Lost Perfect Kiss: A Crown Creek Novel

by Theresa Leigh

  After seven minutes I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Okay, fucker,” I told Grim. “Time to stop jerking me around like this.”

  I breathed a silent prayer and started the engine.

  He coughed.

  I swore and turned the key again.

  The engine caught. Quickly, without taking time to showboat, I threw him into reverse again, and we rolled down the driveway together. “Yeah,” I murmured quietly so he wouldn’t hear me. I needed to get out onto the road immediately and hit the gas before he could sputter out again. I slowed at the end of the driveway to hastily check over my shoulder before pulling out onto my normally quiet country road.

  There, up on the hill, a delivery truck was starting to trundle its way down.

  I rolled to a stop and threw Grim into neutral, revving the accelerator to keep him from stalling again. “Come on,” I begged the truck. It was too close for me to pull out now and the bridge was narrow enough that I wouldn’t be able to squeeze past.

  “Come on!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  The truck blew by, rocking Grim like a baby in the cradle.

  “Great,” I said, baring my teeth in a determined smile. I backed out quickly and then threw Grim into drive before he got any bright ideas. I pressed the accelerator and started up the slight hill the truck had just come down. Five miles an hour. Ten miles an hour. The Kings’ house slid slowly past me on my left.

  Grim coughed again.

  I scowled at the dash, shooting him a death glare that I hoped would scare him straight. He’d never done that while I was actually driving before. Only when I was starting up. “Settle down, Grim,” I murmured. Fifteen miles an hour.

  The whole car bucked like a horse in a rodeo. “What the—” I cried, throwing up my hands. Grim was jerking like a rocking horse. “Oh! No. No no no no no.” One by one, every indicator on the dashboard was lighting up, like the streetlights in town winking on one after another at dusk. “No no no no no.”

  The engine fell silent and I slowly rolled backwards down the hill. Grim gave one last shudder.

  And died for the last time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gabe

  When I heard the engine cut out fully, I grabbed my crutches and hauled myself down the hallway as fast as I could. “Beau!” I shouted. “Beau, you still here?”

  My brother was MIA. I felt a flutter of helpless outrage, an impotent anger at how fucking helpless I was right now. Before my accident, I was fast enough, strong enough, to be out the door and checking on her already. But now I had to deal with these crutches and these stupid fucking boots when I just wanted to see that my girl was okay.

  My girl.

  I paused to let those words float in front of my brain for a moment before I batted them aside. Regardless of how I felt about her, I still had no idea how she felt about me. In between those flashes of warmth that made my face hurt from smiling, she was cool, detached, and skeptical. Her single-minded focus on her schooling seemed to leave no room for any distractions, and I was fairly certain that was how she viewed me—as a distraction. If I showed up right now, who knew if she’d accept my help. There was always the risk that she’d slap me in the face for invading her space.

  What can I say? I like taking risks.

  I placed the crutches carefully as I hopped down the stairs. She’d kick my ass if she knew I was doing this without help and for some reason that made me all the more determined to go find her and show her. “See? I can come find your ass, stop being a pain in mine.”

  There was no sound outside except the persistent patter of raindrops on the newly budded leaves. The rush of water in the creek was the loudest I had ever heard, loud enough even to drown out my ragged breath as I picked my way over the uneven terrain and down to the narrow bridge where I’d spotted her car. It sat there hulking like a shadow, the matte black exterior absorbing the light like a vehicular black hole. And next to it, standing stock still like she’d been frozen into place, was Everly.

  She was slumped, fallen back against the side of the car, her face turned to the heavens in some kind of silent supplication. The rain was pattering relentlessly against her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She might even have been asleep, here in the middle of the road. But her eyes snapped open when she saw me drawing near.

  I opened my mouth to greet her, but any snarky comment I wanted to say fled when I looked into her eyes. Those pretty eyes of hers, the ones that showed everything she thought she was hiding, looked completely lost. She was staring at me, glaring even, but there was no focus to them. She looked like she’d lost something she knew she’d never find again. “Everly?” I asked and it was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to.

  I expected her to burst into tears. I certainly thought she was about to by the way her eyes looked, opened wide and shining impossibly bright like that.

  But she took a deep breath. She stumbled slightly—was she drunk?

  And then I jumped because she started laughing. Full-on belly-laughing tinged with acute hysteria. I shuffled my crutches around to get closer to her and she stumbled again. I reflexively shot out my arm to catch her even though I was still shaky on my feet. She caught herself against it, bracing her feet and then slumping against the side of the car again in another fit of helpless, frightening laughter. “It died,” she managed to gasp.

  “What? Who died?” I demanded.

  ”It died today.” She hiccuped and clapped her hand to her mouth, looking like she was about to vomit, then shook her head in wonder. “So many times it could have died,” she breathed in a soft, helpless voice utterly unlike the one I was used to hearing come from her mouth. “But it chose today. Today...”

  Goosebumps crawled across my rain-soaked skin. I was starting to feel genuinely freaked out. She lurched to the side again and this time I grabbed her and yanked her up, stumbling as I did so that we both fell against each other. Her eyes were wild now, looking everywhere but at me, and I could see her hands fluttering at her sides. Frustrated, I braced myself against my crutches and grabbed her face, turning her to me. “What happened?” I shouted, panicked now. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t seem to get a full breath. Gasping, she struggled to form words as tears slipped from her eyes and mixed with the rain on her cheeks.

  I knew this. I had seen it in rehab. A panic attack. She was working herself up into a panic attack. Her eyes darted over my face and without really thinking about it, I reached down and grabbed her hand, holding it tight in mine. I cupped her cheek with my other hand then brushed it back, smoothing the fuzz of hairs that had escaped her no-nonsense ponytail.

  Her eyes snapped to mine. I nodded. “That’s it,” I said. “Breathe when I breathe, okay? Slow down, just slow down, watch my face, okay? In and out. Slower. In and out. Okay? Good. Again. In and out. You’re fine, Everly. You’re safe and I’m right here.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned with each breath. “I can’t, I can’t...”

  “You can. I’m here to help you, okay? I’m the nurse and you’re the patient and I’m going to take care of you. In and out. You’re doing so good.” I smoothed her hair again and again, feeling the way her overheated skin was already cooling. “Good girl. You are doing so good, okay? Keep doing that. In and out.”

  Her bright blue eyes met mine and filled with tears. I smoothed her hair and smiled at her. “Hey there,” I said. “You’re back.”

  She reddened and her breath caught again. “No,” I told her firmly. “Don’t. Keep your breath nice and even. Don’t try to talk yet.”

  She shook her head, but pressed her lips together dutifully and took another deep breath. “That’s right.” She looked down. The rain was caught in her dark lashes and fuck, why did she look so fucking beautiful to me right now? “Everly, come in out of the rain, okay?”

  “My car,” she started to say.

  But I held up a hand. “My Dad’s a car guy. You already knew that. If I text him and
let him know there’s a car stalled out in the middle of our road, he and his buddies will be out here and under the hood in no time flat. You don’t have to worry about that. Just come inside and out of the rain, okay?”

  I could see panic working its way back up into her eyes. “Let me help you,” I urged.

  “Why are you being so sweet to me?” she breathed, suspicion clouding her eyes.

  “Because,” I said. “I know what it’s like.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Feeling like life is shitting on you for fun. Feeling like you can’t catch a fucking break even though you’re doing everything you’re supposed to.” And as I said it, I knew I was telling the truth. “We’re kindred spirits.”

  She widened her eyes.

  I laughed at her incredulous expression. “It’s true. I know it doesn’t seem like we have a thing in common, but we have everything important in common. Just look at me and tell me what happened. I can help you, Everly. Just tell me how to help you.”

  The cords in her neck stood out in sudden anguish. She took a deep breath and let out a sob. “I missed my boards!”

  “Oh,” I breathed. I felt like she’d punched me in the gut, so I couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling. “Oh Jesus Christ, baby, I am so fucking sorry.”

  I didn’t know what to do. She looked so fucking sad, so devastated and alone that it was tearing me up inside.

  I did the only thing that felt right.

  I kissed her.

  It was an accident, I will swear it to my dying day. And hell, if you pressed me, I might even blather some nonsense about it being a friendly kiss, something to buck up her spirits after such terrible news.

  It might have been an accident when I started kissing her, but continuing to kiss her was completely on purpose. Because there was something there, something that stirred a memory. Distant and fuzzy, as if half-remembered in a dream. It made no sense that I should “remember” kissing Everly. But when I felt it, I kissed her harder, hoping to jog that memory loose from where it was stuck in the back of my brain and make sense of it. And fuck, kissing her was pretty nice, too. Her lips were warm and soft and she tasted sweeter than made sense.

  At first she held her mouth tightly closed. As I brushed my hand up to the back of her neck, her body was stiff and unyielding. The rush of desire I’d felt started to ebb when I felt how she wasn’t into it, and the tendrils of memory started to slip through my fingers. I made to pull back and apologize, ready to let that memory slip past me as just some kind of weird deja vu.

  Then she flung her arms around me and fuck, she kissed me back.

  For all of her tightly held emotions, she kissed with a wild desperation. She was like a hungry animal the way she devoured my mouth and battled my tongue with hers. I was shocked, and then I was more turned on than I ever had been in my life to feel her coming alive under my hands.

  She sought under my shirt, seeking warm skin. I tilted her head, devouring that soft, amazingly hot mouth as the memory came back with a vengeance, burning through all my synapses until I pulled back and stared at her, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. “You,” I gasped, cupping her face in my hands and searching those blue eyes. “Oh my god, you’re her. It was you!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Everly

  Gabe tasted the same as he had that stolen night I’d been trying to forget since I started working for the Kings.

  The jolt of surprise memory was enough to silence the stream of panic. His hands on my face were strong enough to hold me together long enough for me to catch my breath and gasp in surprise.

  So much adrenaline pumped through my veins that I rose up on my toes and flung myself against his chest, desperate to hold on to something. I was ready to fall. I gasped again when he caught me.

  He groaned in response to my gasp and suddenly his tongue was sliding against mine and goddamn, yes, I did remember this. The way he kissed. The way he didn’t hold back. Usually I was the one to hold back, but I had no strength left to keep up my defenses.

  He was the one to draw back. Jerked back, more like. “Did I hurt you?” I wanted to ask, mindful of his injuries even with my clouded brain.

  “Oh my god, you’re her,” he said.

  I exhaled sharply. My heart stalled in my chest.

  “It was you!” he exclaimed, gripping my shoulders and giving me a little shake.

  I jerked. Stiffened in his arms and drew back, staring at his opened mouth. He looked at me like I was a stranger, and in that moment I understood that he didn’t know me, because I didn’t even know myself. I’d been convinced he didn’t remember. I’d been certain that that night was one both of us had let slip through our fingers.

  His eyes widened. “It was you,” he repeated, his voice harsher now. An accusation. “You never…how?”

  I swallowed and closed my eyes, partly to escape the way his soft hazel eyes had gone intense green with emotion. And partly to remember.

  I still remembered every single detail of that night in December. And even though I was in Gabe’s arms, I was right back there on the barstool, sitting close to the door. Watching the party but not taking part in it.

  I was humming.

  It was a bad habit. Left over from when I was a bespectacled nobody at Crown Creek Primary and the laughter and chatter went on around me like I wasn’t there. I’d hum to be part of the noise. To be included.

  That night I’d hummed into my rum and coke as I drank it way too quickly. The sugar made my lips sticky so I kept licking them as I glanced at the door again and again. The caffeine in the coke made my head buzz and my hands were starting to shake on their own.

  I wasn’t supposed to be out. I was scared about the unit test the next week, a unit test that ended up being cancelled because of a huge snow storm that hit the area, dumping thirty-three inches in thirty-six hours. That night I hadn’t known that. I only knew that being in the bar felt like a major transgression.

  But when I’d seen the flyer on campus, my heart had stalled in my chest. I stared at it, even brushed my fingers over it to make sure it was real.

  Jonah was playing. Right here in his hometown. I’d always been a fan, but I’d never been able to see him play, not solo, not even with his brothers. Now that he was this huge, massive star, the likelihood of me being able to see him, being able to afford the tickets to get close enough, was slim to none. Except he was back in town and playing a show at the Crown Tavern. The flyer said so.

  I’d promised myself that I’d study early the next morning. Then I’d shown up super early and claimed a bar stool, determined not to miss the chance to have Jonah King finally notice me.

  I was there so early that I noticed every single person who walked in after me. People I recognized from around town and people I didn’t, even though I knew I should.

  I was there when the rest of the King Brothers showed up, three of the four of them. I ducked into my rum and coke and felt them file past rather than watch them waving to the crowd like the local heroes they were. Scowling Finn, solemn Beau...

  And smiling Gabe.

  I remembered the smile, and more than that, I remembered the smile making me angry. Back when the brothers played together, there was a rivalry that was implied if never actually spoken. If you were a Jonah fan, you did not trust Gabe, and the feeling was mutual. There were message board clashes and I’d heard of fights breaking out at shows. Of course I’d grown up enough to see that was silly, but some deeply ingrained part of me, the obsessive fan that would never fully die, still held on to that anger. His smiling face, his deep laugh, his easy way with the townspeople who asked for autographs—they weren’t plusses in my book. They were all reasons to sneer.

  Even as I felt those feelings, I was horrified by them. That the fangirl hive-mind was still controlling me was shocking. I’d always considered myself a rational girl who had her feet firmly on the ground. I had no actual reason to hate Gabe King, but I also knew I wasn’t th
ere to see him. I was there for his brother.

  I looked at the door again.

  No Jonah.

  Where was he?

  People filled in the spaces around me. After nearly two hours of solitude, my space was overflowing with elbows and “excuse mes.” I held my ground. I was a rock in the middle of a fast-flowing river, clutching my drink possessively. Whether it was my third or my fourth by then, I couldn’t recall. The rum hit my bloodstream hard. I leaned back on the barstool, needing something to prop myself up on. The woodgrain was cool under my fingers.

  A gust of wind sent the front door slamming into the outside wall, and that was what started it all.

  “Holy shit. It’s getting bad out there.” A voice at my side.

  I’d turned, smiling, but the person was talking to someone over my head. There was a shout of laughter. Bodies jostled together. I felt warm and eager and happy and I wanted to be a part of it. I’d looked around, wanting to make eye contact with someone. I searched the room for someone to smile at and my eyes slid right onto Gabriel King’s face.

  He was looking at me. Squinting, like he was trying to place me. I’d grown up next door to him, but this was the first time we were face to face in years. In the whole of the bar, he was the first person to look at me and notice I was there. The corner of his mouth turned up in a lazy half-smile.

  The corner of my mouth tugged upward as he held my gaze. I wanted to believe it was the rum heating my cheeks like that. He was the wrong brother. That same indignant anger twisted in my belly, but it felt less like a reaction and more like a reflex because I liked smiling at him. And I liked the way he was looking at me, like I was something worth memorizing. I had dolled myself up for Jonah, but I wasn’t so un-girly not to hope that Gabe was noticing my seldom-worn makeup or the careful way I’d curled my hair. Or the way my new bra—not a sports bra, a real bra—made me look in my tank top. I’d barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror before leaving, but it was worth it to see the other side of his mouth turn up. He’d lifted his chin then, a silent invitation.