The guy followed, closing the door behind him and coming to stand in front of me. In the open-plan kitchen, I hadn’t realized just how big he was. But now that we were in this tiny enclosed space together, it was very apparent. He had broad shoulders and big hands, and the already small space suddenly felt even more compressed. My heart was pounding, but I tried to make myself smile at the guy, like this was just normal, like I was always going around kissing people I didn’t know in pantries.
I looked up at him and my heart started beating harder than ever. I tried to tell myself that I could do this. It was almost like, after not kissing Frank only an hour before, I was getting a second chance to try and be brave. I tried to tell myself that this was also just like a stage kiss, only without an audience. Just another kiss that didn’t matter.
“Ready?” the guy asked. He didn’t seem stressed by this at all, and I tried to take comfort in that. If it was no big deal to him, maybe it shouldn’t have been such a big deal to me. I swallowed hard and licked my lips quickly and took a tiny step toward him—really, all I could take in a space that small.
He gave me a lazy smile and put his hand on my shoulder, and started to lean down to me, just as the lights went out.
I took an instinctual step back, bumped into the shelf behind me, and heard something crash to the ground. I hadn’t realized the lights were on a timer, but it made sense, since they’d gone on automatically. “Sorry,” I said. “Um . . .” It was dark in there, since there were no windows and no light coming in anywhere. I didn’t think I could see anything, not my own hand in front of my face, certainly not the guy.
“It’s all right,” he said, from somewhere in the darkness. I took a cautious step forward, and collided with something—him. I stretched my arm out and it hit his chest. Suddenly, I realized it might be easier this way, not having to see him. “Okay?” he asked.
I nodded, then realized what an idiotic move this was in a pitch-black room and said, “Yes.” I took a quick breath and let it out just as his nose bonked mine. “Sorry,” I said, reaching up and touching his face, trying to get my bearings. “I—” But I didn’t get to say anything more, because a moment later, his lips were on mine.
We stayed that way for a few seconds, and I figured that Sloane’s criteria had been met when the guy took a step closer to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and started kissing me for real.
And under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been something I would have reciprocated. But it had been two months since I’d been kissed. And in the darkness of the pantry, it didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t know his name and wasn’t entirely sure he knew mine. It was like, because I couldn’t see him, or myself, those distinctions didn’t exist in the same way. It also didn’t hurt that he was a really good kisser, and soon I was kissing him back, my pulse racing and my breath catching in my throat, his hands twined in my hair. It was only when his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt, moving towards my sports bra, that I came out of the make-out trance, snapped suddenly back to reality.
I broke away from him and took a step back, pulling down my shirt and feeling my way toward the steps. “Okay then,” I said as I fumbled my way up the stairs in the darkness. I patted the wall until I found the light switch, and as it snapped on, we both flinched, the light seeming extra bright now. It was also disconcerting to suddenly see the guy, a whole person, not just lips and arms. I smoothed down my hair and opened the pantry door, the guy following behind me. “So,” I said, when we were both in the hallway, before we had to join everyone else. I didn’t feel embarrassed, exactly—it was more like I’d had an out-of-body experience in there and now was struggling to catch up. “Um. Thanks?”
“Sure,” the guy said, giving me a quick smile. “That was fun.”
I nodded and hurried back into the kitchen area. Frank was leaning against the counter, typing on his phone, and Dawn and Collins were now sitting around the breakfast nook, Dawn laughing at something he was saying. “Hey,” Collins called when he saw us. “Success?”
I ignored this question and turned toward Frank, trying not to look directly at him. “Is it okay if I grab a water?”
“Sure,” he said, not looking up from his phone, and I assumed he was texting Lissa. “Help yourself.”
I pulled open the fridge, grabbed a water, and, as I shut the door, caught Dawn’s eye. She raised her eyebrows, and I gave her a tiny nod, and she grinned at me. Mostly so I wouldn’t have to face the guy, or Collins, or watch Frank text his girlfriend, I turned my attention to the fridge door. Unlike the rest of the house, the collection of papers and magnets did not appear to be carefully curated. It looked kind of like our fridge door did—a mess of expired coupons, invitations, and reminders. I noticed an invite, slightly askew, toward the bottom of the fridge. The Stanwich Architectural Society’s Annual Gala! it proclaimed in embossed lettering, Honoring the work of Carol and Steve Porter. Then it gave the date, about a month from now. Even though it was absolutely none of my business, I was bending down to see where it was being held—the bottom of the invitation blocked by some kind of color-coded calendar—when an alt-pop song started playing in the kitchen. I turned at the sound of it, and saw the guy, pulling his phone out of his pocket and answering it.
“ ’Sup,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, okay. Just finishing up here. I’m with Matthew.” There was a pause, and he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “See you in twenty.” He hung up, put the phone back in his pocket and said, “Gotta bounce. The night is young.”
“See you, Benji,” Collins said, getting up and giving the guy what looked like an affectionate punch on the shoulder. I just blinked at him, trying to make the name fit. I had just kissed a guy named Benji?
“Ben,” the guy said firmly, glaring at Collins. “Nobody calls me that anymore.”
“I do,” Collins said cheerfully. “Thanks for stopping by. See you on Sunday.”
“Yeah,” the guy said. “See you then.” He took a step over to me and leaned down. I took a startled step back, wondering for a moment if he was trying to kiss me good-bye. But instead, he asked, in a low voice that I nonetheless had a feeling everyone in the kitchen could hear, “So can I get your number?”
“Oh,” I said, thrown by this. I looked across the kitchen and saw Frank watching me, Dawn giving me a look that clearly said Go for it. “Um, thank you, but I’m kind of . . . I have this project this summer I’m working on, and . . .” He nodded and drew back from me. “Not that it wasn’t good. It really was,” I said quickly. “I mean . . .”
He gave me another lazy smile. “Just let Matt know if you change your mind,” he said. “He’s got my digits.” With that, he turned and headed out, giving the people in the kitchen a wave as he left.
“So,” I said to Collins, after I’d heard the door slam and I knew Benji was out of earshot. “How do you, um, know him?” I was suddenly incredibly relieved, remembering the Briarville T-shirt, that I wouldn’t have to see him in the halls next year.
“Benji?” Collins asked, coming back to the kitchen island and reaching for the chips. “He’s my cousin.”
I nodded, like I was totally okay with all of this, with the fact that I had just kissed someone who was related to Collins, but my head was spinning. Collins took another handful of chips and headed back to the breakfast nook. I took a sip of my water, and realized it was just Frank and me together at the island, and that he was looking at me.
“Sorry that I told Collins about the list,” he said in a quiet voice.
“It’s fine,” I said with a shrug. It had been more than fine, but I didn’t think I wanted to tell Frank that. “And now I can cross that one off, so . . .”
Frank just looked at me for a second, then back down at his phone. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” He started typing again, not meeting my eye, so after a moment, I took my water and joined Dawn and Collins, though I started to regret this as soon as I approached and Collins waggled his eyebrows at me.
“So?” he asked, stretching the word out. “You and Benji? I see a future there.”
“No,” I said, taking a sip of my water. “No offense to your cousin, but . . . no.”
“Surprising,” Collins said, arching an eyebrow at me. “Because you were just in there a long time.”
I coughed on my water. “We were?”
“You were,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.
I took another drink of water and shook my head. “Oh. Well. Um . . .” I looked over at him and saw he was still grinning. “Oh, shut up,” I muttered, surprising myself—and Collins, by the look of it—as Dawn started to laugh.
Later, when I was walking home—after Dawn had left and the boys had started to play Honour Quest, a video game I had no interest in, despite Beckett always trying to get me to play with him—I found that I couldn’t stop smiling. It was a warm, humid night, and I could see fireflies winking in the grass and hear the cicadas chirping. I headed home, my thoughts still turning over what had happened.
I had stood up in front of a crowd and performed, and it had gone fine. Nothing horrible had happened, and I’d gotten through it. But bigger than that, I had kissed a stranger. My pulse started to pick up a little as I flashed back to the pantry, to Benji’s hands in my hair. I had kissed someone tonight, which I certainly had not been expecting to do. Not that I wanted to make a regular practice of kissing Collins’s relatives in dark pantries, but for just a moment, it had made me feel brave.
And as I tilted my head back to look at the stars, I began to really understand, for the first time, just why Sloane sent me the list.
7
SLEEP UNDER THE STARS
The bell over the door jangled, and I stood up from where I was cleaning the ice cream case, taking a breath to welcome the customer to Paradise, but I stopped when I realized it was only Dawn.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Okay,” she said, hurrying across the store and then leaning across the counter toward me, talking fast. “We have to discuss the fact that you made out with that dude for like half an hour in the pantry, and we have to talk about Matthew, because he seems awesome, and after all that, I have something for you.”
“It wasn’t half an hour,” I protested, but Dawn just raised an eyebrow at me and I felt myself smile.
“I need details,” she said, taking one of the perpetually empty metal seats and settling in. I noticed that today, her shirt read Captain Pizza—We do PRIVATE parties!
“Okay,” I said, coming out from behind the counter, realizing that before we gossiped about my make-out session, I had to tell her the truth. “So . . . you know my best friend, Sloane? The one who sent the list?” Dawn nodded and I took a breath. “She’s not camping in Europe. I don’t know where she is. She just left, and all I have to go on is the list.”
Dawn looked at me for a long moment. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking down at the black-and-white patterned floor. “It just . . .” I shrugged. I hadn’t wanted to admit I had no idea where my best friend was. Now I knew that Dawn wouldn’t have judged me for it, but I hadn’t known that—or her—then.
“Wait a second,” Dawn said, leaning forward. “Was that why you wanted to go on that delivery with me? To cross off ‘Hug a Jamie’?” I nodded, realizing that while I’d been making out with Benji in the pantry, Collins must have been filling Dawn in on the rest of the list. “Well, I’m really glad you didn’t,” she said, her eyes wide. “Jamie Roarke’s puggle is crazy. He would have freaked out if you’d tried it.” She stood up and rummaged in her bag, then placed a pair of mirrored sunglasses on the counter in front of me.
“What are those?” I asked, picking them up. As I turned them over, I suddenly realized that they looked familiar—I was pretty sure these were the ones I’d seen on Bryan. “Dawn,” I said slowly. “What . . .”
“Number four on the list,” she said. She grinned at me. “Want to break something?”
Music: Better for Running than Observational Comedy
Make Me Lose Control
Eric Carmen
Let My Love Open the Door
Pete Townshend
Jolene
Dolly Parton
Springsteen
Eric Church
Badlands
Bruce Springsteen
Compass
Lady Antebellum
When You Were Mine
Cyndi Lauper
Let’s Not Let It
Randy Houser
Sunny and 75
Joe Nichols
And We Danced
The Hooters
Don’t Ya
Brett Eldredge
Anywhere with You
Jake Owen
867-5309 / Jenny
Tommy Tutone
Nashville
David Mead
Kiss on My List
Hall & Oates
Here We Go Again
Justin Townes Earle
Me and Emily
Rachel Proctor
We Were Us
Keith Urban & Miranda Lambert
Where I Come From
Montgomery Gentry
Delta Dawn
Tanya Tucker
Things Change
Tim McGraw
Mendocino County
Willie Nelson feat. Lee Ann Womack
The Longest Time
Billy Joel
The summer began to take shape. I had my largely customer-free job, I had early morning or late afternoon runs with Frank, and I had the list. But I was no longer, it was becoming very clear, on my own in trying to finish it. My friends were helping me.
“Want to go to a gala?” Frank asked, sliding something across the kitchen island at me. I’d been driving around with Dawn, keeping her company while she made deliveries, when Frank had called and invited me over, and he’d extended the invitation to her, so it was the four of us at his house. Dawn was out on the beach with Collins, and Frank and I had been tasked with bringing snacks outside. I looked at him over my armful of sodas, waters, popsicles, and the energy drink Collins loved and which I had a feeling would soon be banned by the FDA.
I glanced down and saw that it was the gala invitation I’d noticed when I’d been at his house the night I’d kissed Benji. Before I could read where it was being held, he put it back on the fridge with a Porter & Porter magnet. “It’s for my parents,” he said. “Collins is coming too, but since they’re going to have to be in the same room together all night, pretending they don’t hate each other, I could use as many friends as possible.”
“A gala, huh?” I asked, setting the waters down.
“And this way, we can cross off number eight.”
I smiled at that—it had actually been my first thought. Though I realized that I hadn’t checked on the dress in over a month, and it might have finally sold. “I’d love to.”
“It’s the last day in July,” he said, giving me a level look. “Do you need to check your social calendar?”
I laughed at that, taking the rest of the drinks with me and leading the way outside.
The next day, I stepped into Twice Upon a Time, blinking at the dimness of the store, which was a stark contrast to the brightness outside. It was a consignment shop I’d been to many times with Sloane, but never alone. Maybe it was just that I had more time to pay attention now, but the store seemed somehow smaller than I remembered it seeming only a few months before, and a little more shabby.
“Hello there.” Barbara, the owner, emerged from the back room with a vague, fixed smile, the kind she always seemed to give me. “Welcome to Twice Upon a Time. Have you shopped with us before?”
I swallowed hard and made myself smile at her. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised that she hadn’t remembered me, despite the fact I’d been in a dozen times at least over the years. “A few times,” I said, already heading for the last place I remembered the dr
ess hanging. It had never been a question in my mind which dress Sloane had meant. It was a dress I’d tried on purely for fun one afternoon when she seemed determined to try on every skirt in the store, twice. I tried it on as a lark, since I had no pressing need for formal wear.
But as soon as I put it on, I realized I didn’t want to take it off. It was floor-length and black, with a high neck edged in gold and a plunging, open back. It was the most sophisticated thing I’d ever worn and I somehow felt different in it, like I was a person who had places to wear a dress like this, and exciting adventures to recount afterward.
Sloane had freaked out when she’d seen me in it, and insisted I buy it, right then and there, which was of course what she would have done. She even tried to buy it for me, sneaking it over to the register while I was getting dressed, and I had to wrench it away from her to get her to stop. Because the fact was, it was too fancy, too expensive, and I had no place to wear it.
Until now.
“I was actually looking for a black dress,” I called to Barbara, as I looked around the store, beginning to panic because it wasn’t hanging in any of the places I was used to seeing it. “I think I saw one in here, it had a low back . . .”
Barbara just blinked at me for a moment, but then recognition dawned. “Oh yes,” she said. “I think I just moved it to the sale rack. Did you want to try it on, dear?”
“Nope,” I said, as I plucked it from the rack and brought it up to a very surprised Barbara at the register. “I’ll take it.”
Getting through the list was apparently making me more bold in other aspects of my life—which was how I found myself sitting in a chair in front of Dawn’s cousin Stephanie, at Visible Changes, the downtown salon where she was apprenticing.
“Are you sure?” Dawn asked from the chair by my side, looking at me through the mirror.
Since You've Been Gone Page 19
