Licks

by Kelly Siskind

  But I had attended his odd soccer match, would watch from the sidelines with his family. Back then, I’d only had eyes for him. Hadn’t paid the other players a lick of attention.

  Now we were all friends.

  “Right. August.” Ainsley nodded at Owen like she’d forgotten the only guy I’d ever mooned to them about. The actress was being a sneak. “Was he as hot back then?”

  She also had a one-track mind.

  Owen’s brown eyes swirled with amusement. “Emmett asked him out once. No. Wait…” He shook his head and smiled. “Twice. It was definitely twice.”

  Ainsley hitched her shoulders, hands clutched together excitedly. “Does that mean August’s gay? Is that why he and Gwen never hooked up?”

  Owen’s brother was in a relationship now, but I’d heard stories about his rampant dating prior, how much of a player Emmett had been. Learning he’d hit on August when younger wasn’t a surprise. August’s hot factor had been just as high back then.

  What was a surprise was having August turn up right as Ainsley asked that mortifying question.

  “I’m not gay,” August said, sidling up to our table. His eyes were trained on me, skewering me with enough heat to spark a wildfire.

  My breath stalled as I attempted to douse those rising flames, because wow, did he clean up well.

  His worn jeans hugged his narrow hips, a few threads at the seams escaping. His plain black T-shirt accentuated his wide shoulders and sinewy arms. His dark hair was still damp, my favorite cowlick swimming against the current. A hint of minty aftershave wafted from his clean-shaven cheeks, and I ached to run my nose along that smooth jawline.

  Until he answered the latter of Ainsley’s questions. “Gwen and I didn’t hook up because we had a misunderstanding in college, and she slept with my brother.”

  Owen and Jimmy froze. Rachel and Ainsley’s eyes filled half their faces. My world tipped upside down, like I’d bungee jumped, my stomach remaining sky high while the rest of me plunged.

  Ignoring the statue game going on around the table, August leisurely pulled out the chair opposite me. He slid my wineglass toward him and took a sip, licking his lips as he swallowed. He grinned at me.

  Grinned.

  At me.

  If he were closer, I’d twist his nipple so hard, he’d see the Milky Way.

  “Glad you could make it and turn my friends into stone,” I told him, my voice rising in pitch and aggravation. “The girls and I are going to the bathroom now. Together. Like girls do. We might be a while.”

  My chair screeched on the concrete floor as I used my head and thumbs to gesture toward the back of the bar. Rachel and Ainsley picked up on my game of charades lickety-split and followed my hurried strides into the bathroom.

  The space was decorated like a country porch, complete with cushioned seat, barn-style stalls, and sunflowers. “He’s insane,” I said as I fell onto the yellow cushion.

  Rachel covered her mouth with her hand. “I can’t believe he blurted that.”

  “He must want to torture me, slowly and painfully. It’s his form of retribution.” It was probably why he’d agreed to come out. To humiliate me. Make me look bad in front of my friends. Our friends. Whatever.

  Ainsley’s eyebrows finally descended from her hairline. “I can’t weigh in on what went down until you fill me in.”

  I contemplated putting her off, not reliving my teenage stupidity again, but there was no point. It was easier this time. The confession still shamed me, but the more often I spoke about it—to Rachel, with August, now Ainsley—the easier it got. “Do you think that’s why he aired our dirty laundry?”

  Ainsley cocked her head. “What’s why? I don’t follow.”

  “When he showed up, that ambush of his seemed—”

  “Technically,” Rachel cut in, “it wasn’t an ambush. He was answering Ainsley’s question.”

  I glowered at Ainsley. “Remind me to thank you for that later.”

  She plucked a sunflower from a sink vase and offered it to me. “A token for my peccadillo.”

  I accepted her gift and spun the massive flower. “Have you been playing crosswords again?”

  “Yes, but I cheated for that word, which means a small transgression. Like August’s fumble now. But isn’t everything better out in the open?”

  “Which brings me to the point I was trying to make.” This conversation was tangling as quickly as my thoughts. “I hadn’t spoken with anyone about that night for nine years, and I get the impression August hadn’t either. Even thinking about it before made me feel like I’d eaten one of Ainsley’s vegan desserts.” I mimed an upset stomach. Served her right for the accidental ambush.

  She rolled her eyes. “You guys love my baking.”

  We did not, but we ate the horrible efforts anyway.

  “What about now?” Rachel asked me, avoiding the vegan discussion like the good friend she was. “Do you feel less pukey about the whole thing?”

  “If I stop and relive the fiasco, I start to spiral, but it’s easier. So either August wants to torment me in front of you guys, or he’s trying to lighten our history, make it less of a big deal.”

  Option A meant this reunion of ours would end shortly, no friendship maintained. Option B meant he might truly want to put our past to bed. He might want me in that bed with him.

  The possibility excited and terrified me in equal measure.

  Ainsley looked over my head, at the mirror behind me. Her purple wrap dress hugged her generous curves, her small stature elevated by matching stilettos. She adjusted the tie that hung at her side. “Judging by the way he looked at you, I’d say the only tormenting he wants to do involves ropes, hot wax, and silk sheets.”

  That visual had heat flooding my neck. “How was he looking at me?” I fanned my face with the massive flower.

  “Like you’re a supermodel, and he’s had your picture on his wall forever, like the skimpy bikini kind, and he just realized he gets to sex you up.”

  I choked on air. “That was specific.”

  Ainsley gestured toward the door, as though August was there. “So was his extensive eye-fucking. He wants bikini-poster sex.”

  Too frazzled to compute that, I stroked the sunflower’s petals. “I’m in deep water here. The shark-infested kind. I mean, August is, without a doubt, the one who got away. If I had another chance with him, I’d jump at it.” Pole vault, to be precise. “But there’s been another development.”

  More drama to unload, because I was living in soap opera central. Once I finished outlining the arrival of my mother’s lost luggage, the time gap between its contents and it going missing, the journal, and the first clue I’d found, the girls had sat on either side of me, scooched close in a love sandwich.

  Rachel gathered my hand in hers. “Are you nervous about searching for your dad?”

  Terrified. Nauseated. Overwhelmed. “Definitely.” I tried dissecting the million and one thoughts boxing my brain. “I believe we get what we get in the family department. We don’t choose our parents or siblings or relatives. I got short-strawed and made it through, but I spent a lot of years resenting my mother, and resenting myself in the process. It’s part of the reason I pushed August away back then—my shitty self-worth. And I’m worried searching for my father now could take me back to that place, but I also see finding him as a brand new chance, my last-ditch effort to have family. I have so many questions for him.”

  Did he seek adrenaline rushes, too?

  Had he chosen to leave me, or had Mary never told him I existed?

  Did he hate mayonnaise?

  Was he afraid of spiders?

  When he looked out the window at the moon, did he sometimes wonder what it would be like to float through space?

  I had a journal full of questions, some silly, some scary, and I wanted to ask them all. Not at once, obviously. No sense scaring the man stiff. But the questions had built up over my teen and adult years, so many it was hard to breathe at times.
Like the pressure against my breastbone would rupture if I never sat face-to-face with the man and found out who he was.

  Ainsley pressed her hand to my knee. “What if he’s awful? You don’t know anything about him. Maybe there’s a good reason your mother never told you his name.”

  She could be right, but the more I thought about meeting him, the greater my curiosity grew. Exactly why I’d needed to talk this out. “I think I’d rather know. I’d rather meet him and see for myself he’s an asshole. Without that, I’ll drive myself nuts.”

  When families came to me, desperate to adopt, I’d warn them how long and grueling the process could be, how emotionally draining. Little good that did. Each phone call and meeting, nerves and fear would invade their voices. Wisps of hope. Nothing beat giving good news to prospective parents. I wouldn’t trade those joyful tears and hugs for anything. Letting others down often led to Ben & Jerry sessions with the girls, where we’d heckle bad reality TV and commiserate.

  Still, I preferred it to the limbo of the parents not knowing. Answers, good or bad, meant they could move on. Make another choice. Reevaluate their lives. Like I had after I’d tracked down my grandparents.

  That shit show had involved my grandmother asking if I’d found God, then listing all the ways young girls sinned. Instead of the cookies and tea and hugs I’d dreamed of, I’d gotten a fanatic only interested in preaching at me. The confrontation had been upsetting, but it had allowed me to quit obsessing over something I’d never have. I moved on.

  Exactly what I needed to do with my dad.

  Until I knew unequivocally, one way or another, if my father was a good or bad man, a drunk or a saint, funny or mean, warm or cold, I’d exist in a perpetual state of uncertainty, those wisps of hope to one day meet him never letting me close that door to my past.

  “I think knowing is better than limbo. If he’s a dick, so be it.” I rubbed my eyes, forgetting I’d applied more eyeliner than usual. Raccoon eyes weren’t sexy.

  Ainsley patted my thigh. “Then we’re here for you, for whatever you need. But back to the August issue.” She peered at me intently, getting up in my face. “You said you asked him to help find your father. Did he answer?”

  I squirmed, remembering the solidness of him as he’d held me on his very firm lap. How I’d panicked afterward. “He flirted instead. And when I confronted him later, asked why he came by, he said he wasn’t sure anymore.”

  “Your past is pretty intense,” Ainsley said.

  “Maybe he showed up wanting closure.” Rachel’s soft voice was more soothing than her words. “He could’ve been surprised how much he still felt for you.”

  That prospect was preferable. “But why now? My mom dying, the luggage, August—it all feels too coincidental. I’m not sure it’s smart to deal with August with all this other…stuff going on.”

  Rachel rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “You guys remember the blackout when we made our wish? Last year?”

  It was impossible to forget that crazy night: the three of us with our eyes closed, holding hands as midnight struck, making our resolutions as a blackout had pitched the bar into darkness.

  Crazy with a side of loop-dee-loo.

  “Well,” Rachel went on, “I kind of thought something larger was going on that night. Something bigger guiding our choices. It was part of the reason I worked so hard to realize my resolution. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with believing in the impossible. In us being connected to unseen forces that impact our lives. You wished to find your father because it was important to you, and now you have your mother’s diary and your first love giving you sexy eyes, all before your chosen deadline. If it were me, I’d stop trying to figure out why. I’d take the breadcrumbs offered and follow their trail. Maybe August turned up for a reason.”

  “Aside from embarrassing me in front of my friends?”

  She pinched my side. “Aside from that. But we’ll laugh about it eventually.”

  In her dark jeans and cream blouse, adorably freckled Rachel appeared sweet and levelheaded, not like a flake who believed in crystal balls and fairy godmothers. But she was insisting August was a sign, the lost luggage fate, the diary my destiny.

  The notion was wild and impossible. Or was it?

  Today’s strange happenings were precisely what made it hard to dismiss her hypothesis. There was no point fighting something unexplainable, especially when the mystery brought with it a certain dark-haired musician.

  I’d had it bad for August since the sweltering summer day he’d invited me to run, screaming and laughing, through his sprinklers. I’d been nine years old and struck dumb by a boy with a smile big enough to brighten my somber world.

  I glanced at the exit, shaky and apprehensive, knowing he was out there. “He never answered when I asked him to help me find my father. What if he says no?”

  Ainsley stood and smoothed her dress. “After the comment he made, and those fuck-me eyes, there’s no way he’ll say no. I guarantee he’s out there right now, dishing to the guys about you. Which means I need to fix your eyeliner before we go back out.”

  “Oh!” Rachel clapped. “It’s like you guys are performing a remake of Grease—us girls in here, the boys out there, gossiping about your lost love. It’s so romantic.”

  Clearly Rachel was as delusional as me, but I pictured the silly scene and smiled as my friends fussed over my smudged face.

  6 p.m., 30 Hours…

  August

  “You, my man, have balls of iron.” Jimmy shook his head at me, pretty much all he and Owen had done since the girls’ not-so-subtle bathroom dash.

  I’d gotten away with staying mum while our waitress came by and I decided on a beer, but there was no avoiding the grenade I’d launched. “My history with Gwen is complicated.”

  Owen shifted his chair forward. “I thought I had it rough with my ex-wife, but your situation seems sticky as hell. Actually…” He frowned at the blackboard menu above the bar. “Ainsley crushed on my brother before we met. If Emmett was straight, she would have slept with him. Hate to think where that would have left us.” He rubbed his chest.

  I was well acquainted with that pain. “I’ve been angry with her a long time.”

  Jimmy leaned his elbows on the table, dark eyes narrowing. He looked like a brute in this kitschy bar, daisies on the lime green tables, birds painted on the walls. “If you said that to upset her before, as nice as it’s been seeing you, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  Under different circumstances, his hard tone would have my shoulders bunching toward my ears, but the ultimatum meant Gwen had people who cared for her.

  “I didn’t.” I rubbed this salty day from my eyes, unsure how much to say. I rarely spoke with Finch anymore. My bandmates were cool, but we didn’t sit up at night braiding one another’s hair and swapping stories. I hadn’t seen these guys in twelve years, but some friendships defied the laws of time.

  I shoved my right hand into my jeans pocket, finding one of my guitar picks. I spun it in circles. “I’ve had it bad for Gwen for as long as I can remember, and for a bunch of stupid reasons on both our parts, we never acted on how we felt. The closest we ever got was the day she turned nineteen, and she slept with my twin. But seeing her now…” My body hummed at the thought of her. “I’m tired of letting one fuck-up ruin our chances. Not sure I can let her walk away this time.”

  Studying her packed box filled with our memories had knocked my head clear. She hadn’t let go of me, like I hadn’t let go of her, even though I’d tried.

  I’d driven to my hotel afterward, unable to shake thoughts of her. My bitterness had dripped into the drain as I’d showered, imagining Gwen under that hot stream with me. It had thinned into nothing as I’d dressed and hopped in my car, jumpy and nervous. Not because I dreaded seeing Gwen.

  Because I couldn’t wait to be with her again, anywhere near her, touching her, breathing her in.

  One afternoon, and I was hooked.r />
  Jimmy stared at me like I had carrots dangling from my nose. “So you thought you’d share your history with the group?”

  I released the guitar pick and passed my hand over my mouth, wishing I’d sewn it shut. “It kind of slipped out. I’m tired of us tiptoeing around each other.”

  He barked out a laugh. “It kind of slipped out. Have you met these girls? Ainsley will eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” The asshole kept laughing.

  If making our history non-taboo helped Gwen and me rediscover our footing, it was worth it. Getting over her night with Finch would still be a tough wall to scale, but we’d made huge strides earlier, and walking away now would leave me with less closure than before. Just a few hours with her had lyrics looping through my head, odd fragments I’d been jotting down since I’d left her mother’s.

  Time licks wounds. Touch remembers. Infinite flames.

  Finch’s betrayal had been more personal, complications that had stemmed from decisions made prior to that shit-storm. Gwen, I could forgive, and I meant what I’d told her earlier: I was done analyzing my actions. If I wanted to flirt with her, I would. If I wanted to touch her, tease her, kiss her, I would.

  I just had to figure out what to do about her mother’s letter and the news it brought.

  I could come clean, explain how I’d ignored a dying woman’s wishes to share Gwen’s father’s name. How I’d needed time to process before facing the only woman I’d ever loved. Feelings that still lingered all these years later. I could tell her I waited and delayed, procrastinating like a prick, and when I finally looked up her father the other day, to make sure he wasn’t a drunk or druggie, or some skeeze who’d hurt her, the intel I discovered had punched me in the gut.

  I’d sat in my car afterward, eyes squeezed to the point of pain, wishing I could turn back time.

  But her father had died of a heart attack.

  Eight days prior.

  I’d sat on his name for two months. Because of my procrastination, Gwen would never meet her father. Because of me, she’d never talk to him and find the missing pieces of her puzzle.