Kiss Her Once for Me (57)

Jack flashes her quarter-moon smile. “I don’t want to kiss you in this Burgerville bathroom, either.”

I recoil from her, taking three giant steps backward until I bump against the opposite wall. “Shit. That was presumptuous. We’re just spending the day together as friends, and—”

“Elle.” That one syllable, one letter, rolls off her tongue like a summoning. “Stop.” Her voice is a growl. “I’m not interested in just being your friend.”

I swallow. “You… uh, you’re not?”

Jack shakes her head and stalks forward like a panther, closing the distance I put between us. “And I really want to kiss you. I just don’t find public restrooms particularly sexy.”

“Oh.” There’s nothing but the fabric of her sports bra between me and the rest of her skin, and for some reason, that’s the only thing I can think of. “But I also don’t mind waiting to kiss you until you’re ready,” she says with another shrug. “In fact…”

She tugs her T-shirt back on, and for a second her expression vanishes. When she emerges again, she’s smiling at me.

“I think I’m going to enjoy waiting.”





Chapter Fifteen


Friends.

I’m stuck at a cabin with Jack Kim-Prescott for five more days, and she wants to be friends.

As soon as we get back home, I flee to the nearest bathroom to cry on a toilet seat about it.

It is, at least, a nice bathroom for crying. The kind with a gilded mirror and expensive soaps and vases full of decorative rocks. I sit on the closed toilet seat with my head in my hands, letting the tears leak down between my fingers as I try to catch my breath.

I’m not even sure why I’m crying. This doesn’t change anything.

Does it change anything?

Sure, Jack really liked me. She kept the things that reminded me of her in a drawer. Except now she thinks I’m engaged to her brother. With Andrew, I’m guaranteed two hundred thousand dollars. With Jack, there’s… no guarantee at all.

I try to call Meredith, but she doesn’t answer, so for a minute I stare at my phone screen, unsure of who I’m supposed to talk to right now. My terrible mother? My terrible therapist?

There’s a knock on the bathroom door, quickly followed by, “Sugar, let me in.”

I hesitate a moment before reaching over to unlock the bathroom door. Meemaw steps in, having changed into a floor-length red velvet dress that makes her look like a lounge singer doing a Christmas special. She’s carrying two mugs of something that stings my sinuses. “Are you ill? Or are you avoiding dinner because you know it’s my night to cook, which means frozen taquitos and Bagel Bites?”

I snort and dislodge a bit of snot. “Actually, Bagel Bites are gourmet by my standards.”

“Darlin’.” Meemaw stops by the sink when she sees my tears. “Whatever is the matter?”

I unspool a wad of toilet paper to dab under my eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She sits down on the edge of the bathtub and passes me a mug. “I won’t have any apologizing in this bathroom, and I especially won’t tolerate any apologies for having emotions.”

I snort again. I spent most of my childhood apologizing to my mother for that exact reason.

“I’m sorry that I’m in here crying when I should be out there decorating the Christmas tree with everyone else,” I clarify. “It’s on the schedule.”

Meemaw clanks her mug against mine. “Sweetheart, we can always schedule in time for a good cry. Have a sip of mulled wine. It’ll make you feel better.”

I stare suspiciously at the mug of dark red liquid.

She reaches over to pat my thigh. “Tell your meemaw your woes.”

I take a cautious sip of the wine. It tastes like hot nail polish remover and Christmas. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m just upset over something silly.”

Meemaw swirls her drink and makes a knowing click of her tongue. “Something silly like… the fact that you had sex with my granddaughter last Christmas?”

I choke mid-sip of mulled wine, then promptly do a cartoonish spit take. A fine mist of it spills out of my mouth and onto the front of my jeans like tear drops of blood. “What? No!” I scramble over how to approach this unexpected declaration and settle on ignorance mid-syllable—“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sugar.” Meemaw crosses her legs at the ankles and stares me down. “I might seem like some Southern floozy, but I’ve got sense enough to know something ain’t quite right with this whole situation between you and my grandson.” She taps a lacquered nail against her temple to indicate her smarts. “I mean, my bastard of an ex-husband adds a stipulation to Andrew’s trust saying he’s got to get married to inherit, and then Andrew shows up for Christmas with a surprise fiancée?”

I swallow the acid rising in my throat. “You… you know about that?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. I know everything. Mostly, though, I know about this because Lovey told me.”

“Lovey knows, too? About the will?”

My mind reels around this revelation, trying to figure out if I should apologize or beg her not to tell or burst into tears again. Two hundred thousand dollars, gone in an instant. And worse, if Meemaw tells everyone the truth, I’ll have to go back to my studio apartment, back to my old life, where there are no boozy grandmas, no mothers who touch your hair, no laminated schedules of family bonding time. No Jack.