Once in a Lifetime(24)

Aubrey had to laugh. Ali was right: It had been a wow kiss. But it’d also been a fluke. “It’s not happening again,” she insisted, and faced both their doubt and her own. “It can’t.”





A few minutes later, Aubrey was back inside the Book & Bean. She unlocked the door, turned on all the lights, and flipped over her OPEN sign.

Gus, asleep in his bed beneath the stairs, cracked open one eye and meowed at her. The nocturnal creature was annoyed by daylight.

Aubrey went to stand in what would soon be her little service niche. Ben had cleaned up after the demolition, but she went over it, sweeping and dusting to keep the store spotless. When she was done, she stood looking at the place where Ben had pressed her up against his long, leanly muscled, warm body.

At just the thought, her lips tingled in memory of their kiss. And if she was being honest, other parts tingled, too. In the bright light of day, she couldn’t imagine what the hell she’d been thinking to slide her hands up his chest and into his silky hair and pull his head down to hers for more.

Okay, so she hadn’t been thinking…

It’d been a mistake, albeit a delicious one, and she needed to move on. She was good at that—moving on. And she’d proven it with the first success on her list. Smiling just thinking about it, she pulled the notebook from her purse, then took out a pen.

And then, with a smile she couldn’t contain if she’d tried, she very carefully, very purposefully, crossed off number three.

Melissa.

Back in high school, the two of them had been rivals who’d gotten off on one-upping each other. Melissa had been pretty and funny and incredibly charismatic, and whenever she’d set her mind on a guy, she’d gotten him.

Even when Aubrey had wanted him.

Aubrey’d had the fattest crush on one guy in particular. Ben, of course. It didn’t matter that he had a longtime high school sweetheart; she’d still yearned and burned for him. Secretly, of course. She hated to remember those days, when she’d been a lowly freshman, garnering a lot of unwanted attention from the junior and senior boys because of her looks. This had, in turn, made her a target for the popular girls, of course. Hannah being one of them. One time Aubrey had been in the school parking lot, surrounded by a couple of aggressive, obnoxious boys. Ben had chased them off, and Hannah had been with him.

“She asks for that attention, Ben,” Hannah had said when a grateful Aubrey had started to walk away.

The humiliation of that had burned deep, but it was chased away by Ben’s defense of her.

“No girl asks for that, Hannah,” he’d said.

Aubrey had never forgotten it. It’d been the start of her terribly painful crush, that one moment of kindness, and she’d hated, hated, that he’d been with Hannah.

In any case, Melissa had sensed Aubrey’s crush and loved to torment her about it. One summer night Melissa had a bonfire on the hidden beach past the pier, a spot only teenagers and the homeless ever bothered to hike to. Melissa had brought some alcohol that she’d pilfered from her parents and had plied Hannah with it until she’d fallen asleep by the fire. Melissa had then sat down next to Ben and pulled out every trick in Aubrey’s own arsenal. The I’m-so-cold accidental snuggle. The scared-of-the-dark accidental snuggle. The wow-you’re-really-strong accidental snuggle. By the time Melissa had moved on to the there’s-a-big-bug! accidental snuggle, Ben was cranky from fending Melissa off, and Aubrey was cranky knowing she wasn’t going to get a shot at Ben herself.

So she’d one-upped Melissa.

She’d dared everyone to go rock climbing on the cliffs and jump into the water—a stupid, dangerous stunt. She’d been neck and neck with Melissa all the way up to the top. They’d been neck and neck at the jump into the water, too. Aubrey had landed safely.

Not Melissa. A wave had slammed her up against a rock, and she’d broken her arm. They’d dumped her at the hospital and deserted her, not wanting to get in trouble for the illegal bonfire, the alcohol, or the cliff jumping.

Melissa had been treated and then cited for public intoxication and reckless endangerment.

Aubrey had gotten off scot-free.

She’d have written it off as a silly, juvenile stunt, but Melissa had been on course to play softball at a junior college. But with her arm requiring two surgeries, she’d been dropped from the team.



She’d never gone to college.

Aubrey’s path had crossed Melissa’s a few times here and there. After all, Tammy worked at the same salon. But Aubrey and Melissa had never talked about that night, which had changed Melissa’s life forever. But this morning, Aubrey had driven by the salon and got lucky, finding Melissa there early working on stock, and she brought up the past for the first time in all these years.

Melissa had told Aubrey that not too long after she’d broken her arm, her parents had cut her off because of her partying ways. It’d been a wake-up call. She’d gotten herself together, gone to beauty school, and was now running her own hair salon. She swore up and down that she was actually grateful for the path she’d ended up on. And happy.

Happy…

Aubrey shook her head in marvel. But Melissa had been sincere. She’d hugged Aubrey and told her to come in for a cut sometime and they’d talk about old times.

“Wow, she smiles.”