Chapter Four
I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay awake staring at the ceiling. The door was shut to the guest room I was staying in, and I was literally practicing the words out loud.
“Hey, Nate. So, buddy, listen. I kind of have a thing for your sister.”
Then I’d try to imagine his response, but I came up short. Sure, there was part of me that feared the worst, the No Way in Hell answer. I had to be upfront though and tell him. Besides, he was my closest friend. I wasn’t some jerk asking to date her. I was the guy he’d roomed with. But I couldn’t be in the same house with him, call him a friend, and willingly head into the cinema with his sister tomorrow knowing I wasn’t taking her as Nate’s sister. I was taking her as the woman I wanted to date.
I breathed in deeply, picturing the air filling my lungs, giving me the confidence I needed to do the right thing
When Nate burst into the store the next day for the afternoon shift, I was ready. He was grinning from ear to ear, holding up his hands in victory.
“What is it?”
“I got the final interview!” He said, then punched the air.
“That’s awesome, dude. I’m psyched for you,” I said and clapped him on the back. “When is it?”
“In two weeks. At the advertising technology firm I’ve been talking to.”
“You’re gonna nail it. I can feel it,” I said, tapping my chest.
“I better. I do not want to be one of those jobless MBAers.”
“You’re not. You’ll be a working stiff like me any day now.”
He walked behind the counter to get ready to take over for the afternoon. I gulped. This was the moment. I needed to tell him now. “So I’m heading out to – ”
“–How was business today? Everything go okay?” he asked, cutting me off from saying the movies. Then he held up a hand and shook his head. “Wait. Don’t tell me. If it was bad I don’t want to know. Actually, just tell me everything was great because that’s all I want to hear for the next two weeks. No bad news. I only want good happy news that’ll keep me in a good happy mood til I nail this job. Okay?”
“Um, sure,” I said tentatively.
“That means whenever I come in and ask how business was, all I want to hear is the word great.”
“Okay,” I said with a laugh. “It was great.”
“Nothing to bring me down. Got that?”
The weight in my stomach both lifted and grew heavier. I wanted to tell him. I should have told him. But he needed not to know. I didn’t want to be the reason he didn’t get the job he wanted.
Besides, Kat and I were grown-ups. We could handle going to the movies.
* * *
Kat
Kiss Her Now.
I wanted to shout it at the screen. Instead, I said it under my breath as the scene played out in the film. After a missed email, and a missed text, and a missed phone call, the hero and heroine were still on unsure footing. I was damn near ready to walk up to screen, grab the back of his head, and the back of her head and press their lips together.
Except for the little bitty fact that they were only two-dimensional actors on a screen. But I needed them to kiss so badly. I practically wanted to chant it. I could feel their need for a kiss deep in my bones, and all throughout my body.
At last, the hero pushed the button on the elevator, rode up to her floor, marched down the hall, took that deep breath, and knocked hard on the door. When she opened it, her eyes lit up. At last, he’d come to tell her how he felt.
“I’m so crazy for you, and if I don’t kiss you now I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life,” he said.
“I don’t believe in regret. I believe in kisses,” she said and the moment their lips made contact, champagne tingles raced through my body, from my cheeks, down to my chest and all the way to my toes, making me feel bubbly and buzzy. My stomach flipped, and my skin felt hot. I stole a glance at Bryan, wishing for what they were having on the screen. Wishing for it with him. He was already looking at me and his eyes were searching mine, as if he was checking to see if I was having the same reaction.
“Hi,” he whispered in that low and husky voice he used sometimes just with me.
“Hi.”
We weren’t alone, but the theater wasn’t crowded. The nearest patrons were many rows ahead, and that made me feel as if we were all alone in the back. But honestly, even if we’d been surrounded by crowds, I wouldn’t have waited. I couldn’t wait. I wanted so badly to be kissed by him.
He reached his hand toward me first, and I watched the whole time as if it were happening in slow motion as his fingers slid through mine. My shoulders rose and fell as he made contact, and there it was. The moment that we became more than friends. He kept his eyes on me, and at some point I nodded, as if I were telling him I wanted more, that he had all the permission he’d ever need to do what the hero had done to the heroine on screen. Kiss her deeply and passionately.
With his other hand, he laced his fingers through my dark hair, and I gasped lightly at the feel of his touch. So soft, so warm. So inviting. Then he dropped his mouth to me, his lips brushing gently across mine, and I wanted nothing more than for this kiss to last for the longest time. It was my movie kiss, it was the heroine falling into the hero’s arms, it was the world around me ceasing to exist, and all that mattered was this softness, this sweetness, the feel of his lips and his tongue dancing with mine.
I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that not only had I never been kissed like this, but that I never would be kissed like this by anyone else. This was the benchmark, the gold standard. Nothing would ever compare.
Maybe that’s a crazy thing to think after one kiss from one guy. Or maybe the heart knows best, and my heart and my body wanted him. We had that kind of synch, that kind of connection, as if were meant to kiss each other.
Always.
We couldn’t stop. We kissed all through the final scene, and on through the credits, and during that awkward moment when everyone else shuffled past us. Finally, when the lights rose, he pulled apart.
“Wow,” he said, breathing hard.
“Wow indeed.”
He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek, then rested his forehead against mine. He gripped my hand tighter, as if he were making a very important point. “Kat, I’ve wanted to do that since I first met you in the driveway the other day.”
“You have?” I ask, and butterflies took flight inside me. Sure, he’d just kissed me like I was his air, but still you want to hear it. I wanted to hear everything from him. I’d fallen so far for him, and I needed him to be there to catch me.
“Yes. You were so pretty, and then you were everything else. I have loved spending time with you. I have loved going to the movies with you and working together in the store and talking about Paris, and everything else.”
My heart soared. “I thought you were pretty hot too when I met you. And I’ve loved all those things too.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “You thought I was hot?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sitting here in the movie theater making out with you. This is a surprise that I thought you were hot?”
“What can I say? I like hearing it from a beautiful woman,” he said.
I blushed, and he ran his thumb over my cheek. “That’s adorable that you blushed.”
“Stop,” I said playfully, and he silenced my protest with a quick kiss. This one didn’t last more than five seconds but it felt like the promise of so much more. More kisses, more moments, more than this one.
“But listen, Kat,” he started and I froze, my eyes going wide with fear because sentences that start with but listen don’t end well. “Hey, it’s okay. I was just going to say I don’t think we should mention this to Nate. He’s so focused on the job interview right now, and this would only worry him, and I don’t want to do that.”
“I can keep secrets,” I said, and this felt like exactly the kind of secret I’d like keeping. One that made me feel special, and beautiful, and wanted by this gorgeous man who’d strolled into my life unexpectedly. I never imagined I’d have fallen for my brother’s best friend, but there it was, happening and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
* * *
Bryan
The waves lapped the shore with that calming rhythm of the ocean’s nighttime low tide – a slow sort of whoosh, then the moon pulled the water back out to sea. It was the perfect soundtrack for midnight kissing, and I swear I couldn’t get enough of her.
Maybe it’s because I knew I wouldn’t go any further. Not now at least. Not yet. Kisses were all I’d allow at this point. Not that I didn’t want to do everything with her because I did. Every. Single. Thing.
But if anything more were to happen between us, things would need to be on the up and up. I didn’t want to be sneaking around I wanted her to be mine officially. For now though, I was more than thrilled to have her stretched out next to me on a blanket on the sand, and I was glad Nate was busy most evenings, from job prep to the occasional date with a woman who worked at the cafe next to the store. I pulled Kat closer, kissing her harder and deeper, and she responded by roping her arms around my neck and wriggling her sexy little body closer.
Dangerously close. She slid a leg between mine, and I want to yank her under me, pull her hard on top of me. Anything. Especially when she started exploring. She ran her hands over my chest, then down to my stomach, and I groaned, both happy and frustrated. I loved how she touched me, but I couldn’t risk going further.
“We have to be careful, Kat,” I said as she reached beneath my T-shirt, spreading her hand across my stomach, her fingers inching closer to the waistband of my jeans. “We can’t do more than kiss.”
“Why?” she asked, in a borderline pout.
“Because. Because I’m your brother’s friend. Because I’m older than you.”
“You’re only five years older.”
“I know. But still,” I said, reaching for her hands, hating stopping her, but knowing I had to.
“I’m old enough to know what I want.”
“I know, and I want it too. But we need to slow down.”
She ran her fingers through my hair, and she buried her face in the crook of my neck, kissing my jawline, then buzzing her lips up to my ear, trying to break down my control. “Do you really want to slow down?” she whispered sexily.
No. God no. I want to slide your body under mine and bring you the most intense pleasure.
“No, but we need to,” I said, and she silenced me again with another kiss, all while running her free hand over my back, making me shudder. She was so potent to me. One hit and all I wanted was more.
“What about in a few months when I’m in New York? Would we still have to slow down then?”
It didn’t take me long to consider her question. I’d been thinking about it for the last few days we’d been together. We had a chance, an opportunity to make a go of something. She’d be in school in New York, and I’d be working in New York. Maybe it was crazy to keep this up, but it seemed crazier to let her go.
“No,” I admitted.
If a grin could be both wicked and innocent, she mastered it right then with the look on her beautiful face from my answer.
“Will we see each other when I go to NYU?”
“Of course we’ll see each other, even though my job is going to take me out of town a lot,” I told her, and she looked crestfallen. I pulled her back to me, wanting to reassure her, to let her know how much she’d made a mark on me. “Don’t be sad, Kat. I’m totally falling for you, and I don’t want to take advantage of you. I like you that much. I like you so much it scares me.”
“Don’t be scared. I don’t bite,” she said, then nibbled on my collarbone, making me laugh, and making me want to find a way to make this work. I wanted to be sure she was ready for more though, especially since she hadn’t used the falling word yet. She hadn’t returned my “I’m falling for you.”
I tried not to let that bother me, wanting to give her space and time to say it, if she felt. God, I hoped she felt it.
We kept on like that for the next few days. We went to the beach at night, we worked together during the day, she even showed me a sketch for a necklace she wanted to make. My time at her house was nearing its end, and we were both aware we’d have to figure out what would happen next. At the end of the week, we were at the theater again, the place where we’d first kissed and first admitted we had feelings for each other. After the credits rolled, she grasped my hand tighter, and looked me in the eyes. “Remember what you said the other night?”
“When you were telling me about a new necklace design?” I said playfully.
“No.” She swatted me lightly on the arm.
“When we discussed the merits of raccoons on film?”
She shook her head. “Not that either.”
I rested my index finger on my chin. “Hmmm, could it be the night we talked about all the places we want to see in Paris when we go there someday?”
“Not that either. But I definitely want to go to Paris with you.”
“And I want to go with you too,” I said, squeezing her hand. “So what’s the thing I’m supposed to remember from the other night?”
“When you said you were falling for me,” she said in a sweet whisper.
I nodded, my heart beating furiously fast.
She kept her eyes on me, holding my gaze as she spoke. “I’m falling for you too.”
I knew I couldn’t let this end.