The Kiss (Addison #1) (4 page)

“Please stop, Nolan,” I say as kindly as possible, which more than likely isn’t kind at all. It feels like a million bugs are crawling all over my skin just being around him.

Nolan looks at me with drunken eyes. “Addi, girl, I sure have missed you.” Great, here we go. The infamous
I love you, I miss you, I need you
speech that he’d always given me before we got back together after every break up. “Do you remember when we stayed at my Uncle Larry’s cabin for a weekend after we turned eighteen? Remember how fun that was just campin’ and fishin’ and makin’ love whenever we wanted, not havin’ to worry about any adults comin’ around and bustin’ our chops?” He rambles. I try pulling away from his grasp, but his grip tightens.

I glance over at Liv and she isn’t paying attention. The music is blaring so she wouldn’t even be able to hear me if I yell for her. Nolan moves my hair off of my neck and I shrug his hand away. He starts getting pushier, running his fingers through my hair and tracing my jawline with his finger tip. I keep turning my head away from his hand, so he pulls me into his chest. All of the images of his aggression toward me are coming back. It’s as if the world is closing in on me. My heart is racing, I can’t catch my breath.

“Get the fuck off of me, Nolan!” I holler. He doesn’t let go.
It’s okay, he won’t do anything here. Too many people are around, you know this. You’ve been through this before, just breathe. Just breathe.

“Come on, baby! My life hasn’t been the same without you. It’s like every time we’re together our flame re-ignites. Come on. We can be together again. I only went for Liv because I heard you got engaged when you were down in Florida. I thought there weren’t any more chances for us but now you’re back, baby! Fate led you back to me!” Nolan shouts desperately. Finally, Liv saw us now she can get this douche bag away from me. Liv stands up and pushes her chair back so hard that it falls over. From the way she’s walking toward us I can tell she’s had far too much to drink and she’s pissed.

“I should have fucking known, Addison! I throw this welcome home party for you and this is how you repay me? You’re trying to steal my boyfriend away. What is it with you? You get everything you want, always. Queen fucking Addison! Well, you know what? Your reign is over, bitch!” Liv screams at me.
Oh, it’s my fault that he was putting his slimy hands all over me.

“Wait, Liv. You don’t…”

She swings at me but luckily misses, though I think she probably would have shattered her hand had she succeeded since she’s nothing but skin and bones now.

“Liv, stop!” I try to keep calm as she throws punches at me. I go to grab onto her just to hold her and make her stop, but she grabs my hair and starts pulling it. I try pushing her away, but she has a death grip on my long brown hair. Liv throws a punch right into my face. There is nothing else I can do, so I start throwing punches back just to get her to back off a little.

“Stop, Liv!” I say breathlessly, almost wanting to cry. Not because it hurt, but because we were once the best of friends and now this is happening. We wrestle around and I get on top of her to pin her flailing arms down and stop the fight.

“You don’t think I didn’t know that you two were fucking behind my back all of those years?” I scream back at her.

Nolan pulls me off her and into his arms.

“No, baby, I never cheated on you with her.” His face is merely an inch away from mine. I smell the liquor seeping from his breath.

“Hey, Nolan, how about you get the fuck off me?” People stand around us watching, no one even thinks of trying to stop the fight. It’s funny, six fucking years later and people still just stand to watch. Everyone in high school knew how Nolan was to me, but did anyone ever say anything? Nope, they sure fucking didn’t. If they saw him even slightly being aggressive toward me, they’d turn their heads away and pick up their pace. It wasn’t until those moments that I realized I truly had no one. Well, at least that’s what I thought.

“Liv, I don’t know what you see in this pig. He’s just like he was when we were in high school!” I can’t think logically about what’s happening because I’m so shocked about it all. Liv stands up and Nolan lets go of me. Liv swings at me again and misses. She trips and falls, I help her up and try to calm her down. Of course she’s Liv and doesn’t give up. I wrap my arms around her and her flailing arms finally stop. She lets out sobs that seem like they’ve been bottled up inside of her for quite some time. Holding onto her I can feel her ribs through her thick wool sweater. It sickens me she let herself get this way with him. I guess I can’t say much though, because I did it too. I brush her hair out of her face and notice a yellowish-green bruise had appeared on her eye from where her makeup had come off from her tears.

“I’m so sorry, Addi.” Liv drunkenly cries.

“You need to get away from him, Liv. He’s changed you into someone I don’t even know. He’s killing you, Liv!”

“But I love him, Addi.” My heart shatters with those words.

“But he doesn’t love you, Liv.”

Nolan is coming toward me from out of the bathroom with his fist raised, all I can think is
this wouldn’t be the first time
I stared him in the eyes and awaited the kiss from his fist, but out of nowhere a fist sends Nolan straight to the floor. I look behind me and there stands Stephen.

“EVERYONE—THE BAR IS CLOSED! GET OUT NOW!” Stephen shouts in his deep voice. It startles everyone, including formerly big bad Nolan. Stephen looks at me with stern eyes. “You’re not going anywhere, I’ll take you home after I clean up this place.”

***

After helping Stephen clean up the bar and apologizing a million times, we sit at the bar together and have a couple drinks while I ice my face with the ice pack he’d given me.

“Addison, why didn’t you ever call me or text me or even message me on Facebook? It’s like when you left for college, you left everyone behind. I just didn’t think you’d leave me behind, too.” Stephen looks down at his beer. I don’t even know what to say.

“I guess I just wanted to live for me for once. I wanted to start fresh, I wanted to be someone new. I didn’t want to be Iowa Addison. I wanted to be Florida Addison, and in order to do that I had to let go of everything.” Stephen laughs sarcastically and looks me in the eyes. He goes over to the DJ booth. “What are you doing, Stephen?” I ask.

“Just wait,” he replies.

“Addicted” by Simple Plan starts playing and I laugh. We always used to sing this song together. I gulp down the rest of my drink and look over at Stephen. He has the cheesiest grin on his face as he descends the stairs of the stage. We meet in the middle of the dance floor and start jumping up and down, screaming the lyrics at each other. The next song that came on was “With Me” by Sum 41. Stephen pulls me into his arms as he sings the song to me. His voice is horrible, but this moment is beautiful. He looks down at me. “Do you remember when we made our
deal
the summer after eighth grade?” I know exactly what he’s talking about, but I look at him as if I haven’t a single clue.

“You know…that we would be each other’s first kiss and practice kissing with each other every day of the summer just so we didn’t suck at kissing once we got into relationships?” I laugh as he rambles on. “That whole summer before high school we made out every day. That was almost the best summer of my life.” I laugh hysterically.

“So what was your favorite summer then?” I ask.

“The summer after our sophomore year, you and Nolan had your first break up because you wouldn’t sleep with him. You were too afraid to lose your virginity to him and you didn’t want to suck in bed, so we laid under the stars in your backyard and you cried on my chest. Then you looked up at me and asked if we could make another
deal
. I knew where you were going with it and I was terrified. You asked me to take your virginity in exchange for mine. I so badly wanted to tell you no, because I didn’t want it to be bad. I didn’t want you to laugh or be grossed out or think I was terrible or
small
, but I couldn’t say no. Then after a summer of having sex with you, you stopped inviting me over, we stopped talking as much, and you were stuck up Nolan’s ass.”

I rest my head on his chest. “Thank you for that, Stephen, and I’m sorry. I was a horrible fucking friend.”

“No, you were just caught up in being perfect because everything else in your life was flawed. You refused to be anything less than perfect. No one ever saw your imperfections except for me, and I still looked at you as if the sun shined out of your ass.”

I chuckle a little, though I know he isn’t joking. I’ve just always thought the way he gets fired up over something is cute.

“It isn’t funny, Addison—I was in love with you and you fucking ripped my heart into a million pieces.” I hold onto him tighter.

“Once you admitted Nolan was abusive to you, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to run away with you. I knew I couldn’t do anything though because it wouldn’t hurt him, it would only hurt you and that was the last thing I wanted to do. So instead I held you. I listened to you cry and held your hand until you were done with me for the night and sent me home. Then I’d cry myself to sleep because I was so fucking angry. All I wanted was for you to be happy but for some reason, it couldn’t be me. It was always that fucking douche bag.” Tears filled Stephen’s eyes as he recalled the most painful memories of us. We stopped talking. All I could do was hug him tighter and cry.

“Why do you think I changed so much, Addison? You were the only girl to ever show me any attention. You were the only girl who made me feel like I meant something and gave me hope for a future. Once you were gone I had to change. What woman would want a tall scrawny fluffy haired dork? No one, not even you. I was just there—” I cut him off by placing my pointer finger on his lips.

“Shh.” I whisper, standing on my tip-toes so our lips can meet. He places his hand behind my head to pull me closer. Butterflies swarm in my stomach.
This would not be the time to throw up, Addison.
For some reason when I get extremely nervous I blow chunks. He lets go of me and turns to walk the other way.

“What’s wrong, Stephen?”

“Addison, I can’t…I just can’t…I’m sorry. I’m engaged.”

Chapter Six

Those words shoot through me like bullets from a revolver. After Stephen gives me the news I call my mom to come and save the day once again. She picks me up and when we get home I run straight to the bathroom and vomit while my mom holds my hair back.

I hadn’t puked because of the alcohol, it was a fuck ton of emotions bursting out of me. It’s my broken heart and soul pouring out into the porcelain bowl. My life is over. I’d literally lost everything. I lost Stephen. I had never realized it before, I only thought I loved him as a best friend and nothing more, until now. And of course, today is my first day of work at the bar. I would just ditch out and totally blow off the opportunity, but unfortunately I
need
the money. Christmas is coming up and I’d like to get my mom something nice. So, I gotta suck it up.

Before I get in the shower I look at myself in the mirror. Luckily, I have no marks of the fight. Just a few scratches up and down my arm. I remember back in high school I would pray after every fight with Nolan that there would be no marks left on me. Generally he was pretty good at hurting me in places that could easily be hidden by clothes. There were only a few times I had to lie to my mom and tell her I got a black eye or busted lip from doing stunts in cheer. I shiver at the thought of all of the stupid excuses I made up for him, all because I thought he truly loved me.

***

“Mom, would you mind giving me a ride to work? I ask. My mom hands me the keys to the truck and tells me to go warm it up. As soon as I walk outside I see an older, lifted black Chevy. I have no clue who it belongs to. I squint to see the driver because the sunlight reflecting off the snow is blinding. I can finally make out the figure—it’s Stephen sitting in his truck. He gets out and walks toward me. I look at him, puzzled, and go back upstairs to give my mom her keys.

“I don’t need to borrow the keys anymore, Stephen showed up to give me a ride.” I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and a hug goodbye and head back outside.

Stephen silently greets me at the bottom of the stairs. “Good morning?” I say with confusion.

He escorts me to the truck so I don’t slip and fall. “Good morning,” he replies. Stephen opens the door for me and helps lift my short ass up into his truck.

“Thanks,” I say. I look over at the cup holders before he’d gotten around to the driver’s side and there are two steaming hot Dixie to-go cups. He gets in and shuts the door.

“Don’t worry, I know you hate coffee from the big coffee franchises so I bought some of those to-go cups and brewed a pot of coffee this morning. It’s the Eight O’ Clock Hazelnut kind, your favorite. Or at least it was at one time. I already put cream and a couple tablespoons of sugar in it.” I can’t help but smile at him.

“It’s still my favorite. Thank you.”

I warm my hands up on the freshly brewed cup of hazelnutty deliciousness and think about how truly blessed I am to have this kind of friendship with someone, especially Stephen.

This is how it always was between us. This is how we are. It’s been six years since we’ve been around each other or even talked, yet things went back to the way they’ve always been. It was just a little awkward because of our conversation last night.

“So what do you think about
it
?” he asked. I almost asked what, but I know exactly what he’s talking about. I don’t know if I should tell him the truth or if I should lie. I’ve never lied to Stephen, he’s the only person I’ve told everything to. Literally everything. But I just can’t tell him the truth about this. It would ruin everything between us.

“I’m happy for you! I’m really sorry about last night. I was just really drunk and I shouldn’t ha—” He hushed me.

“I shouldn’t have started the reminiscing and the twenty-one questions. It’s my fault—don’t worry about it, it’s not like we’ve never kissed before or anything…” His voice trails off and we sit in silence for what seems like forever, but it’s only like thirty-seconds.

I close my eyes to keep myself from crying. I inhale the scent of hazelnut through the tiny rectangle hole on the plastic lid. “I’d love to meet her.” It sort of just fell out of my mouth. I don’t really want to meet her. I want to kill her. I hate her and I don’t even know her.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Addison,” Stephen replies as he looks over his shoulder to check his blind-spot. He’s right, it is a horrible idea. But I do want to meet the person who won his heart over.

“Why?”

“Because…Well, do you want the truth or do you want me to lie to you for the first time?”

“Just take your pick, Stephen.” I take a sip of the delicious sweet, creamy coffee.

“I don’t know if I could handle seeing you two in the same place…” He glances at the rearview mirror and the side mirrors, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Why?” I feel like he isn’t telling me everything.

“I don’t know. I just don’t think I can. I never thought I’d see you again, and then you come back, and I don’t know. With her, she was there for me when you weren’t. Ya know?”

I place my hand on his knee.

“I didn’t know, Stephen. Okay, I was a selfish bitch and I’m sorry. I never knew it was more than what I thought it was.”

He pulls into the bar parking lot and parks the truck. He looks over at me. “Addison, I waited and waited and waited for the day to come that our paths would connect instead of cross. But things weren’t meant to be that way. Maybe we’re just meant to be apart.” He rubs his hands along his scruffy cheeks.

It was like he planned all of that out years ago. Maybe when we were seniors in high school or even before that.

“Maybe.” I unbuckle the seatbelt, grab my coffee, slowly slid down out of his truck, and follow him into the bar.

“Here, I’ll take your coat.” He reaches his hand out. I hand it to him and he disappears into some back room.

“First things first, wash your hands.” I went to the sink and washed my hands. I honestly cannot get over how sexy Stephen is. This job is going to be horrible. I’m going to be spilling drinks, tripping over my own two feet, pouring liquor on the floor, and messing up orders. I won’t be able to focus on anything else because I’ll be too busy staring at Stephen’s
ASSets
.

“Are you ready?” he asks. I feel like him telling me about his engagement just made me want him more, which is wrong, but I guess everyone wants what they can’t have.

“Yep.” I walk over to him and he has six liquor bottles lined up that are all filled with a different color of liquid. “All right, I made these just for you. That way you’re not wasting all of my liquor.”

I thought he might have been kidding, so I’m waiting for the laugh or the look, but I get nothing. “Are you implying that I’m bound to be a horrible bartender?” I pout.

“Pour a shot of blue.” I poured the shot. “Good. Have you ever been a bartender before?” he asks.

“Hell no, I worked in an office.” I reply.

I think I poured about twenty shots in a row until I got the feel of how much a shot was without having to use the jigger. Then he taught me some counting thing, but that didn’t really work for me.

“All right, now we’re going to do mixed drinks,” he says. I enjoy the time I’m getting to spend staring at him, but this whole
strictly business
stuff is going to suck. I have to do something to spice this up. “Give me three parts red, two parts blue, one part yellow, and a splash of green,” he requests.

I start struggling with the measurements and act like I just can’t get it right. “Ugh! I’m going to be horrible at this, Stephen, maybe I shouldn’t be a bartender,” I say. He gets up from the customer side of the bar and comes around to help me.
I guess that was easy, I should have done this an hour ago.
He comes up behind me and grabs my hand with the liquor bottle and whispers the counts in my ear as he pours it with me. His fingers aren’t as long and bony looking, his hands have become masculine. “How do you work out your hands?” I blurt.
Oh my God, I didn’t mean to ask that.

“What?” He chuckles. “How do I work out my hands? I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“Well, it’s just that I notice your hands seem to look thick and muscular-ish now. They used to be all long and bony.” I shrug him off. “I think I got it down.”

“I just work out a lot now and I’ve gotten older, Addison. I’m not a seventeen year old boy anymore.” I put the bottle down and turn to him.

“Why? Why Stephen? Why are you getting married?” This isn’t going to go over well.

“Because, Addison, I thought you were gone.” I dumped the practice drinks, washed my hands, and walk around the bar. “What are you doing, Addison?”

“Not this. I can’t. I’m sorry, there’s just no way I can be around you as
just friends
anymore. I’m happy for you with your engagement and I wish you both the best,” I say with tear-filled eyes.

“No. Addison, I need you here in two weeks! It’s two weeks before New Year’s Eve. You can’t do this to me, Addison. Please.”

“I’m sorry, I really am, maybe just give me a week or something so I can have time to sort things out and think rationally about everything.” He stops me from walking out the door.

“Who’s driving you home? I brought you here. At least let me take you home.”

***

I thought Stephen was taking me home but he keeps taking detours.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Just be quiet. Look out your window or play on your phone,” he said irritably.

“Well, alrighty then!” I say in a Jim Carrey voice.

He cracked a smile. “You still do that Jim?” He laughed. God, his laugh is sexy, it always has been. Even when he was nerdy Stephen and we’d be hanging out secretly, he’d laugh and I’d want to jump his bones. It’s not like we’d never done
it
at that point, but we never had sex or kissed or anything when Nolan and I were dating, it was only when Nolan and I were on our stupid breaks. I regret it now. I regret worrying so much about my reputation and I regret never giving Stephen a fair chance. I guess I just didn’t know he wanted a chance, I thought we were both on the same page. Best friends who practiced kissing and fucking, that way we didn’t suck when we were in a relationship with someone.

I look out the window and notice that he’s driving to the old abandoned park that sits on a hill so you can see the whole town. Flashbacks begin to flood my brain. I remember how we would always drive up here and Stephen would park his old black 1995 Mustang. We’d look out at the whole town and talk for hours, then we’d fog up his windows after dark. The sweat of our bodies mixed together had become my favorite scent, it’s funny that I can still remember it.

I glance over at Stephen and he glances back at me.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing, just wondering what we’re doing here. That’s all.”

He parks the truck and turns on the stereo. “Love Don’t Die Easy” by Charlie Worsham is playing. Perfect timing. Just perfect.

Stephen grabs my hand and squeezes it three times, which was always our way of saying, ’I love you’ to each other. I squeeze back four times.

“You know I’ll always love you, right?” he asks. I turn to look out the passenger window.

“I guess I just never expected this to happen. I never thought we could be more so I never hoped we would be,” I say back to him. “But yes, I know you love me.”

“I always will, Addison. I will always be your best friend,” he replies. I can tell he’s starting to get choked up.

“If I could take it all back and give you a chance, I wouldn’t. I would never want to jeopardize our friendship.” He turns and looks out the driver’s side window and tries letting my hand go. I squeeze his fingers in my palm so he can’t pull away. I turn to look him in the eyes, even though I’m staring at the back of his head.

“I love you, I always have and I always will. You’re my best friend, Stephen. You know my darkest secrets and the majority of my greatest memories have you in them.” He takes a deep breath and sighs, then rests his head on the back of the seat. “You made me feel normal. You made me believe that all of my imperfections were beautiful and that being weird and broken was perfectly okay. You never once made me feel like a fool or like I was stupid for being a goof ball. I could be goofy with you and you’d be goofy too. I could cry to you and spill all of the broken pieces of my heart right into your lap and you’d carefully stitch each piece back together.” I start sobbing. “I will always love you, Stephen, and I will always be your best friend.”

He lifts his head from the back of the seat and wipes his eyes, then puts the truck in reverse. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’m sorry, I should have just taken you home. This isn’t right.” His voice cracks.

I’ve never seen him like this before. He drives me home and I slide out of the truck. The tension in our silence could have cut through steel. I walk up to the porch and watch him turn around in the drive and then drive away. I walk into the house and find my mom reading a book in her chair by the fireplace.