“That’s it? That’s the big thing I said to you?”
“It wasn’t a big thing. It was a little thing. It made me feel normal again, going to see a movie with you and Dillon. It made me remember that life goes on and that’s a good thing.”
“And it was a good movie.”
“Fucking A it was.”
“So you think we should watch a Batman movie?”
“No.”
“What should we do, then?” she asked.
He put his glass of wine down and moved his plate out of the way.
Then he moved her plate out of the way.
Then he leaned across the bar and kissed her lightly on the lips.
Joey’s eyes widened as he pulled back.
“I should have asked if I could do that before I did that,” he said.
“You can do that.”
“I already did it.”
“You can do it again.”
Chris leaned in again, kissed her again. By the time that kiss was done, she had her smile back.
“And again,” she said.
“Are you sure? This is a little weird.” Chris winced. He was even cute wincing and that was cute.
“Weird? Why?”
“Because I wanted to do this ten years ago. And then I didn’t think about it for, oh, nine years and six months or so. And now...here I am doing it. High school me is freaking out.”
“What about grown-up you?”
“He’s freaking out, too. But in a much cooler way. Like, so cool you can’t even tell.”
“I can tell,” she said.
“How?” The corners of his eyes crinkled a little when he smiled.
“Because I’m freaking out and I’m projecting.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, and in high school you were perfect.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, too.”
“And?”
“And...”
“I didn’t look perfect in high school?”
“You wore a chain wallet.”
“So there was a lot of room for improvement.”
“You improved. You definitely improved.” She leaned forward and kissed him back.
He deepened the kiss subtly and gently, but she felt the change. The first kiss had been tentative and sweet, the second kiss playful and now this third kiss...this third kiss was something else entirely.
Ben didn’t have a beard. No facial hair at all. And she was pretty sure she’d never kissed a guy with a real beard, not just a five-o’clock shadow. Very quickly she decided she liked it. The hair tickled her top lip and her chin while he softly kissed her lips, and when the tickling grew to be too much, she opened her mouth to him and he slipped his tongue between her teeth.
This was now officially a real kiss. A really real kiss. A kiss that was going places. She cupped his face, lightly stroking his chin and cheeks with her thumbs as she deepened the kiss. Chris made a soft sound in the back of his throat, a distinct sound, pure pleasure. She wanted to hear it again.
And again...
Joey couldn’t believe she was doing this, kissing Chris. Not because it was Chris so much as it wasn’t Ben. Kira told her the quickest way to get over one guy was to get under another, but that was Kira’s thing, not hers. Joey never even dated in high school and had one boyfriend in college. She’d never had a one-night stand, never took risks like this, making out—and maybe more—with someone who’d been a virtual stranger all of two hours ago.
Except he wasn’t a virtual stranger even if they hadn’t seen each other in years. This was Chris Steffensen. He’d driven her and Dillon to school for two straight years of high school. He’d taught her how to shoot a bow and arrow one summer at the lake. He’d walked on her brother’s left side while she’d walked on his right between classes Dillon’s senior year when the bullying was at its absolute worst and she had actual nightmares her brother would be the next Matthew Shepard. But Dillon had made it through that awful time and gone off to college in New York. Meanwhile Chris had gone to work and she hadn’t given him much thought since then.
“I wish we hadn’t lost touch after school,” she said against his lips.
“Losing touch isn’t that bad as long as you, I don’t know, start finding touch again.”
She smiled into his lips and touched his face once more. “I think I found it.”
With the bar in the way they couldn’t do anything but kiss. So they had a couple choices—just keep kissing or find somewhere more comfortable.
“You want to go somewhere more comfortable?” Chris asked.
“You read my mind.”
Chris pulled away from the kiss and crooked his finger at her.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I was thinking the couch. It’s a new couch. It needs christening with a good make-out session.”
“Or,” she said.
“Or?”
Joey would blame Kira for this tomorrow. Tonight she had no one to blame but herself.
“The bed’s new. Why don’t we go christen it?”
Chris looked at her a moment. “You sure?”
“We can fool around.” She almost said “bang” and that was definitely Kira’s fault. “Or we can rent Batman Begins. But for either of those things, I’m sure it’s more comfortable than the couch. We’ll see where it goes, all right?”
“All right. Lead the way, then.”
She was shaking with nervousness and excitement as she headed up the stairs. They really were very nice stairs.
“You do such good work,” she said.
“I hope you’re still saying that an hour from now.”
“I was talking about the woodwork.”
“That’s one name for it.”
“Chris.”
He pushed her gently back against the wall and kissed her deeply again, not too hard but hard enough she wanted more. A strategic kisser, Chris was—he knew how to make her want more.
And more.
And more...
“You gave me my first kiss,” she said.
“You remember?”
She nodded breathlessly. “I’d almost forgotten. It was here at the cabin.”
“Out back,” he corrected. “We had a campfire.”
“Mom and Dad went out to dinner and left the three of us here.”
“We got in the liquor cabinet and had a couple shots,” he said. “That was a bad idea.”
“What? Making s’mores while drunk was the most fun I’d ever had.”
“You got chocolate all over your lips,” he said. “You told me to help you get it off.”
“Where was Dillon?”
“He’d wandered