Kiss Her Once for Me (27)

Dylan clenches their fists at their sides. “And whose fault is that?”

Jack holds up both hands like she’s ready to physically restrain them if it comes to that. “Come on. What’s going on with the two of you?”

“Nothing!” they shout in unison. Quite convincingly.

In the awkwardness of the moment, Jack swings around to face me, to look at me directly for the first time since we shook hands. “I—I like your T-shirt,” she says loudly, redirecting the tense conversation by sheer force of will.

I have to look down to remember what shirt I’m wearing. Jack is looking at me for the first time in a year, and I might as well be naked in this dining room.

Oh. Right. My She-Ra shirt. “Yeah. Thanks.”

She’s still staring at me. “It’s a good show,” she says, and she holds my gaze. My brain proceeds to jump to outlandish conclusions. Does she remember that it was me who told her to watch She-Ra? Did she watch it because of me? And if she did, what the hell does that mean?

“Ellie is an animator,” Andrew says.

“Um, yeah. Yes.”

“Well, I guess she’s an… aspiring animator,” Andrew corrects. “Or a former and future animator? I don’t know, babe, how would you describe it?”

I have no desire to describe it at all, not in front of Jack, who is looking at me with an intensity I don’t understand. Not in front of Dylan, who is looking at me with a hatred I understand even less. My social battery is running on fumes, yet I turn to Dylan because they seem to be the lesser of two evils at the moment. “So, you’re a… kindergarten teacher?”

“You sound surprised,” Dylan monotones. “I’m nurturing as fuck.”

“Yes, that’s the impression I got from the knife tattoo.”

Dylan stares at me like they’re contemplating disembowelment. “Sometimes, when you’re eighteen and pissed as hell at the world,” they say dryly, “the only thing that makes sense is getting a knife tattoo on your neck.”

I nod. “I totally get that. After I came out as bi to my mom, I got an asymmetrical lob.”

Their expression clearly states that these two life choices are not comparable.

Jack comes in with another clumsy conversation change. “So, how did the two of you meet?”

And sure, why don’t I just tell the woman I hooked up with a year ago the fabricated story of how I met her brother, my fake fiancé. This is all very normal. Very fucking Norman Rockwell.

“Work,” is all I manage to say.

Andrew, remembering our flash cards, fills in the rest. “Ellie works as a barista at one of my properties. Three months ago, I came in at the end of her shift, and it was raining, so I offered to give her a ride home. We ended up getting drinks, and the rest is history.”

Dylan snorts. “Sounds like the perfect meet-cute.”

I don’t think about two hands reaching for the same book.

And then I can’t think about anything, because Andrew is suddenly reaching for my chin. I’m not sure why Dylan’s clearly sarcastic comment has prompted this moment of intimacy, but before I can sort it out, he tilts my face toward his and kisses me. In the middle of the dining room. In front of Jack. While Michael fucking Bublé is playing, Andrew kisses me on my mouth.

On-the-mouth kissing was not negotiated on the napkin contract. The surprise prompts my mouth to drop open in shock, and Andrew seems to interpret this as an invitation for his tongue to occupy that space, and now we’re kissing with tongue.

I realize some part of me wants it to be a good kiss. I’m being kissed by a beautiful man, who is funny and charming and sweet to his mother, and I wish that was enough to make me feel something toward him.

Unfortunately, this is a terrible kiss, and I feel nothing, though I am not sure if the problem is with Andrew’s skills, my mild horror, or the fact that he tastes like sangria.

Even more unfortunate is my knowledge that Jack is an exceptional kisser. That she once kissed me like this in the snow, and it had actually meant something.

At least, it had meant something to me.

Andrew finally detaches himself from my face, having proved with a few aggressive strokes of his tongue that we’re madly in love, I guess. I wait a few seconds before wiping his saliva off on the back of my hand. Dylan doesn’t look appeased. Jack looks, well…

I can’t actually stand the thought of looking at Jack, so I blurt, “Bathroom!” and I don’t even wait for Andrew to point in the right direction before I take off at a brisk pace.

And I can’t… I can’t do this.

I can’t stay here in this cabin, pretending to be Andrew’s fiancée, when it turns out he’s Jack’s brother.

This cabin is so comically large, I get turned around, and since I don’t actually need a bathroom, I dart through a back door onto one of the many balconies. This one is a large, covered patio with a table and covered grill. It’s freezing, but the fresh air feels good as it burns my lungs. Below the deck, on the other side of a giant hot tub, is the Airstream, still hitched to Jack’s truck and parked in the snow.

It had seemed so romantic that night, the idea of living in an Airstream. Jack was adventurous and unpredictable, independent and fearless, so of course she lived with wheels under her. It felt like being with Jack meant I could end up anywhere.