”

  From the corner of her eye, she could only see her father’s form, not his face, but she recognized the tentative hesitation before he turned toward the front of the house, leaving Joey and Tessa alone.

  “Man,” Joey shoved his fingers through his unruly hair and kneaded the small space between his neck and shoulder. “I haven’t felt that put in my place since…well…I don’t think I’ve ever been shamed over kissing in my life.”

  “Your face is ghost white. ‘Yes, sir. Pastor Tom, sir.’” She mimicked his voice.

  “Hey,” he tossed a throw pillow at her. “I was just reprimanded without a word, and I feel like I’m sixteen years old. It’s tough for the ego.”

  “You’re the one who said he wanted to know what it was like to date me in high school.”

  “Yeah, I just didn’t know we would be recreating an intimidating-dad scene a decade later.”

  “Was it worth the wait?”

  He engulfed her hand in his, stroking her palm with his thumb. “Every humiliating second. I can’t wait for date number two.”

  19

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

&nb
sp; Tessa’s phone vibrated across her nightstand, falling into her trashcan with a clank. Stretching a hand from under the mound of comforters and blankets, she yanked the phone up by its charger cord and swiped the screen open.

  School cancelled for Gibson’s Run Local. Teachers and students do not report. Emergency personnel only. Level 2 snow emergency remains. Please watch news for additional updates.

  Rolling over, she pushed at the covers and struggled to sit. When she was a teen, she would have languished in the extra hours of sleep and delinquency. But at twenty-six as soon as her eyes opened, her mind raced in rewind over the past few days.

  Last night, after watching a little T.V. with her father, she’d dragged herself up the steps to her bed. Rest eluded her. Her treacherous mind compared and contrasted her evening with Joey to Ryland’s Sunday confession and Tuesday afternoon kindness.

  Being with Joey was more than her limited teenage mind ever conjured. He was funny, caring, and flirtatious. She wanted to know him more. Teenage Tessa deserved the opportunity to explore and challenge her infatuation.

  But then there was Ryland.

  She’d definitely misjudged him as an adult, unfairly cloaking him in the sins she’d thought he’d committed in his adolescence. Caution needed to be her path with him. The pain and betrayal he’d endured at the hands of his wife pricked her heart and triggered a desire to comfort. His love for his daughter lit his entire world, shoving his sorrow-laden past into the corners. Drawn to the openness of his emotions, she feared she would lose her control.

  The balance between being his friend and allowing those feelings to cloud how she reacted to him would be a careful tightrope. Joey was the second person to tell her Ryland had feelings for her extending well beyond teasing and adult friendship. His casual reference to Ryland, gripped her tighter than Lily Mae’s near constant nagging.

  Could Ryland really be in love with her? Had he truly been infatuated with her since they were six years old? The thought overwhelmed and flittered awake her butterfly that only seemed to respond to Ryland. The tickle of wings sent shivers through her entire being. The concept of that kind of devotion sped her heart to a rabbit racing beat. Could she be falling for Ryland Jessup?