One Perfect Kiss

by Jaci Burton

  “I do, and I appreciate it. But I’m still afraid.”

  Jillian sighed. “Josie. Sit back and close your eyes and remember your last relationship. As much about how you felt about him as you can. Not when it was bad, but when it was really good between the two of you.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “Just … trust me.”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes and thought back to the first year with Dylan. They’d had fun, gone to festivals, out to eat a lot. And the sex had been decent. But even from the beginning, she’d always felt something was … missing.

  “What do you remember?” Jillian asked.

  “We had fun together. But there had always been a piece missing, like a lost puzzle piece. And now I know that piece was trust. There were always parts of Dylan that he held back from me.”

  “You mean like the fact he had another girlfriend?”

  Josie raised her glass. “Yeah, that was definitely a big part. But he was just never one to open up to me. About anything.”

  “Okay. Now think about you and Zach.”

  She and Zach definitely had fun together. He also had loved her animals, had been there for her with the issues with her mom. He listened when she talked. And he talked to her, about his past, his family, his feelings, pretty much everything. He cared about her life. He didn’t always agree with her, but he respected her opinion. She laughed so much more when she was with him. And the sex between them was outstanding. She wanted to be with him all the time. She also instinctively knew she could trust him, that she could call him at any time of the night or day and he’d be there for her.

  He had been there for her when she’d needed him. Even when she’d tried to go it alone.

  “And?” Jillian asked.

  She opened her eyes. “I love him. He’s everything I ever wanted in a man, in a partner, in someone I want to be with forever. He’s open and honest with me, and I trust him.”

  Jillian smiled. “That’s good.”

  Jillian leaned back and finished off her glass of wine, then signaled for their waiter to bring them another round.

  Josie finished her glass, then the one after that, the entire time thinking about what she had to do. She’d had so many issues for so long, had feared getting close to someone because the potential to get hurt was so great. She’d put up the great wall and kept herself from falling in love, all in order to protect her heart. Instead, she’d almost walked away from what could be the love of her life.

  Why? Because she couldn’t trust her mother to love her enough when she was a kid? And because she’d had one bad relationship with a guy she couldn’t trust? Zach had never given her a reason not to trust him. And he loved her. God only knew why, because she was so hard to love.

  She had to talk to Zach. He’d done all the talking before.

  Now it was her turn.

  Chapter 32

  * * *

  ZACH HAD GOTTEN his boys where he’d wanted to—the play-offs. Now they were playing their first game of the play-off season—at home, fortunately. And he’d never been more nervous in his entire life.

  Emerson High had had a kickass season. They had a tough defense and a strong, stable offense. Their quarterback had a wicked arm, and their star running back had racked up an impressive number of yards. Which all set Zach’s nerves on edge. If the Eagles won this game, they’d go to the semifinals. His team was just as good as Emerson’s players, which was what he’d been telling his kids all week. In fact, he told them they were better than Emerson, and all they had to do was focus and fight.

  But he still held his breath when they kicked off to Emerson, and he felt like he wasn’t breathing all through the first quarter. Even Wilson seemed nervous, pacing back and forth behind the bench. Usually his dog would find a person to cuddle with, or hang out with the cheerleaders. Tonight he paced.

  Zach knew the feeling. He was tense. Until deep into the second quarter when Robertson threw a long pass to Fine, who ran it into the end zone for seven. Then Zach finally exhaled.

  Okay, so they were up by one touchdown. That wasn’t going to be enough, but it was a start. Their defense was playing solid, and after a quick three and out by Emerson, Hope High had the ball back.

  But on a blitz from Emerson’s defense, Robertson fumbled the ball, and Emerson picked it up and scored a touchdown, so now the game was tied, with the clock down to seconds in the first half.

  They got the ball back, but only forty seconds remained before halftime. He called a shovel-pass play into Robertson, who tossed it to Adams for a quick run, then let the clock run out. They needed to regroup and come out fighting in the second half.

  When he got to the locker room, he could tell his boys were upset and tense.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, coming into the center of the room. “We already knew it was going to be more intense once we hit the play-offs, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.” He waited a beat before continuing, making sure he had their full attention. “You want to be the best? You want to win state? Then you have to mentally prepare yourselves to face tough competition. None of these games from here on out is going to be easy.

  “Which means the wins will taste that much better. So let’s go out there in the second half and get one.”

  They all yelled, and he felt as fired up as his boys.

  And they proved it in the second half. After stopping Emerson cold on their first drive, they pushed hard down the field and scored on Adams’s twenty-two-yard run. After that, it was all the Hope Eagles, who scored three more times, and the defense shut down Emerson’s high-scoring offense.

  They won thirty-seven to seven, and the home crowd roared its approval. Zach looked to his assistant coaches and athletic director, who all nodded and smiled.

  Zach was looking forward to the semifinals next week. He had a good feeling about this team. He knew they were going to make it to state.

  After talking his very excited team down to a reasonable level, he made it clear that hard practices were starting up again on Monday, and they also had to make sure to keep up their grades so that all of them could enjoy this journey. Then he told them he was proud of them because they’d worked their butts off to get where they were.

  After they all left, Zach locked up, and he and Wilson headed home. When they got there, he let Wilson into the backyard, then grabbed a beer from the fridge. He leaned against the kitchen island to check his phone. He’d been so busy, he hadn’t even checked it after the game. He was slammed with text messages from Bash and Luke and Will and all his friends congratulating him on a great game. Bash said they were all going to the bar to hang out and have some food and drink, and he invited Zach to join them.

  They’d all been there at the game. It felt good to have friends who were there for him.

  He smiled as he let Wilson inside and headed to the sofa to prop his feet up and scroll through the rest of his messages.

  Wilson laid his head on Zach’s lap, giving him those cute puppy-dog eyes.

  “What do you need, buddy?” he asked.

  Wilson blinked.

  “Yeah, I miss her, too.”

  But then he leaned forward when he saw a message from Josie.

  Incredible game tonight. If you’re not too busy, could we meet after?

  He’d totally missed this. He looked at the time stamp on her message and saw she’d sent it an hour ago.

  Shit. She was long gone by now, probably out at the bar with Bash and Chelsea and everyone who’d invited him to join them. He sent a return text.

  Sorry. Missed your message. I’m at home. Want to come over?

  He waited and took a couple of deep swallows of beer. When his phone beeped a few minutes later, he grabbed it to look at Josie’s reply.

  Be there in a few.

  He hadn’t heard from her since he’d walked out on her more than a week ago. He wasn’t sure how she felt about it, or whether she even cared.

  So maybe th
is was a good sign. Or maybe she wanted to officially end things. Or yell at him for laying down a “Love Me or Else” ultimatum, which, after he’d had some time to about it, had seemed about as shitty a thing as he could have done.

  Because Josie had been right. They’d been having fun, so why mess with the good thing they’d had going on?

  So he was glad she wanted to see him, because he needed to talk to her about that. She was probably pissed. And rightly so.

  But first, he was going to suck it up and listen to what she had to say.

  Chapter 33

  * * *

  JOSIE SAT IN her car outside Zach’s house, staring at his well-lit front window, willing herself to turn off the engine and go inside. The problem was, she didn’t exactly know what she was going to say once they were face-to-face.

  She knew how she felt about him. Feelings were easy. Expressing them and laying herself bare? That was the difficult part.

  She’d been thinking all week about how she felt, how they’d left things.

  How she’d walked away from someone who loved her.

  She’d waited her entire life for someone to love her like Zach did. And what had she done when she found it? She bailed.

  Gripping the steering wheel, she stared at Zach’s house, where he was no doubt wondering why she hadn’t shown up yet. “Stupid, Josie. That was such a stupid move. Why couldn’t you just throw your arms around him and say, ‘I love you, too’?”

  Because she’d loved her mother, and her mother had let her down time and time again. Because she thought she had loved Dylan, and look where that had gotten her. Did she even know what love was? Was she certain what she was feeling was genuine for Zach? Maybe she was so desperate for love, she was grasping onto something that wasn’t real.

  She closed her eyes and willed her runaway heartbeat to slow down. She was purposely inserting doubt where there shouldn’t be any, just like she always did.

  “Because you’re afraid,” she whispered out loud. “Because you always do this.”

  When Zach’s front door opened and he started out toward her car, she quickly turned off the engine. He came over, and she opened the car door.

  He crouched down in front of her. “You’ve been out here for fifteen minutes.”

  Crap. “You knew that?”

  “Wilson barked when you pulled up.”

  “Oh.” This wasn’t at all embarrassing.

  He got up and held out his hand. “Come on inside, Josie. Whatever hesitations you have, we’ll figure them out together.”

  Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them back. “I wasn’t hesitating. I was …”

  You were what? Meditating? Think of something. Why had her mind gone blank?

  He arched a brow, and she knew she was fumbling. She took the keys out of the car, grabbed her purse, and took Zach’s hand.

  He held tight to her hand and led her into the house. Wilson was there to greet her, his tail wagging wildly back and forth. She bent to give him some love.

  “Hey there, Wilson. How have you been doing? I’ve missed you. Have you been having fun?”

  Zach closed the front door. “Wilson thinks every day is fun.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m sure he does.”

  She stood, feeling more awkward standing next to Zach than ever before. She wrapped her cardigan around herself like a protective shield.

  “Would you like a beer or a glass of wine?” he asked as they moved into the kitchen.

  “Wine would be great, thanks.”

  “Any particular type?”

  “No. Whatever you choose would be fine with me.”

  “Okay. Take a seat in the living room, and I’ll be right there.”

  She pulled up a spot on the sofa. Wilson jumped up next to her, carrying a chew toy. She played tug of war with him while she watched Zach open a bottle and pour the wine into a glass. He looked good. He wore relaxed jeans, a soft gray T-shirt, and no shoes, and all she wanted to do was walk up to him and wrap herself around him so she could breathe him in.

  She’d missed his scent and the feel of his skin and the taste of his lips against hers. Lying in bed every night had been agony because her bed felt like an empty cavern without him next to her.

  She sighed, feeling that melancholy of loss, even though he was only a few feet away from her. But at the moment those few feet felt like miles.

  He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and came into the living room. Wilson perked up, his tail whipping in a frenzy.

  “Yeah, I know what you want, buddy.” He set their drinks on the coffee table, then threw Wilson’s toy all the way toward the front door. Wilson flew off the sofa and dashed after the toy, then dropped it to go chase a ball he’d spotted.

  He picked up her drink and handed it to her, then took a seat next to her

  “Thanks,” she said as she took the glass of wine from him. She took a couple of very long sips, hoping it might bolster her courage. And spark her brain cells.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She half turned to face him. “The game tonight was fantastic.”

  “Yeah, it went our way. I was happy about it.”

  “So now what? Semifinals, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You—and your team—must be so excited.”

  “The boys are pumped, but I have to rein them in. One game at a time and all.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  She felt lame talking football with him, but at the same time it didn’t seem appropriate to launch into the whole relationship thing without a warm-up. Still, their conversation seemed awkward and stilted, and she had never felt that way with Zach before. Their conversations had always flowed naturally, and this really sucked.

  “Why were you sitting out in the car so long?”

  Leave it to Zach to call it like he saw it. “I was thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About how I messed this up.”

  He shifted, seemingly relaxed as he placed his long legs on the table in front of him. “Messed what up?”

  “Us. I messed us up. Everything was going well.”

  “Yeah, until I messed things up by throwing down an ultimatum.”

  She frowned. “Wait. What?”

  “I’m the one who messed it up, Josie. I shouldn’t have done that. I told you I loved you.”

  Now she was really confused. “So you don’t love me?”

  He gave her that hot smile that always melted her feet to the floor. “Of course I do. But then I told you that if you didn’t feel the same way, we couldn’t see each other anymore. What kind of juvenile bullshit was that? It was totally unfair to you.”

  She wasn’t expecting this. She was expecting to come here, to apologize, to tell him she loved him, too, and then beg his forgiveness for running. She hadn’t expected him to apologize to her.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, Zach.”

  He reached over and took her hand. “Yeah, I do. You were right when you said things were good between us. I had to be honest about how I felt. But that didn’t mean anything had to change between us.”

  She laid her wineglass on the table and shifted so she was closer to him. “Oh, Zach. Everything changed when you told me you loved me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. You turned pale.”

  “Okay, maybe my initial reaction wasn’t awesome. And I’ll be the first to admit that love and I haven’t always been the best of friends.”

  He swept his thumb over her jaw. “I can’t think of anyone who deserves love more than you do. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that I pushed an ultimatum on you, and then I bailed.”

  “I’m pretty sure I was the one who bailed.”

  He shook his head. “No, you wanted things to stay the same between us. I was the one who acted like an asshole and walked because things didn’t go my way.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “You do realize we’re arguing about love, right?”


  His lips curved. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Not really. One of the things I love most about you is that you keep me on my toes. My life will never be boring around you.”

  She realized he was staring at her. “What?”

  “You said one of the things you love about me.”

  “Yes. I love you, Zach. Did I fail to mention that? I love you. I’ve been in love with you for a while. I loved you back at Oktoberfest when you laid down that dumb ultimatum. But I was afraid. Love hurts, dammit.”

  He stood and pulled her off the sofa, taking her hands in his. “Love also heals. And makes you stronger. We’re a team, Josie. When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you. When you cry, I’ll lend a shoulder. When you need me, I’ll always be there for you. And you’ll be there for me for the good and the bad. That’s what love’s all about.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. This time she didn’t try to stop them. “It’s already been that way, and if I hadn’t tried so hard to fight it, I would have recognized that you loved me all along.” She took a step forward and laid her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around him.

  “I love you, Zach. Thank you for being patient enough to wait for me.”

  “I’ll always be patient with you.” He tipped her chin back. “And I’ll always love you.”

  And when he kissed her, for the first time in her life, she truly believed in love.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Six months later later

  JOSIE MADE SURE everything was laid out in Zach’s backyard, that the tables were all set and every place setting was perfect. It wasn’t every day that they had company over at Zach’s place. In fact, this was only the third time they’d had a party here. Progress was slow in some areas of their relationship, but they were getting there.

  But tonight was their engagement party, and Josie wanted everything to go off without a hitch. Or, at least, she wanted everyone to have fun.

  “You know, at some point you’re going to have to decide which house to live in together,” Jillian said, coming out of the house to stand on the porch.