Kiss Her Once for Me (63)

All it means, though, is that I can’t do anything to jeopardize this money.

Two hundred thousand dollars. My mother’s debt. My debt. My future.

There’s no time for cinnamon and cloves or mistletoe.

But then I’m thinking about the kiss last night and oh—I still feel that kiss in every inch of my body. I can still feel the phantom press of her soft mouth, the sweet glide of her fingers. Because that’s the thing about Jack—her touch is always as surprisingly delicate as her wristbone, as gentle as her words when I’m panicking, as tentative as her dreams. Jack is wild horses and rainstorms and driving with your arm out the window on a warm day. But she’s also quiet moments: she’s your first mug of coffee in the morning; she’s watching that rainstorm through a window, wrapped up in your favorite blanket.

I forgot about her ability to make me feel both reckless and secure; the way her touch is like a lightning rod and a warm piece of bread.

I arch back against the headboard and let my fingers slide across my soft stomach in the place where my T-shirt has hitched up over my bare skin. And then I drop them lower, along the hem of my pajama bottoms. Past the hem. I’m careful, not sure where Andrew is or when he’s coming back, as my fingers travel over the front of cotton of my underwear. I think about Jack the first time I saw her: long fingers and knuckles and that impossibly fragile wristbone. It’s those fingers I imagine skating over my body, and my body tightly coils at the thought.

Jack the first time she smiled, a flash of white teeth pinning that quarter-moon smile in place. I press the palm of my hand down harder over my mound, releasing the quietest moan as feeling swirls in my lower belly. Jack in the Burgerville bathroom, the first time I saw her skin, the tendons of her neck and the art on her arms, telling me she would enjoy waiting. I rub myself again and again, and I whisper her name into the bedroom, just to feel that hard k sound in the back of my throat as I bring myself closer.

Jack in the snow, Jack in the Airstream, Jack in my arms. Jack—

Jack blasting “Toxic” by Britney Spears at nine in the morning?

My hand stills inside my pajamas as the opening notes of the Britney classic thump against the second-story window from somewhere outside. Only one member of the Kim-Prescott clan would blare this particular song at this particular hour of the day.

I release a sexually frustrated sigh, climb out of bed, and go to the window, pushing back the curtains to reveal the backyard of the house, the field of snow and the Airstream sparkling amidst it. The front door of the Airstream is wide open, and Jack is standing outside, throwing snowballs against the side of the trailer to the chaotic beat of “Toxic.” Paul Hollywood is doing his zoomies around her feet, almost perfectly syncopated to the song.

I step out onto the bedroom balcony and shout her name, but she either doesn’t hear me or chooses not to turn around. For a minute, I stand in the cold watching the frenetic energy of her body as she winds up her arm and chucks each clump of snow with intensity and force. Then I’m shoving my feet inside my boots, not bothering with the laces as I run downstairs and outside.

“Jack!” I shout again as I trudge through the snow closer to her and the portable speaker playing Britney at avalanche-inducing volumes. The cold cuts through the flimsy layers of my pajamas as I call out her name again. “Jack!”

She doesn’t acknowledge me until I reach her, and even then, her face is bright red from the cold and from the exertion of pounding hunks of snow against her home.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as the song skids into its techno bridge.

Jack bends down to grab another fistful of snow. “Nothing.”

“You’re blaring Britney and throwing snowballs at your house, so I don’t believe you,” I scream over the music. Then I take a few more steps toward the portable speaker resting on the front step of the Airstream, and I turn it off. Paul Hollywood barks a few times in outrage over the absence of Britney.

Silence settles over the morning. Silence, and the sound of Jack’s heavy breathing and Paul Hollywood’s paws crunching in the snow. “My dad arrived late last night,” Jack finally says by way of explanation.

“Oh.” Suddenly, the angry Britney-snowball-throwing makes perfect sense.

“And guess how long it took him to start picking apart every little thing about me?” She winds up her arm and launches another snowball. This one must have ice in it, because it hits the side of the trailer with a vicious thwack.

“Jack—”

“I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks of me, and I tell myself I don’t, but he’s my fucking dad, and it would be nice if, I don’t know….” She squats to collect more snow, and maybe to hide her face from my view as she brushes away a few rogue tears. “I know my mom puts a lot of pressure on me, but it’s only because she wants me to have the best life possible. My dad can’t even pretend to like me. But I’m not Andrew, so why would he bother?”

“Jack—” I try again.

“And I know, I know….” She releases another clod against the trailer. “Andrew has his own cross to bear. I know being the anointed golden boy hasn’t freed him from our dad’s tyrannical expectations, but at least he hasn’t been the object of my dad’s mockery his entire life.”

“Jack—”

“God, you’re right!” She throws up one arm as another tear sneaks past her defenses. “It means a lot to my mom, and I should just be happy he’s here, but—”