The First Taste(85)

I point to the group. “She’s with the girls, warming up.”

Brynn drops her things and hurries away.

“Sorry about that,” Kiki says, her bracelets jingling as she picks up Brynn’s bag. “We’re working on her manners.”

“Fuck—manners? Was I supposed to be working on those?”

She hesitates as if she’s not sure I’m joking and then gives in to a smile. “It’s never too early. How was your Friday night? Have some fun?”

She asks me something along these lines every time I see her, as if my life is one big bundle of fun and oh yeah—I have a daughter too. This Friday, it happens to be true, but that’s not what she wants to hear. She’s just keeping tabs on my love life.

“It was fine. Yours?”

She rolls her eyes. “Ron had some bullshit in the city that apparently prevented him from making it home.” She glances toward the girls and stretches her hands toward the ceiling, arching her back, showing off a sliver of her flat stomach. “We were up late arguing. I could use a coffee.”

“Yeah,” is all I can think to say. I was up late too. There could’ve been some arguing, I was with Amelia after all, but I couldn’t tell you who won. I smile to myself.

“My treat?” she suggests.

“Nah. I stay for the practices.”

She widens her eyes. “Always? Don’t you get bored?”

“Not really. I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Nothing at all?” she asks, half-smiling. “We should work on that. Find you something better to do.”

I look past her at Bell, who’s directing the girls into a circle for their stretches as the coach stands back and lets her. Give the kid an inch, I swear. Her coach should know that by now. “What I mean is, I really can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that.” She plays with the strap of Brynn’s bag, sliding her hand up and down the polyester. “There must be at least one thing you’d rather be doing than sitting here.”

I’d rather she just came out and said what she wanted. This suggestive flirting annoys me, especially when Bell is a few feet away.

It’s not just the fact that she’s married that gets to me. It’s that she and her friends think I’d have no problem taking an hour to give her what she isn’t getting from her husband because I’ve got tattoos, a bike, and a bastard child by my wild ex-girlfriend. As if I have no principles or standards.

“Not a thing, Kiki,” I say quietly in case anyone is within hearing distance. “I suggest you look elsewhere. Like at home. You might find something to do there. Do you mind?”

“Mind?” she asks, touching her collar.

I nod at her. “You’re blocking my view.”

“Oh.” She adjusts Brynn’s bag on her shoulder and mutters, “Well, I’ll just . . . coffee—”

She walks away, her heels clomping on the gym floor. I could almost feel bad about embarrassing her if I had time to wonder what drives her to come onto someone who doesn’t want her. But I can’t muster enough interest. Between Bell and Amelia, I don’t have much more attention to spare.

As if on cue, because God knows the woman has a sixth sense for bad timing, I see her. She steps out of the shadows, and the air around me evaporates. She’s worse than a sucker punch.

Nobody ever took my breath away like Shana.



Shana is the same as I remember her: jeans painted on from hip to ankle, a low-cut halter in any shade of dark, and jet-black hair that’s either slick-straight or, like today, wild and curly. She walks toward me with her hands in her back pockets, her elbows out, her hips sashaying from side to side. She has a small waist, and T&A that make men stupid. It takes her long enough to reach me that I can see the edges of new ink from the waistband of her low-rise jeans.

Neither of us speaks. As if I have a clue what to say. I used to fantasize about this moment and how I’d react. Sometimes I’d hug her as she broke down in regretful sobs. Sometimes I’d shake her good and hard, demanding to know why. Now, all I can do is stare and wait for her to evaporate in front of my eyes.

She doesn’t.

“Hey,” she says, removing one hand to wipe her palm on her jeans.

She looks the same. As if she was just out at the salon for a few hours.

“How are you?” she asks.

“That’s it? Hey, how are you?” I keep my voice low. I can see Bell, and it’s enough to remind me that I don’t want to call her attention over here. “What the f*ck are you doing here?”

“I . . .” When she looks up, her eyes are big and watery. “I don’t know. I mean, I do, but, like, it’s complicated. So, yeah. How are you?”

“I haven’t heard from you in nearly four years.”

“I know.” She rubs her nose. “I know I don’t have any right, but . . . it’s good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

Bell giggles. My steel-encased hard heart becomes a fist. “You can’t be here.”

“I—”

“What do you want? Tell me quick and go.”

“I don’t want anything—”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want something. What is it? Money? Christ, Shana.”