Just One Kiss: A Black Alcove Novel (The Black Alcove Series Book 1) (8 page)

“Oh, dude, I’m sorry.” Logan kneels down
with me as I gather everything up.

“It’s alright,” I tell him, but he’s almost
laughing. “It doesn’t look like you’re too upset about hitting me,”
I joke back. It’s really not a big deal, but then he reaches his
hand toward me and I realize why he is laughing. I grab the tampon
out of his hand, stuff it deep into my purse, and close my door
once I’m inside the car, praying he doesn’t see the blush I have no
doubt my cheeks are displaying. This is probably why he’s never
opened a door for me. Probably had some sixth sense that it would
be awkward one way or another.

Hanging out with Logan for a while is fun.
He asks about Sara a bunch, which doesn’t surprise me. Those two
aren’t very good at hiding their feelings. I thought for sure they
were going to finally put themselves out of their misery and make
things official, but then she up and decided to leave for this trip
and didn’t even tell Logan. He found out from Ethan. The way he’s
been talking about her this afternoon only confirms everything I
thought: Logan doesn’t want her to go.

I pull up to my parents’ house around five.
I have a plan to accomplish a lot of homework tonight, but after a
good fifteen minutes of searching through my purse, backpack, and
car for their house key, I give up. I must have lost it when I
dropped my purse.

I get out of the car, close
the door, and lean against it. I should have made a spare key after
the first night.
I take a deep breath and
glance across the street to Ethan’s house, where the front light is
on. He did tell me I could come to him if this happened again. I
push off my car and head for his house.

I knock once and the door opens. Ethan’s in
a pair of blue jeans and a simple red t-shirt. His hair looks a
little messy, like he’s been running his hands through it. At
least, I hope it was him.

“Hey, Kelsey, what brings you over?” His
voice is shaky, and sounds a tad bit forced or rehearsed, I’m not
sure which.

“I, uhh…I lost my key, I think,” I say,
hoping he’ll invite me inside.

“Oh, yeah, come on in,” he says, stepping to
the side to let me by with a pleased grin on his lips.

His cologne stands out when
I pass him, and the smell of sandalwood and oranges fills the air.
It’s a good smell. One that will forever now remind me of Ethan.
Then again, scent or not, I have a feeling I’m not going to forget
about him because right now, my mind has forgotten
everything
but
him. If I can’t get a locksmith here soon, I might end up
doing something completely not in my plans.

My eyes flash from his to his mouth and
back. Yep. Kissing is definitely not in my plans, but right now, I
might need to add it.

Ethan

No one needs to know that I asked Logan to
sneak her house key off her keychain while they were in class.
Except he didn’t do it while they were in class—instead, he faked
opening her door and then knocked her on her ass to get it. He let
me know I owed him big time for getting that key.

“Do you want anything to drink?” I ask her.
She shakes her head and sits on my black leather sofa. Okay, so I
hadn’t thought this far ahead. I was too worried watching her out
the window like a creep, hoping she would take me up on my offer
from the other night that I almost pulled my hair out. I sit down
next to her. She looks at me, tilting her head to the side and
gives me a small smile.

“No thanks. I’m just going to Google a
locksmith and hopefully I won’t be in your way too long.”

“Yeah, sure, of course,” I say, heading into
the kitchen for a glass of water anyway. I can’t just stand out
there staring at her and doing nothing. If I can’t convince her to
hang around for a little while, this whole thing will be for
nothing. I could just ask her out like a normal guy, but she seems
to have her shit together a lot more than me and I’ve yet to see
signs of a guy in her life being something she’s interested in.

“I have a slight problem,” Kelsey says
behind me in the doorway, leaning with her back against the frame
and digging through her purse. “My phone just died and I didn’t
have time to write the number down. Do you have your phone or an
iPad maybe? Anything really.”

She shoves her phone back into her purse. I
don’t understand how anyone can let their phone die in our
generation, but right now, I’m not going to question it. I just
wish my phone were dead, too, and that I can’t remember where my
tablet was.

“You can use mine,” I suggest, holding my
phone out to her.

“Thank you.” She takes the phone out of my
hand and wanders back into the living room to take a seat on the
sofa. Sooner than I had hoped, she’s talking with a locksmith. I
sit down in the recliner this time as I wait for her to finish.

This would have worked a whole lot better if
technology weren’t everywhere.

She hangs up and sets the phone on the table
in front of her.

“He says it’s going to take a couple hours.
Is it alright if I wait here?”

Sure is.

“Yeah, that’s cool.” I look at my watch.
It’s almost five. “We could order a pepperoni pizza and watch a
movie while we wait.”

“That sounds great.” Kelsey smiles.

I walk into the kitchen to
order dinner and when I come back to the living room, she’s settled
on the couch, watching TV. I’d expect her to pick some girly show,
but instead she chose
Breaking
Bad
. She looks good on my couch, in my
house. It feels right, and something about that terrifies me.
Walking into a room with her in it is nothing like when I join my
parents or brothers. Right now, I feel like I can just be me and
that’s good enough. I don’t have to pretend. How did she do that to
me after just a couple days?

I take the seat next to her, and from the
corner of my eye I can see her body stiffen the moment I sit down.
She crosses her left leg and relaxes back into the couch. Her smile
is gone and in its place is an expression full of focus.

“This is a good show,” I say, filling the
silence between us. I don’t know what else to say. This is new for
me. I never have a problem talking to women, but with Kelsey,
everything feels different.

“I think so, too,” she says.

Get it together, Ethan.

I act as though I’m adjusting myself to get
comfortable and mange to slide closer to her. There’s nothing
discrete about what I just did, but she doesn’t move. I reach my
arms above my head to stretch. I’m about to pull a really
old-school move—and let’s be honest, it rarely ever fails. As I
lower my arms to my side I keep my right arm straight and rest it
on the back of the couch behind Kelsey’s head. At this exact moment
it feels like everything in the room falls to silence, except for
the bubble of laugher that comes out of her mouth.

I quickly glance at the TV, hoping the show
is at a funny scene, but it’s not. Kelsey is laughing at me. Talk
about blowing a man’s ego. I lift my arm off the couch. This isn’t
working out how I want. Before I can rest my arm back at my side,
she quickly scoots under my shoulder and rests her head against my
chest. I freeze. Kelsey Brian just made a move on me. I want to
jump off this couch and fist-pump my hand in the air. I slowly
lower my arm around her to pull her close.

This is exactly how I wanted things to
go.

We make it through another episode before
the pizza shows up and then quickly devour every slice in the box.
I get up to toss the box in the trash, and this time when I sit
next to her, I don’t hesitate on how far apart we should be.

“Hopefully, the locksmith gets here soon,”
she says, looking at her phone. I find this funny since earlier she
told me it was dead. I want to smile like some lovesick puppy. She
wants to be here just as much as I want her here.

“That’s okay. You can stay here as long as
you need to.”

“Is that the same Xbox you had when you were
sixteen?” she asks and I follow her gaze to the gray-and-white game
box sitting under the TV.

“Yeah, I actually —”

“Can we play something?” She beams, sitting
forward on the couch. She wants to play a video game?

“Sure.” I get up and turn the box on, giving
her a few options. It’s been years since I played a game on this
thing. I only kept it so I could watch movies with it.

“Let’s play this one.” She waves a simple
car racing game in my face.

I put the disk in the player and hand her a
controller. We sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV.
Occasionally she squeals when she wrecks or turns her car in the
opposite direction, but otherwise we’re both pretty quiet. We’re on
the last lap when I make my signature move from all those years ago
and cut her off, causing her car to spin out of control. She
squeals again and shoves me over.

“You did that on purpose. I was going to win
and you knew it.” She laughs.

In a moment like this, I have to take
advantage of the open opportunity. I give her a slight push back
and she grabs my shirt, pulling me toward her as she falls onto her
back.

Our faces are inches apart.
Our eyes lock and that’s when it clicks. She planned this whole
Xbox idea. I start to smile, but when she licks her lips, her
tongue brushes against my bottom lip.
Shit.

“This was a bad idea,” she whispers right as
our lips are about to touch. “We shouldn’t get involved with each
other.” I lean my forehead against hers and let out a struggled
breath.

“Why not?” I ask even
though I know the answer. I would never force Kelsey into something
she didn’t want to be a part of, and I know the reasons
I
shouldn’t do this, but
I don’t understand hers. She’s never given me any sign she wasn’t
in to this. Into me.

“We just can’t.” She places her hand on my
chest to push me back. She stands quickly, reaches for her purse
then turns for the door. With each step she takes I feel cold.
Everything felt right with her in my arms and now she’s gone. This
is wrong. I kneel, reaching for her before she makes it to the
door, but her phone rings and the moment is over.

Kelsey

What I wouldn’t have given for the locksmith
to wait just ten more minutes. As I walk across the street to meet
him, I glance over my shoulder at Ethan’s house. He’s leaning
against the doorframe, watching me with his arms crossed and a
smile on his face. I wanted to kiss him. I want more than just to
kiss him. But I can’t let myself fall into that again. Into the
hope that this time it’s real. I can’t assume that every guy will
turn out like Tyler, but I’m not sure it’s a chance I want to take.
That, and just the idea of him demands more focus than anything
else in my life. I need to be 100 percent focused on writing.

I planned the entire game idea from the
moment I sat down on his couch and turned on the TV. Every time I’m
around him all the emotions I felt when I was fifteen years old
come flooding back. That moment, right before he was about to kiss
me, my mind went blank. I know where I’m at in life and what I
want, but Ethan makes me forget all that.

I wait patiently as the locksmith lets me
into my house, and Ethan watches us the whole time. I know he isn’t
trying to be creepy. He’s only making sure I get inside safely.
That’s one trait Tyler never had, putting someone else’s safety
first. I turn to give Ethan a small wave good-bye before I close
the door.

I can’t let the idea of getting hurt keep me
from experiencing something great. Ethan and I—it could be more
than great. And eventually I want to have a family and a career as
an author. Now is as good a time as any to start balancing the two.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to give Ethan a chance.

First thing tomorrow, I’ll tell him
everything. Lay it all out there and let him make the next
move.

* * *

It was hard to sleep last night. My heart
raced the entire evening and my stomach fluttered like a child on
Christmas Eve. I couldn’t wait for morning to get here. Luckily for
me, I don’t have to wait till the clock hits seven before I get up
because the persistent knock at exactly six is hard to ignore. I
make my way down the stairs and stand on my toes to look through
the transom. A groan slips past my lips as I take a deep breath and
open the front door.

“Good morning, Mrs. Mulligan,” I greet and
take step to the side. She’s holding two coffee cups and a Thermos.
“Would you like to come in?”

Mrs. Mulligan stands there for a second but
doesn’t look at me. Instead, she stretches her neck and looks
behind me. Poofy, gray hair fills my vision as she surveys the
living room. Finally, her dark brown eyes flash to me and she
smiles.

“As long as I’m not interrupting anything,”
she says with a mischievous grin. I give her my best smile in
return.

“Not at all, just a restless night.”

She walks past me straight for the kitchen
like it’s something she does every day. She takes a seat at the
round wooden table made for six and starts to fill the cups she
brought with her.

“I’d be restless, too, if I were your age
and a boy like that lived across the street from me. Do you know
much about him?” she asks. I try to not laugh as I join her at the
table. She didn’t waste any time getting to the point of her visit
this morning.

“His name is Ethan Connelly. He’s a cousin
of my friend Sara.”

A startled expression appears on her face
and her hand bumps her cup. Some of her coffee sloshes onto the
table and she starts to rise. I stop her.

“I’ll get you a napkin, Mrs. Mulligan.”

“Please, call me Helen.”

I grab a towel and return to the table.