Kiss Her Once for Me (60)
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Meemaw starts the drunken chant, and soon everyone else joins in, even Katherine. My body is attuned to the way Jack’s body tenses, shifts. She is less steady on her feet now, swaying away from me, putting space between us.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“Okay, fine! You monsters!” Jack finally shouts, and she plays it off so well. I genuinely believe this kiss under the mistletoe will mean nothing to her.
I need it to mean nothing to me, too.
“One quick kiss,” Jack tells her family, and then she’s fully facing me. “Is this okay?” she whispers just for us.
No, it’s not okay. Nothing about this situation is okay.
“Yes,” I say.
Just like that, Jack closes her eyes and tilts her face toward mine. I meet her halfway, and it’s nothing more than a graze. Chapped lips and a hint of oranges. Her mouth is surprisingly soft, even though the kiss itself feels sturdy and immovable.
Jack begins to pull away, to end this joke of a mistletoe kiss, but some instinct in me holds on, falling forward as she steps back, my lips still pressed to hers. And then her hand is on my waist, to keep me upright. Just one hand, through the layers of my cardigan and my shirt, but it’s enough. Enough to zap feeling into my unfeeling bones, to light up my limbs like the strands of Christmas lights on the tree, to send heat pulsating between my legs, to the place where my other lonely ache lives.
Jack’s hand is on my waist and her mouth is on my mouth, and she tilts her chin just enough that I feel the drag of her lips. I want to open my mouth for her. I want to open everything for her, to be that open version of myself I became with her in the snow last year.
And then I remember our audience. I let go, killing the symphony of longing inside my chest. There’s a startled flash of wide eyes in my vision before Jack drops her gaze.
Behind us, the family is whooping and whistling as enthusiastically as they did during Christmas carols, somehow oblivious to the lingering tension between us.
She presses two fingers to her bottom lip, then drops her hand when she catches me watching her mouth. I want to kiss her there again. And again. And again and again.
It’s a good thing no one is actually asking me to choose between Jack Kim-Prescott and two hundred thousand dollars. Because in this moment of mulled wine and mistletoe kisses, I think I know which one I would pick.
A Webcomic
By Oliverartssometimes
Episode 5: The Dream
(Christmas Eve, 3:54 p.m.)
Uploaded: January 21, 2022
“So you’re planning to murder me?”
Jack cranes her beautiful neck to shoot me a look. “Yep. I always spend a whole day slow-burn flirting with my victims before harvesting their organs.”
“Wait. Have you been flirting with me all day?”
With the hand not threaded through mine, Jack reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Yes, Elle. I have. And when I go home tonight, I will reflect gravely on my utter lack of romantic game. Now, come along.”
She gives my hand a squeeze and pulls me forward. We’d been doing that since we left the Burgerville bathroom: holding hands. Walking through the snow with our fingers intertwined like the cross-stitch on my scarf. We’ve gotten off track again, wandering the opposite direction of the bridge that will take us back home.
And now we’re standing on a deserted street corner in front of an abandoned building. “It’s getting dark,” I say. “It would make sense that you’d want to wait until nightfall to lure me back to your murder den.”
“This isn’t a murder den,” she says, gesturing with one hand toward the boxy warehouse with boarded-up windows and graffiti on every square inch. It absolutely has the markings of a murder den. “Close your eyes.”
“So you can stab me? I don’t think so.”
“Please, Elle. Come on. I told you I want to show you something.”
“How will you show me if my eyes are closed?” I grumble, but I’m already closing them, already doing exactly what she said.
“Now. Picture it,” Jack says. “There are real windows and the outside has been painted white. Maybe with a mural on the east side. The windows let in morning sunlight from the east—don’t open your eyes! The floors are stripped hardwood, the walls are painted lavender, and there are long tables, communal style. The kitchen is exposed behind the counter, and there’s a giant display case with cupcakes and tarts and scones and pies—the best fucking pies you’ve ever tasted!”
I crack open one eye and catch the look of unabashed wonder on Jack’s face as she conjures this glorious image. “It’s a bakery,” I say.
Jack nods. “Yeah.”
“It’s…” I stare at the rundown building, then back at her. “It’s your bakery? You want to open a bakery?”
Jack releases my hand so she can shove both fists into the pockets of her coat. “I mean, maybe. Someday. It’s just an idea I’ve been casually playing around with off and on for, like”—she shrugs with perfect indifference—“my entire life.”
My excitement gets the better of me, and I punch her in the arm. “This is amazing! You have to do it!”
Jack reels backward a bit. A quarter-moon smile slips onto her face, but she tries to Etch-a-Sketch it away. “Calm down. You’re forgetting that follow-through isn’t exactly my strong suit. I don’t have the concentration necessary to program the radio presets on my truck, and I’ve been listening to the same Spotify playlist for ten years. I’m not sure how I’d figure out business loans and permits and all the meticulous, boring details associated with running a business.”