Kissing Lessons (Kissing Creek)

by Stefanie London

  She wanted to be equal. Ronan nodded. “An exchange, then. You offer your keen eye, and I’ll share my lectures with you.”

  “An exchange.” She bit down on her lower lip, but her eyes were sparkling and alight. “I like that idea.”

  “Me, too.”

  Her gaze drifted over to the big clock on the wall, and she drained the rest of her coffee. “I have to get back to it, but if you text me the times we can meet up, I’ll check my schedule.”

  “Deal.”

  She stood, still cradling her mug. “Thank you.”

  “No thanks required,” he said. “You’re the one who’s helping me.”

  She looked as though she might say something else, but Audrey simply put her game face back on and headed toward the little gate at the service counter. In a few seconds, she was back at her station, smile in place and moving like a well-oiled cog in a machine.

  Suddenly inspired, Ronan pulled out his laptop and opened up the document where he was keeping notes for his book. He’d never met anyone like Audrey. She faced some very difficult life circumstances, and yet he’d never heard her complain once. She never pouted or said anything bad about her siblings or seemed to resent her lot in life.

  Motivation.

  He typed the word in bold font. What were people capable of if presented with the right motivation? Did it make people more positive, or was positivity a component in connecting motivation and action?

  Ronan leaned back in his chair and watched Audrey for a moment. She was special, even if she didn’t see it herself. She was sharp and hardworking and deserving.

  And she was no longer his student.

  …

  Audrey had a “date” with Ronan to meet at the Harrison Beech campus library at six thirty p.m. on Monday. He was going to take her through the class she’d missed the previous week due to canceling her enrollment, and they were going to talk about his book.

  But first she had to finish her shift.

  “Audrey, darling, can you come here?” Harriet called from the back.

  Audrey left the Game of Stones front counter to see what her aunt needed. She found the older woman high up on a ladder, a long velvet skirt embroidered with silver stars and moons covering her feet.

  “Don’t move,” Audrey said. “Why on earth are you climbing a ladder in a skirt like that? It’s all tucked under your feet!”

  “Who’s the boss here?” her aunt said peevishly. “Now, take this.”

  She handed Audrey a box which had “oracle cards” written across the top in black Sharpie. Hefting the heavy box with one arm, Audrey held out her other hand to help Harriet down.

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack one day,” Audrey muttered. “You have no sense of occupational health and safety.”

  Harriet eyed her sharply. “And you’re going to give me a heart attack one day, young lady. I know you pulled out of that class.”

  Audrey’s head snapped up as her aunt walked past her into the front of the store without so much as a sideways glance. “How do you know?”

  “I called the house yesterday. I was hoping to chat with Georgie but your father answered.”

  Audrey carried the box out to the front counter and set it down, fetching the box cutter and dragging it along the seam. “What did he have to say?”

  “That you’re an ungrateful so-and-so and that education is a waste of money.” Harriet’s eyes narrowed, and Audrey caught a rare glimpse of her aunt’s true feelings about her father. Usually, she tried to hide it. “I told my sister not to marry him, you know.”

  “Why?” Audrey’s attention was ensnared. Harriet didn’t talk about her sister much, since it was so painful, and therefore Audrey had been starved of many details of her mother’s life before she had kids. “I thought he was a good man before.”

  “He always had a streak of something…selfish inside him. He had a single-mindedness for his own desires.” She slid the box along the glass counter toward herself and pulled the flaps open. Inside were dozens of identical, ornately decorated card boxes. “He was a good man before because he had what he wanted, and it’s easy to be a good person when the universe is singing your song.”

  Audrey leaned against the counter and reached for one of the decks. She’d seen her aunt use these decks before, whenever she was having trouble with a decision or life event. “I guess that’s true.”

  “It’s how I know you’re a truly good person,” her aunt said. “With everything life has thrown at you, it would be hard to judge you for being angry or spiteful or selfish. But you’re none of those things.”

  Selfish. Isn’t that what her father had called her? Isn’t that the fear she’d cradled in her mind as she crawled into bed that night with Deanna tucked in beside her? She wouldn’t stop crying because she thought Audrey wanted to leave them.

  Wasn’t she being selfish worrying about her own needs and spending money they didn’t have?

  “Don’t you dare listen to him.” Harriet cupped Audrey’s face. Up close, she smelled sweet and familiar, like incense and sandalwood and fresh-cut roses. Her aunt’s crystal bracelets brushed her cheek, cool and comforting. “Your father wouldn’t know goodness if it smacked him upside the head with a wet fish.”

  Audrey laughed. “That’s quite an image.”

  “I mean it. I heard his vitriol on the phone, so I can only imagine what he said to you.” Harriet closed her eyes, and for a moment Audrey wondered if she was in actual, physical pain. It’s certainly how it looked. “You can still come and live with me, you know. Bring the kids.”

  “I can’t.” She shook her head. “Your place is tiny, and the twins are struggling enough as it is, barely having any privacy. At least Oliver has his own room at Dad’s.”

  “Well…when they go off to college, then, and it’s only you and Deanna.” Her aunt’s gaze bored into her. “You can come then.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Promise me.”

  Audrey nodded. “I promise.”

  But in her heart of hearts, she knew it wouldn’t make a difference—her father would still refuse to find work, and therefore he’d need money. Which meant he’d be hassling her aunt more, coming around to collect what he could. Was she supposed to let him starve?

  She couldn’t do that. He was still her dad.

  Why do you cling to who he used to be instead of realizing who he is? The man you loved is gone.

  “I’m disappointed you dropped out of that class,” Harriet said, going back to unpacking the box of oracle decks. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I am.”

  “You’re right—I don’t want to hear it. Anyway, I’ve come up with an alternative solution.” Technically, it was Ronan’s idea, not hers, but Audrey had decided to fully embrace it. “I’m helping the professor with the book he’s writing, and, in exchange, he’ll give me the rundown on the classes he’s teaching.”

  “He’s allowed to do that?”

  “I don’t see why not. I won’t be doing assignments or getting grades or using college resources or anything like that. It’ll be more like a…discussion group.”

  “This is the professor who came into my store that day?” Harriet didn’t lift her head up as she worked. “The one with the sexy name.”

  “You think his name is sexy? I can ask if he’s interested in going on a date with you,” she teased.

  Harriet snorted. “I’m old enough to be his mother. Besides, I think the man is already smitten.”

  Audrey opened the deck of oracle cards and admired the pretty, almost watercolor-like designs. They had uplifting names like hope, adventure, and resilience. She started shuffling them, focusing on the repetitive motion and whispering sounds of the cards sliding against one another. “You think?”

  “I did not come down in the last shower,” she replied.
“I know when a man has a crush.”

  Audrey focused on the cards, shuffling them so they became a blur of pink and blue and sparkling gold in her hands. It was easier to do that than to think about Ronan crushing on her—sure, she knew he was attracted to her. Well, unless he went around kissing anyone like that.

  Nobody kisses like that unless they feel something.

  Heat bloomed in her cheeks. “What we have is more of a business relationship.”

  Bullshit. You specifically didn’t want him to pay you so there’s no more power imbalance.

  “Maybe business is a strong word,” she self-corrected. “Maybe more like…mutual respect and admiration from an academic standpoint.”

  Except that wasn’t right, either. How could he have mutual respect for her academically when she was the furthest thing from an academic one could get?

  “Or maybe it’s whatever two people are when a friendship is starting to form.” Yeah, that sounded about right.

  “So you’re smitten, too? Interesting.” Harriet picked up the empty box, and Audrey watched as she disappeared out the back with a smug expression firmly in place, her long skirt swishing around her feet.

  “Maybe a little,” Audrey admitted under her breath.

  Her hands stilled, the deck of oracle cards feeling heavier than when she was shuffling them. She peeled the top card off the deck and placed it faceup on the glass, the way she’d watched her aunt do time and time again. The card showed a blond woman in white robes striding forward, the title and subtitle in intricate gold font.

  Action. Go forth and stop sitting on the side lines.

  A bubble of excitement expanded in her stomach. Maybe this was her time to stop sitting on the sidelines of her own life. Maybe her father’s cutting words had actually steered her in the right direction.

  Because this evening, when she went to see Ronan, things would be very different.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There are 25,000 possible combinations for coffee orders at Dunkin’ Donuts.

  Ronan leaned back in his chair, arching his back so that the muscles protested. He was stiff after sitting for so many hours, painstakingly going through the results of an experiment he wanted to reference in his book. The general structure was starting to take shape, and rather than blobs of data and academic papers and journal articles, he was finally seeing the “story” it all told.

  His mentor, an experienced and acclaimed professor who’d been like a father to Ronan at Cambridge, had read through a draft of his latest chapter. It had come back covered in changes marked in red, comments and questions littering the margins like debris. Not one to be discouraged, Ronan had steadily worked through each and every one and could now see exactly how he needed to tighten his ideas.

  But his brain was officially mush.

  “Long day?” A feminine voice caught his attention. Audrey.

  He sat up and motioned for her to take a seat. Collecting his notebooks and the scraps of paper covered in his barely legible handwriting, he made some space for her. “You could say that. I was up late last night going over the first assignment submissions for the Wednesday class, and then I had an early meeting this morning.”

  “You work hard,” she said with a nod. She lowered herself into the seat next to him, long blond hair trailing over her shoulders. It was loose today, lightly curling at the ends and gleaming like champagne-colored silk. In her hands were two coffee cups bearing the Kisspresso logo, and she placed one in front of him.

  “How did you know?” He reached for it as though it was a pitcher of water and he was a man who’d crawled through the desert.

  “Coffee is always required, especially when there’s study involved.” She grinned. “Did you know there’s twenty-five thousand possible combinations when ordering your coffee at Dunkin’?”

  “Don’t you mean Dunkies?” Ronan winked and took a long drink of his coffee.

  “Is that a Boston thing?”

  “Maybe. Didn’t they drop the ‘donuts’ part anyway? Maybe we Bostonians are ahead of the curve.”

  Audrey made a snorting sound. “That’s exactly something a city person would say.”

  “Why do I get the impression you say ‘city person’ like it’s a bad thing?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m quite proud of my heritage.”

  “As am I. I find cities so…” She wrinkled her nose, but not like she’d smelled something bad. More like she was trying to figure out the right words to say. “Intimidating. I mean, I’d like to travel more, but something tells me I’ll always be a small-town girl at heart.”

  “They’re not intimidating. They’re just faster, more aggressive, and filled with bad drivers who swear a lot,” he said with a laugh.

  “Sounds delightful.”

  “You should go some time. Boston is a great city. There’s so much history and culture. The architecture is amazing, and then there are all the parks and great restaurants and so many things to do.”

  “Do you miss it?” Audrey asked.

  “I miss my family, mostly, but I miss the city, too.” He glanced at his phone, which was sitting facedown against the table. He’d been deep in work when it had rung earlier, and he’d let it go to voicemail. When he’d taken a moment to listen back, his mother’s voice had shocked him so badly he’d hung up without listening to the rest of the message.

  What could she possibly want?

  “Will you go back there when you’re finished with your contract here?” Audrey asked.

  “Maybe. I’m still trying to figure out where I’m going. Anything is possible.” He shrugged. “But it would be nice to be close to Gram and my sister. I’ve got a nephew now, and…”

  For some reason, Lukas had been stuck in his head. When he’d gone to visit his sister at her home, he’d spent a few hours playing with the bright little boy and found himself wondering what it might be like to be a father himself. These kinds of thoughts had never entered his head before—because having a family wasn’t part of his plans. Yet there was something about holding a small child with familiar eyes and a smile that was basically a family heirloom that had hit him deep in the chest.

  The love he felt—so unconditional it was almost illogical—was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

  “I want to be part of his life,” Ronan finished. “I don’t want to be an absent figure to him, you know?”

  “That’s really sweet.” Audrey reached out and touched his arm. “He’s lucky to have an uncle who cares about him so much.”

  “Like your aunt cares about you?”

  “Exactly.” She let out a breath and shook her head. “Some days I don’t know what I would have done if it wasn’t for her. She’s my rock. There are days that I feel bad about depending on her, because I know she always had plans to leave this place. But after my mother died, she decided to stay a while to make sure me and my siblings were okay…”

  “And then she never left?”

  “Yeah. It’s part of what makes me so sure I have to take care of my siblings. I can’t let her sacrifice mean nothing. She gives me strength when sometimes I feel like it’s all too much.”

  Ronan thought back to the last time he and Audrey had coffee at Kisspresso, where his mind had circled on the idea of motivation and how it allowed people to persevere through difficult circumstances.

  “Do you think about the future?” he asked.

  For a moment, Audrey said nothing. Her gaze traveled beyond him, into the quiet college campus library. There were a few study groups dotted around, and people talked in quiet murmurs. A row of single-person study nooks were tucked in a line against one wall. It was quite a modern building, considering some areas of the campus were in need of a facelift.

  “I think about achieving my goal of ensuring all my siblings get out of Kissing Creek and make something of themselves.”<
br />
  “I mean your future.”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee, shaking her head as though he was asking her a silly question. “Anyway, I came here to learn. Not give you my life story.”

  “Ah, but this week’s class was all about how striving alters brain chemistry. I got the class to journal about a goal they really want to achieve in the future—a component of their ideal life.”

  For most people, thinking about something like that would encourage a big smile or an expression of deep thought. For Audrey, though, the question made her look like a deer in headlights.

  Curious. For someone who was so positive and upbeat and self-sacrificing, why did the thought of the future frighten her? Maybe she didn’t know herself beyond the role she played caring for her siblings and working herself to the bone. Maybe she was worried that she couldn’t achieve anything else.

  Stop psychoanalyzing her.

  But Audrey was a puzzle he wanted to understand until every last piece clicked into place. She was a riddle he wanted to solve. A surprise gift he wanted to unwrap.

  And this wasn’t a normal behavior for Ronan. Ask his ex. She had claimed that he was chronically disinterested in their relationship—that he was only ever excited by some shiny new idea in his head, never in people.

  Yet Audrey interested him. She intrigued him. She captivated him.

  “My ideal life?” Audrey nodded and sipped her coffee, stalling. “That’s very…deep.”

  “Doesn’t have to be. Maybe you want a Scrooge McDuck–style vault filled with Doritos that you can swan dive into.” Ronan bobbed his head. “And yes, that was an actual answer I received in my class once.”

  “But that would be so…sharp and crunchy. It doesn’t sound pleasant at all.” Her posture eased a little, her shoulders pulling away from her ears as she sank further back into the chair and tilted her face up to the ceiling.

  “One man’s nightmare is another man’s Doritos dust.”

  Audrey snorted. “Amen to that.”