Authors: Faith Winslow
Kiss and Tell 2
KISS and TELL
Part 2
Faith Winslow
Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Life’s full of surprises, isn’t it? Some of them are really good—like surprise birthday parties; a new bike under the Christmas tree; three pineapples in a row on your scratch-off lottery ticket; and strippers jumping out of cakes. Some of them, however, are really bad, and if your life has been anything like mine, you don’t need me to list them. But, please, indulge me for a moment.
Once, I wore a white dress to a summer concert, and unbeknownst to me, my period came early. Although, it wasn’t until I got home and saw the red streak on the back of my outfit that I realized this fact. Another time, when I was in college, I wasn’t feeling well and decided to skip sociology class. I went back to the dorm and walked in on my roommate and her boyfriend screwing. They were both naked, sweaty, and squirming…on
my
bed.
When I was 19, I attended a house party that got busted by the police. I ended up escaping and wasn’t arrested, but it still scared me shitless. I wasn’t so lucky with the police a year later though—when I got a ticket for driving too slowly on the highway.
I could go on and on about all of the weird, uncanny, or unwanted things that have happened to me over the past 22 years, but most of them, like the ones I’ve already mentioned, are beside the point. What matters here is what happened more recently—and what happened more recently is ridiculously riddled with surprises.
I’ve been in a rather vulnerable place since graduating college, and it’s all because of awful surprises. My boyfriend, Jeremy, broke up with me out of the blue after getting into law school. I ended up moving back home with my parents, because an undergraduate degree in psychology amounts to nothing in the real world.
Once I got home, the surprises kept coming. My former nemesis, London, and I ended up getting along pretty well, though that turned out to be somewhat disastrous when we had an awkward sexual encounter where I couldn’t even give him a boner. Mom was dead-set on me finding a job and made me go at it more rigorously than I’d intended, and Dad wasn’t available to hang out with me a few times because of last-minute changes to his work schedule.
All of these recent things were pretty bad, and they put me on guard. I knew to expect the unexpected. Even with that motto in mind, there are some things you can
never
expect…and this situation with Anthony was one of them.
I never expected to meet a handsome, older man when I was out applying for jobs, and I never expected him to haunt my mind after our initial run-in. I certainly never expected to see him again, let alone to go on to play video games, drink, and swap spit with him. I also certainly never expected to make plans to go fuck him in a hotel room, only to have him bail on me less than ten minutes later. But of all the things that I never expected, I never expected him to show up at my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary party. I never expected to learn that he was my father’s boss.
But there was no mistaking it. The man in front of me was Anthony Swift. Mom had just introduced us, and my mind was still reeling from the fact that we’d already met.
“Kirby?” he asked. “What an unusual name.”
He’d said something similar to me a little over a week ago when I told him my name in the dessert shop. Now he was saying it to me after my mother introduced us, and I wondered if he chose to echo himself on purpose.
“We named her after my grandmother,” Mom said. That was another surprise. Mom had never told me this before, and I’d never bothered to ask either of my parents where my name had come from. I thought it was a result of them being kitschy and modern, not sentimental.
“That’s wonderful,” Anthony said with a smile. “Glad to hear she wasn’t named after the vacuum…or the video game.”
Okay. It was obvious now that Anthony was alluding to our conversation from our impromptu “date,” and it was obvious that—whether for Mom’s sake, his, or mine—he was going to pretend it didn’t happen.
Nonetheless, Mom seemed a little taken back by his comment. When I said such things about my name at the dessert shop, it was just an exercise of self-deprecating humor. But when Anthony said it, there was something more cutting about it, as if he were being critical. Mom shrugged it off, though, and giggled. I guess she figured a billionaire is allowed to be a little bit eccentric.
“Kirby just graduated,” Mom said as she tossed back her hair and changed the topic. “A psychology major…with honors.” The way that Mom said that was accurate, but not completely honest. She made it sound like I was a psychology major who graduated with honors, when, in fact, I’d graduated with a 3.1 QPA, and only had honors within my major, which is much more than a subtle difference.
“Congratulations, Kirby,” Anthony said, pretending he didn’t already know this information. I was still so shocked by everything, yet he was handling it so coolly. I couldn’t believe the situation I was in, and couldn’t understand his ability to navigate it so gracefully.
“A psychology degree is pretty versatile, don’t you think, Mr. Swift?” Mom asked. It sounded weird to hear Mom call him Mr. Swift, when I, so much younger and unaccomplished, had known the privilege of calling him Anthony.
Mom didn’t even give Anthony time to respond before she continued. “As a psychology major, Kirby has learned a great deal about the way people think—and that has prepared her for a job in many different fields.”
Shit. I did not like where Mom’s monologue was going.
“Take advertising, for example,” Mom went on. “Understanding people’s motivations, impulses, desires, and fears gives someone a competitive advantage when it comes to designing labels, slogans, or other things meant to attract them…don’t you think? Isn’t advertising all about reaching people and doing something to move them?”
This time, Mom did wait for Anthony to reply. He simply nodded. It wasn’t that this farce was catching up with him; I just don’t think he had anything to say in response to Mom’s questions and statements.
“Kirby’s looking for work, you know,” Mom asserted, moving on to her ultimate objective. If anyone knew anything about advertising, Mom sure did in this situation. She was trying to sell me to “Mr. Swift,” and she was on the weak end, driving a hard bargain.
Again, this was something that Anthony already knew about me, and he seemed to have a little too much fun with his response to Mom.
“I hear it’s pretty hard to find a job these days,” he said. “Even coffeehouses are giving applicants a hard time. Rumor has it they
demand
experience.”
Mom looked at Anthony curiously. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she thinking that it was odd that Mr. Swift mentioned a coffeehouse when I’d applied to one recently?
Like a pro, Mom continued with her campaign, despite any reservation. “Well, they mustn’t forget, we all have to get our feet wet somehow, don’t we?” Mom sounded dorky using the word
mustn’t
in casual conversation, and she only made it worse with her next question.
“Wouldn’t it be great if Kirby followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the ranks of Parker & Swift?” she asked in a not-so-rhetorical manner. “She could be your next big ticket, your power employee—like Paul. Some of his genius has got to be genetic.”
Paul was my father’s name, by the way, and, if anything, I’d inherited his sense of humility. I could barely stand the saccharin way Mom was talking about him, and I know there was no way Dad would stomach it well, either.
“Are you interested in a career in advertising?” Anthony asked me.
I looked straight at him and replied firmly, “No. Not really.”
Mom made an audible gasp, and both Anthony and I turned in her direction. She rebounded rather quickly, but it was clear that my blunt honesty had alarmed her.
“What are you interested in, then?” Anthony asked, turning back to look at me. Mom was fading from red to pink, and she was temporarily silent.
“I don’t know for sure,” I replied. Now it was my turn to have some fun with our conversation. “I guess I want something interesting and dependable—something I won’t lose interest in before it’s even started.”
The subtext was thick but well veiled. I’m confident Mom had absolutely no idea what my response
actually
meant.
“You’re young and inexperienced, Kirby,” Anthony fired back. Mom, again, seemed a bit alarmed. “Maybe your potential
employers
can sense that about you,” he went on. “Maybe they can tell you don’t know what you want, and they’re reluctant to have you. Maybe they don’t want to stand in your way--or maybe they don’t want to be something that’s just temporary, like a rest stop on your bigger journey.”
I’m sure Mom didn’t get his underlying message, and I had a hard time deciphering it, too. The way I saw it, Anthony could have been saying a few different things.
Mom didn’t seem to be handing Mr. Swift’s comments so well. Like his earlier remarks on my name, his words seemed cutting and critical, even though delivered quite coolly. Mom must have thought he really was talking about employers, and she must have interpreted his comments to be reasons why
he
wouldn’t hire me. Sensing these things, she again tried to change the topic.
“Thank you so much for your career advice, Mr. Swift,” she said. “I’m sure Kirby will take it to heart…. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I see that my friend Janice has just arrived, and I’ve got to introduce Kirby to her and her family.”
“Of course,” Anthony said. He was replying to Mom, but his eyes remained locked on me. “It was nice meeting you, Kirby,” he added with a grin.
“You too, Mr. Swift,” I replied.
The look on
my
face was not a happy one.
When Mom said she wanted to introduce me to Janice and her family, there was some subtext there, too. What she actually meant, even though I didn’t know it at the time, was that she wanted to introduce me to Janice’s son, Willard. As soon as Mom led me away from Anthony toward a collection of three incredibly well-dressed people, I figured out as much and rolled my eyes. In a matter of a few seconds, she’d gone from trying to find me a job to trying to find me a boyfriend, and the transition made me a little queasy.
“Janice!” Mom exclaimed when she reached her friend. They made small talk for only a few seconds before shifting their focus to making a love connection between me and Willard. They introduced us, mentioned a few things we had in common, and stood back to see if there were any sparks between us. Willard and I were responding well to each other, but there wasn’t anything to it. We both knew that, though neither of our mothers could tell.
As Willard and I kept talking, Mom and Janice (and Janice’s husband, whose name I can’t remember) retracted from us a bit, obviously with the hope of letting things flourish. As soon as they were off of our backs, Willard leaned in a bit and whispered, “I’m sorry about that. Looks like our moms are trying to fix us up. You’re really hot and really cool, but I’m not really interested.”
“I feel the same way,” I answered, relieved. “I’m not looking to date right now, but my mom is committed to finding me a boyfriend. Maybe I should be the one apologizing to you.”
“Maybe,” Willard answered. “Or maybe you should be thanking me? I’ll be your beard if you want. You know, I’ll keep talking to you, and we can pretend we’re hitting it off. That way your mom will leave you alone and not try to push you on every other young guy here.”
“Oh, Willard,” I chimed back. “That would be awesome.” I’d tried to use London as a beard earlier, but Mom had pulled me away from him when Mr. Swift—Anthony—arrived. I’m fairly confident that she only pulled me away from London because it was Mr. Swift. She probably wouldn’t have done so if it had been anyone other than my dad’s billionaire boss.
Speaking of my dad’s billionaire boss, I hadn’t forgotten him. I may have escaped any further conversation with him, but I knew he was still around and would catch up with me later.
Willard and I made our way to the open bar and got some cocktails. I opted for a cosmopolitan, which I was familiar with from syndicated reruns of
Sex in the City
. Luckily, Carrie had much better taste in drinks that James Bond did.
While standing near the bar, London came over and joined me and Willard, and naturally, it felt a little strange. I didn’t know exactly where London and I stood after what had happened between us, and after I’d ignored him for a couple weeks. I didn’t know if he was being jealous and protective when he joined me and Willard, or if he was just joining us for the heck of it.
In any event, London was perfectly polite to Willard, and Willard was perfectly polite to London. In fact, we all were perfectly polite to each other, and we were enjoying our conversation and our cocktails as if it were any one of our parties. Out of the corner of my eye, every once in a while, I’d scan the room for Anthony, and only sometimes I’d spy him. I felt nervous when I couldn’t see him; I wondered who he was talking to and what he was doing, and feared he’d left.
That fear, mind you, was a particularly odd one. I wasn’t looking forward to running into him again, especially one on one, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t rest, or feel easy again, until it happened. Perhaps I was looking for “closure,” or just now realizing what that word actually meant.
I’m an average-sized girl, but I guess I have a relatively small bladder. After my third cosmo, combined with the shots I’d taken earlier with London, I felt the urge to pee and excused myself to use the bathroom. I scanned the room before heading off, trying to determine if Anthony was still around and could see me. I’m not sure whether I wanted to make sure he was or was not watching, but I knew that, if I wandered off, this could be the moment that he came to find me. Maybe I was banking on it and expecting the unexpected.
I chose to use the upstairs restroom near my room, and after doing my business, I took some extra time to make sure I looked prim, proper, and just a bit provocative. When I emerged from the bathroom, I was plumed like a peacock, but there wasn’t a single soul around to see me.
Anthony hadn’t followed me like I thought—or hoped—he would. No one had. I made my way back to the party and back to the bar. London and Willard weren’t stationed at it anymore, but the bartender still was, and I went up to him to order another cosmo.
“I thought you liked martinis,” a voice said from behind me. “Shaken, not stirred.”
Of course I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was—and of course I didn’t have to think to respond.
“And I thought you were going to meet me,” I replied. “I guess we both were wrong, huh?”
I didn’t have to turn, but at that moment, I chose to. When I did I saw those piercing blue eyes that, once upon a time, sparkled in the moonlight.
“Did you understand what I was saying before?” Anthony asked, softening his tone.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I definitely don’t understand what happened…last week.”
“Let me explain both to you then,” Anthony said, moving closer to me while still maintaining an appropriate distance. “Once I walked away from you that night, I started thinking with my head again—and with my heart—and I couldn’t go through with it. No matter how badly I wanted to, I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to lead you astray in any way, or make you do something you’d regret later.”
“I’m 22,” I said, spitting my age in Anthony’s face.
“I know,” he answered. He paused for a moment before he continued. “You’re 22,” he repeated. “I’m much older, and I should know better. We both got carried away in the moment. When you made it clear that you didn’t want to see me again, that should have been it. I should have walked away from you, for good. But when I had you in front of me, I couldn’t. I wasn’t thinking with my head.
“Like I said, when I walked away from you, I started thinking with my head and heart, and both told me to keep walking…. What was going to happen if we got together? A one-night stand? I didn’t want to use you like that. You deserve better.”
Anthony may have been trying to calm me down, but I felt infuriated. “What I meant,” I clarified, “is that I’m 22. I’m an adult. That may be young, compared to
you
, but I’m old enough to make my own decisions, even if they aren’t good ones. I don’t need you—or anyone—to protect me or save me. I may look like a damsel in distress, but I’m not.”
I had the booze to thank for my ability to be so self-assured and assertive. It allowed me to be a little more passionate and creative. It even helped me lie a little (obviously I
do
consider myself a damsel in distress, but I didn’t want Anthony to know that).
“It’s not that simple,” Anthony said with a sigh. “Say or think whatever you want, but I would have felt like I was taking advantage of you, and I didn’t want to do that. Plus, you have to keep in mind, a one-night stand is kinda risky for a guy in my position.”
The bartender arrived with my drink. I picked it up and nearly tossed back the whole thing with one huge gulp. I’d been so shocked by seeing Anthony again that I hadn’t even paid much attention to the fact that, beyond being in my parents’ house that night, he was also my dad’s boss and a billionaire. Those facts hit me like a tidal wave, and I was completely overwhelmed by them, as well as by the realizations they carried with them.
“I see how it is,” I said, letting the thoughts flow from my brain without filtering them. “You weren’t trying to protect
me
. You were trying to protect
yourself
—from feeling guilty, or from having some young tart go around telling everyone she fucked you.”
Yep. I was hit by a tidal wave, and it left me talking like a sailor, which made sense, since I was as drunk as one. (I’m not saying all sailors are drunks, by the way, but there seem to be a lot of jokes and clichés about drunken sailors.)
“Kirby,” Anthony growled. He said my name in a way that made him seem cutting and critical, and not at all cool.
“Anthony,” I growled back, drunkenly trying to mimic his demeanor.
The next thing I knew, Anthony grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off toward the kitchen. The catering staff was still busily working in there, and they seemed to pay no mind to our intrusion.
“We obviously have to talk more about this,” Anthony said in a loud whisper. He was standing close enough to me that I could smell the undertones of his cologne, and I desperately wanted to taste them. “But now isn’t the time or place,” Anthony went on. His voice changed a little as he said it, as if our closeness was affecting him, too.
“What should we do then?” I asked. “Make more plans, so you can bail on me again?”
I don’t know what came over me—or, maybe, I do—but I reached my hand out and lightly ran it over Anthony’s like he’d done to my hand in the tavern. Anthony’s breath shortened and fluttered, and for a split-second, he trembled.
“I’d be a fool to ever do that again,” he said. His words made something inside of me throb. I looked up at Anthony (he was slightly taller than me) and bit my lower lip.
“Don’t do this to me, Kirby,” he begged, though I could tell he meant the opposite. “We really do have to talk about this…but not here. Not now.” That tension was back. That chemistry. I was boiling for Anthony, and I knew, no matter what he said, that he was boiling for me.
Just then, another one of life’s surprises came—and I’m not sure if it was a good or a bad one. London popped up from around the corner. He gave me a strange look for being so close to Anthony, then took a defensive stance.
“Everything okay, Kirby?” London asked. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Anthony pulled back from me a bit. “Everything’s fine,” I replied. “I had a little too much to drink, I guess—and my dad’s boss was trying to talk some sense into me.”
London looked back and forth between me and Anthony, as if he was trying to weigh the likelihood of my explanation.
“Okay,” he finally said. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to leave us to ourselves again. He just stood there like a lump of hot young flesh.
“Alright, Kirby,” Anthony said, resigning to London’s presence. “Enjoy the rest of your night. I’ll get in touch with you soon, to discuss what we talked about earlier.”
“Okay, Mr. Swift,” I replied. From the way he shook his head and averted his eyes, it was obvious he didn’t like me calling him that.
London watched as Anthony walked away, then looked at me suspiciously. “What was that all about?” he asked. “And what’s he gonna contact you about?”
“I told you,” I answered, “I had too much to drink, and he was trying to slow me down…. And as far as what he’s gonna contact me about—it’s work-related stuff.”
I was lying through my teeth, but I had to tell London
something
—and just as quickly as I did, I tried to change the subject.
“You said you were looking for me?” I asked. “What’s up?”
“Oh,” London answered. “I was gonna leave, but I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye first.”
I thought that was a pretty lame reason to try and find me, and a pretty lame thing to say. But at least we weren’t talking about Anthony anymore.
“Well, here I am,” I said with a smile. “So you can say good-bye if you wanna. Thanks for coming tonight, and for keeping me company.”
London leaned in and gave me a hug. “Thanks to you, too,” he said. It was nice to feel his strong arms around me, but there was still something that just didn’t feel entirely right about it.
I did, however, feel something hard pressing up against me when we hugged. For a moment, I felt a rush of excitement, thinking maybe I’d finally turned London on. But then I realized that hard thing was the neck of a booze bottle. He must have nicked another one from the bar while no one was looking.
“I’d like to hang out again sometime,” London added as he stepped back from our hug. “I know last time was a little weird for you. I’m sorry. But I’d still like to be friends and see where this goes. Give me another shot?”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied. I hadn’t expected London to say anything like that to me, and I didn’t just want to blow him off. But his proposal, on top of everything that had just happened with Anthony, was a little too much for me to comprehend at the moment.
“Please do,” London said. With that, he left through the kitchen door and headed back to his pool house.