21 Stolen Kisses

by Lauren Blakely

  When school ends and lacrosse practice is over, I track down Lane and tell him I need to see him. We agree to meet for pizza on Lexington in the Seventies, near his house. As I walk across town, I rewind to last night. It’s like Noah and I stepped off a bridge together, and instead of falling, we flew. To be honest, I was never sure if I’d want that kind of closeness. I grew up surrounded by the wrong kind of intimacy, so I had no idea if I’d want anything like it for myself. But with Noah, I want it all. I want everything. I felt so free in his arms last night, so right in his bed as I gave myself to him. There’s no question – I want so much more of him.

  I call him, and he answers on the first ring. “Hey there,” I say.

  “Let me guess. You’re still feeling the aftereffects of last night,” he says with a sexy kind of confidence.

  I laugh knowingly. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I was thinking about.”

  We flirt like that, suggestive and naughty, as I walk uptown, past the buses spewing exhaust, the cabs blaring horns, the pedestrians chatting on their phones too. As I reach the pizza place, he says something that nearly makes me blush. “Nothing has ever turned me on more than the way you said my name last night.”

  I moan. I actually moan. Because the memory slides over me, warming me up.

  “I want you to do it to me again. Maybe tonight,” I say as I lean against the brick wall outside the shop.

  “That can be arranged. Consider it another early birthday present.”

  “I like the presents you give me,” I say, because I can’t seem to stop this kind of naughty banter with him now that we’ve started down this path of more than kissing.

  “K, I will give you anything you want, any time. Come by this evening.”

  “I’ll be there later. No one will have to know,” I say, and then he tells me he’ll call me later because David Tremaine is heading into the office for a meeting.

  “No one will have to know what?”

  I flinch, and let out a surprised squeak. Lane has appeared out of nowhere. “You surprised me,” I say, smacking his arm.

  He laughs. “I can tell.” He raises his eyebrows and surveys me. My cheeks are red and I wonder how much he heard. This situation feels eerily familiar, like the tables have turned. Especially when he says, “So no one will have to know what?”

  The flush in my cheeks deepens. “Oh, just talking to Amanda. She whacked me in lacrosse practice, and we were joking that no would know she did it,” I say, the lie gliding off my tongue seamlessly.

  I turn away quickly, walking into the pizza shop as a wave of self-loathing crashes over me. I don’t want to be like my mom. I don’t want to be a liar.

  “Do you know what bugs people the most?” Lane asks as we sit down at a table with a red-and-white checked tablecloth.

  “No. Tell me what bugs people the most.” I tense inside, dreading the answer. He’s mad at me. He’s going to tell me through one of his facts.

  “Hidden fees,” he says, shaking his head, and laughing. “Followed by not getting a person on the phone, then tailgating, then incomprehensible bills, then dog poop left on the ground.”

  “Seems relatively minor. All of it,” I say as I open a menu.

  “Want to split a cheese pie? I’ll forgo pepperoni for you.”

  “You’re the best. Thank you for your abstinence.”

  He orders when the waitress comes by, adding two Diet Cokes. “You better make hers a double,” Lane adds, and winks at the waitress. It’s a joke, and she doesn’t get it, so she kind of just stares at him from behind her wire-rimmed glasses. Her sandy brown hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. Lane waves a hand in the air. “Just two Diet Cokes, please.”

  She nods and walks away, writing the order on her pad of paper.

  “Sheesh. What’s the world come to when you can’t make a joke about a soda? See, that would be one of my pet peeves. That would be my biggest annoyance. Lack of appreciation and understanding of sarcasm.”

  “That is indeed irksome,” I say.

  Lane scratches his right hand across his jaw, a Godfather-like gesture, then adopts a Marlon Brando tone. “So, what can I do for you?”

  I give him a look.

  “You called this meeting,” he adds.

  I shrug one shoulder. “What? Now I have to have a reason to hang out with you? I thought we just hung out,” I say, even though I can feel the tension, it’s real, it exists, it’s the shadow between us right now. I relent. “Fine, I know you’re pissed at me because of last night, because of the letters. But look, I had to do it. I have to get things sorted out in my life. And that’s why I want to be totally direct here.” I reach into my backpack for the letter I found under the doormat this morning. I unfold it, smooth it open on the tablecloth, and explain how, when and where I found it.

  He turns it around, reads the words from Balzac, then the handwritten words. K, I’d really like to see you again.

  “Weird. Who do you think wrote it?”

  The waitress brings us our sodas and Lane takes a drink.

  “Who do I think wrote it?” I ask, furrowing my brow.

  He nods. “Yeah. It’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

  I hold his eyes with mine. “Lane.”

  “Kennedy.”

  “Didn’t you …” I start to ask.

  “Didn’t I what?”

  “Well, you call me K. You knew I was leaving the letter. You know the Balzac is my favorite.”

  He doesn’t say anything right away; just taps the table with his fingers. “Balzac,” he says, lingering on the name of the writer. “Such a funny name, don’t you think? Do you think everyone teased him on the playground with that name?”

  It’s like I’m in an alternate universe and the Lane I thought I knew has been misplaced, and been replaced by this slightly off version who doesn’t quite fit into the old one’s skin.

  I stare directly at him. “Lane, did you leave this letter for me?”

  He looks me in the eyes finally, his crazy hazel-green-brown eyes meeting mine. “You want to know what annoys me most? If they had called me for that survey, I’d tell them what annoys me most. Lack of directness,” he says.

  “But I’m being direct. I’m being totally direct.”

  “Right. And I would do the same. If I had feelings for you, I’d tell you. I wouldn’t leave a letter on your doorstep. A letter meant for a married woman.”

  Red rushes to my cheeks. I hold my hands up, the sign for surrender. “All right. Got the message.”

  He stands up and pushes his chair back. All I can figure is I’ve made him so mad he’s going to leave. But he walks around the table and sits next to me, pulling a chair closer to me, so close he’s got one of my knees between his legs.

  “Are you just going to remind me you don’t like me or something?”

  “Do you want me to like you?”

  I don’t know how to answer or what to answer, so I don’t. If I felt off balance this morning walking to school, that was nothing compared to how I feel now. The whole world is tilted on its side and I’m not seeing or feeling or thinking straight.

  “Do you?” he asks in a softer voice. “Because if I liked you, I would tell you. I would be direct. I would be up front,” he says staring hard at me. He places a hand on my leg, and his voice softens. “I would ask you to prom.”

  He waits for me to say something. His words are his confession.

  “But you said,” I start to say, but I’m stuttering and sputtering. “You said I was your closest friend. That you wanted to go as friends.”

  “If I were being direct, I’d tell you right now that that’s all true, but yes, there is more to it than that. So much more,” he says, the last words in a heated whisper.

  Our eyes lock and they don’t let go. I watch as he presses his teeth against his lower lip for a second, then breathes my name. “Kennedy.”

  “Lane,” I say, but I don’t know if it’s a stop sign or a stark
recognition of how my life could have gone. Lane, and his umbrella gifts and friendship and beautiful heart, is precisely the type of guy who’d be perfect for me – he’s the same age. There would be no questions, no second glances, no need to hide. He is another choice I could have made, and if I had, I wouldn’t live a life weighed down by so many secrets. As that choice plays out before my eyes I don’t move. I don’t do anything. Nor does he. We are frozen in time. We stay like that, inches away, stoic, solid statues, so close we could kiss. Perhaps, in some other choose-your-adventure version of my life, we would kiss. Maybe in some parallel universe he’s the person I’m meant to be with – the guy my age. But I fell in love out of time. I fell in love with someone else. And the one thing I know about myself, the one thing that is still true, even as everything else shifts and wobbles, is this—I am not my mother.

  I raise a hand and place a palm against his chest. “I’m seeing Noah again.”

  He draws a sharp breath, then drops his head. He presses his fist against his mouth, as if he’s holding in all the things he wants to say.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, because I’m not sure what to say. I feel like I’ve done something wrong.

  He snaps up his head. “What are you sorry for?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lane’s jaw is set hard. His eyes are narrowed. This is a side of him I haven’t seen before. “You were talking to him before, right? When you said ‘No one will have to know’?”

  I sigh, admitting the truth of my life. “Yes.”

  He shakes his head. “Why’d you lie to me?”

  I gesture at him, at his angry reaction. “Because of this. Because of how pissed off you are.”

  “I’m not mad that you’re seeing him. I’m mad that you lied about it,” he says, pushing back his chair, the legs scraping loudly on the floor. He fishes into his wallet and tosses some bills on the table.

  “What’s that for?”

  “For the pizza. I’m not hungry anymore.”

  I stand up and stare at him like he’s an oddity in a curio shop. “Why are you leaving?”

  “Because I’m pissed for real now,” he says through gritted teeth, speaking in a low hiss. “We’ve always been abundantly honest and you just point-blank lied to me, Kennedy. It pisses me off, and I don’t want to talk about it. I want to leave. So I’m going to go. Good-bye.”

  He turns on his heels and walks out as the waitress brings the cheese pie to the table. My stomach rumbles, and I’m embarrassed that my body has the audacity to be hungry at a moment like this.

  I drop my forehead to the table, alone and empty in a pizza shop in Manhattan.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Noah

  Tremaine twirls a pencil between his thumb and forefinger. Up. Over. Around. He hasn’t missed a beat. He twirls and talks, stretched out on the leather couch in my office.

  “Here’s the thing,” the gray-haired man posits, his brow scrunched up in thought. “I wonder if a TV show is truly the best venue for this storyline.”

  I nod several times from my post in a comfy chair across from him. “You think it’s too much will-they-won’t-they drama to sustain over many years and many seasons?”

  He stops twirling, sits up straight, and taps his finger to his nose. “Exactly,” he says, enunciating each syllable in emphasis. “Because what’s the heart of the story? Is the heart the back and forth, or is the heart the path to being together?”

  “Or to not being together,” I toss out. “Because that’s an option too.”

  “Exactly. I haven’t decided if the hero deserves The One That Got Away.”

  “The heroes don’t always deserve the girl,” I say, musing on the topic, wondering how the viewers would see a guy like me. If I’d be worthy of the girl. I suspect the jury might be out on that one.

  “You see,” he begins, leaning forward, his hands on his knees, excitement flashing across his eyes, “I’m not convinced I want to put the characters through the kind of hell that a TV show would require of a romance.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You’re thinking the kind of a hell of a movie is better?”

  He nods. “Can we sell it as a movie?”

  We haven’t even agreed to work together yet. But this is the process. This is how a guy like Tremaine decides who to trust with his creative gift. Besides, I don’t need a contract to want to be in this room with him bandying about ideas.

  “The hero has been in love with the girl for years, but she won’t let herself be with him for some reason. Maybe she’s hung up on the past, or there’s something in herself that she needs to deal with first. And the hero, well, he can’t bear the thought of her being the one that got away,” Tremaine offers, raising an eyebrow as he waits for my response.

  “But why is he so in love with her? That’s what will make this fly or not.”

  “That’s always the key,” he says, and I’m about to respond when Jonathan pops in, looking all smooth and polished in his pin-striped suit, ready to play the part of the closer.

  Only, I don’t need him to. Tremaine doesn’t want a car salesman.

  My muscles tighten, and I hope Jonathan doesn’t mess this up. Because Tremaine is a special kind of writer; and he needs someone who gets what he’s trying to do.

  “How’s it going, gentlemen?” he asks.

  “It’s going great,” Tremaine says, and I can’t complain about that answer.

  Kennedy

  I pick listlessly at the slice of cheese pizza, wishing Lane were here to split it with me. I wish I knew what to say to him, but he so clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with me. And now I’m facing the Friendship Executioner once more, only this time it’s my crime—lying—that’s brought me here.

  I flash back to Catey, and all we shared. She’s no longer a part of my life, and I’d hate for that to happen to Lane. Hell, Catey is the reason the pizza in front of me doesn’t have pepperoni on it. I start to box up the pizza so I can take it to Lane as a peace offering. But as I quietly run through what to say, I realize I have no idea what words to use.

  I don’t have the training in this level of honesty. I shove the pizza to the edge of the table, grab my backpack, and zero in on homework.

  Such an indignity to have to finish homework before I see my boyfriend tonight. Doing French translations and calculus equations makes me feel like a kid. But I’m so damn ready to shuck all this and start the next part of my life. The part where I have freedom. When I finish I decide to take a taste of that freedom now, so I jam my computer into my bag, and head to Noah’s.

  We barely say a word as I drop my bag inside the doorway, and fall into his arms. He backs me up against the wall, his hands cupping my face as he drops his mouth to mine. The day is gone in his touch. His kisses overwhelm me, they erase the memory of Lane’s dismissal, of his hurt, of his anger. They blot out the whole damn world.

  “How was your day?” he whispers as he kisses my neck, his fingers spearing into my hair.

  “Crappy,” I say, as I grasp his shirt collar and bring him closer.

  “Why?” he asks as he layers kisses along the column of my throat.

  “Had an argument with a friend,” I mutter, as his hands find their way under my shirt. I arch into him. The electricity sparking through my veins obliterates the fight with Lane. All I want now is to feel good again, and Noah is the only one who can give me that magic pill.

  “What can I do to make you feel better?”

  “More of what you’re doing,” I say as I work open the buttons on his shirt. He inhales sharply as I roam my hands over his chest.

  “You’re going to make the next ten days incredibly hard,” he says on a groan.

  I wiggle my eyebrows. “I know. But I’m up for the challenge.”

  “The birthday challenge,” he says, as I take off his shirt and turn him around so his back is to the wall. I bend down to kiss his chest, his abs, and then right there—that line above the waistband of hi
s pants. The taste of his skin drives me wild. I want to know all of him, to touch him in every way, to explore his body with my hands and mouth. Want pulses through me, a deep and powerful desire to cross every line. My fingers dance across his flat stomach; my lips follow, as I kiss him, driven by so much longing. I lose hold of reason as I start to undo his belt.

  In a flash, his hands are on mine, stopping me. He tugs me up. “We have to wait,” he says, his voice strained.

  “I don’t want to wait any more,” I say, because I’m sure this—sex—would obliterate my crappy afternoon.

  “I know,” he says, keeping a tight grip on my overeager hands. “But we promised to wait, and I have something special planned.”

  Then he tells me about the restaurant, and the inn, and my heart grows wings and tries to soar out of my chest because it’s all so perfect.

  The fact that I’ll have to concoct a new set of lies to spend the night with him doesn’t bother me. I’m so good at lying now, I could teach a class.

  The only thing I don’t have to hide is how I feel. Noah is my freedom, so I seek more, in the hope that it will erase the hurt earlier in the day. I bring my hands to his cheeks. “You really won’t let me touch you?” I ask, though I know the answer. I’m merely setting up my next question.

  “No.” He shakes his head for emphasis. I’m not entirely sure why me touching him isn’t acceptable, but him touching me is allowed. Maybe there is some unwritten rule that while we crossed one line last night, we can’t cross another. Right now, I’m perfectly content with that ruling because my body is selfish.

  My body wants.

  I have only kissed one other boy in my life, and while Noah and I mastered kissing long ago, last night with him was like an awakening, unleashing a deep craving inside of me. The floodgates have been opened.

  “Would you think I’m terribly greedy if I wanted you to make me…” I start, but I can’t breathe the final words out loud yet. So I cup my hand over his ear and whisper the rest of my request.

  Come again.

  His breath hitches, giving me the answer I already knew. “You know I will. You know you’re all I want,” he says, and his voice feels hot, betraying his desire that he can’t hide any longer. Somehow, I am his weakness, I am his tipping point, I am the exception for him. “You are my everything,” he whispers.