Kiss Her Once for Me (68)
“Talk about what?”
“The kiss,” Jack half slurs, her eyes fuzzy. She’s definitely too drunk for this conversation. And I’m too sober for it. “Are we never going to talk about the fact that you kissed me?”
“Well, I think we kissed each other,” I argue. “And we only did it because of the mistletoe and your drunk family members.”
Jack clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. I don’t stare at her tongue or mouth. “I tried to pull away,” Jack corrects me, flicking her chin to get her hair out of her face, but the hair is plastered there with her sweat, so nothing happens. “You held onto me. You kept kissing me.”
My heart calcifies inside my chest in humiliation. She pulled away. I held on.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m not sure what else I can say in this situation. I can’t admit that I held on because I regret letting go so easily the last time.
“Why are you marrying him?” Jack practically screams as the bartender deposits our drinks in front of us. Apparently, we’ve reached the point in the night where we’re addressing all trapezoidal elephants.
I take a sip of my mule. “Jack…”
“I don’t get it.” She shakes her head, her expression almost angry. “I want to get it. I want to be supportive, but what do the two of you even have in common?”
I recoil back from the drunk woman taking up too much space in front of me. “What, because Andrew is successful and handsome and wealthy, and I’m a mess?”
Jack’s hands slip on her sweaty drink. “You know that’s not what I meant. Of course he would choose you, Elle. You’re—shit, you’re so—” She shakes her head. “You’re so beautiful. You’re even more beautiful than my brother. Which is, I’m realizing now, kind of a weird thing to say.” Jack pauses, and once again, I don’t fucking kiss her, somehow.
She once again tries to grip her drink and fails, and I can’t seem to look away from the whole sloppy mess of her in this moment. “But why are you choosing him?” Jack asks me, her eyes like liquid fire, scorching me through with the intensity of their stare. And then she asks me the question. The worst possible question she could ask me here in this bar. “Do you love him?”
And I know I have to lie. I have no other choice. A million dollars and napkin contracts, and I know I have to say it. I have to tell this woman with the restless heart and the hair stuck to her face that I am in love with her brother.
I open my mouth to say it—just say it, Ellie.
Jack looks at me with confusion and accusation and the smallest sliver of hope, I think, right there in the corner of her mouth. It’s the hope that gets me. “I…” I try.
And then I pivot on the heel of my boots and take off in the direction of the nearest bathroom.
* * *
My attempt to flee the scene is hindered by several factors.
One, that the sticky floors slow me down.
Two, that Jack’s legs are longer than mine.
And three, that it’s a multi-stall bathroom with a swinging door that I don’t think to lock. Jack stomps into the bathroom behind me like she stomps everywhere and stares at me where I’ve propped myself against the sink. “Do you love him?” she asks me again, the door swinging closed behind her.
“Why do you care?” It’s a flimsy defense, but it’s the only defense I have at the moment, the only way I can protect myself from telling her the truth.
“Why do I care if you’re actually in love with my brother, the man you’re supposed to be marrying?” She folds her arms across her chest.
I fold my arms, too, mirroring her closed-off stance. “Honestly, our relationship isn’t any of your business.”
Jack laughs at me and flicks her chin, and I’m not sure if I’m going to kiss her face or punch it. She’s so stubborn and self-righteous and sweaty. “Just answer the question, Elle. Do you love Andrew or not?”
And I’m tired. I’m so, so tired.
“Honesty game,” Jack demands.
“No, okay!” I scream at her. “No, I don’t love him!”
The bathroom goes silent and airless as soon as these words are out of my mouth. Jack is standing there with her arms folded, her feet planted. I’m absolutely falling apart with my back against the sink. In the distance, we can hear the thump of the bass from Andrew’s impromptu dance party. I can barely make out the words to “Last Christmas.” That goddamn song.
The truth dangles there between us, and I wish I could reel it back in. “I don’t love him,” I say again, instead, solidifying the truth until it becomes a tangible thing between us in this bathroom. Jack is motionless across from me, rigid and furious and still, all I want to do is kiss her.
I wait for her to yell at me for marrying someone I don’t love. I wait for her to storm out of the bathroom. I wait for her to do something.
“Elle,” Jack says in a voice so close to a whisper I almost don’t hear her over George Michael trying to save himself from tears. And then all the tension leaves Jack’s body, like someone cut her strings, like she might collapse onto this bathroom floor like she collapsed in the snow earlier. I want to go to her, hug her, hold her. I want to kiss her so badly, it’s like literal thirst, a dry crack in the back of my throat.