The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters(14)

Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at her. I watched her mouth move with her ramblings. I began to notice the fine lined groves cut deeply into her skin. Each heartache, each disappointment, was etched on her face. There were lines around her eyes too, set with the dark blue-grey color of lost sleep. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. I was sure I’d seen her before, maybe even here on this train.

I felt guilty. I’d just received a wonderful kiss. There hadn’t been a lot of tongue action or even any heavy breathing during it, but it carried the kind of want, the kind of love, that this woman spoke about. At least it did for me.

She’d seen it. My fiancé had given it to me just before I’d boarded the train. We’d stood on that platform and said our goodbyes without paying attention to anyone else who might be near. She was one of the others. Then she’d followed me into the passenger car, and had sat next to me. She started to talk about kissing as if we were old friends.

I’ve taken this same train every Monday after my weekends with him. Maybe she’d watched us before, and that’s where I’d seen her…

“Now don’t you start cryin’ for me! I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” She reached in her handbag and took out a tissue, handing it to me. “It’s just, when I seen you and your man out there, I thought ‘Now there’s a KickAss Kiss!’ How long you two been married?”

“We’re not married yet, but we will be. This November in fact… if everything goes okay.” I tried to smile pleasantly as I took the tissue from her, but turned my gaze away in embarrassment.

“He’s already married, ain’t he?”

My head snapped up and I looked at the woman nervously. The look of recognition mirrored back on her face frightened me.

“Yes. But he’s getting a divorce…” My words sounded ridiculous even to me. How many times had I heard that argument before, with other people?

The woman shook her head and sighed. “They all say that darlin’, and we stupidly believe ‘em. Dry your eyes baby. You know you don’t believe it deep down. I can tell by the way you’re lookin’ at me now.

“He’s been stringin’ you along like them Christmas lights I got hanging on my porch. I ain’t took them things down in years, ‘cause I’m too lazy to have to hang ‘em back up again. I just keep changing the bulbs that blow every year with others that I pull from a second old string. It’s easier than buyin’ new.”

I wiped my nose and eyes with the tissue. “How did you know he was already married?”

“’Cause I was you once. ‘Bout thirty years ago. I believed then too. Think that’s when I first learned to kiss the way I do now. Oh I get by, but it ain’t the same as for real.” She closed her handbag, as the train lurched to a halt.

“This is my stop darlin’, and I gotta get off. You might want to think about that too. There is such a thing as a Kiss-Ass Kiss, but it ain’t attached to a third pair of lips.” She placed a leathery hand on my cheek and lifted my face. “Don’t end up like me sugar. It ain’t no fun bein’ dead.”

I watched her leave the car and I moved to the window so that I could follow her movements through the crowd of people exiting the train. She turned and waved at me as the train started to move again.

Then she did something that surprised me. She blew me a kiss. A KickAss Kiss. One that knocked the wind right out of me. I was looking at a picture of myself in about thirty years. I decided then and there that this would be my last time riding this train.





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Shirley Bourget is the Author of epic paranormal fantasy and romance titles. Her books carry unusual themes like her tattoo series, Living Ink. She lives in East Texas with her husband and is learning how to be 100% Redneck Lake Trash and loving it. When not writing, Shirley likes taking long walks around the lake, reading, painting, and photography. To read more of her writing, and to follow a listing of her books, please visit her website:

www.shirleybourget.com





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A Father’s Kiss


(A Slammed Series Epilogue)


Colleen Hoover





Prologue


I pull the collar of my shirt up to my eyes and wipe them again. I know how much Mrs. Katie hates it when I do that. She says it stretches the collars of my tops and ruins the shirts. I don’t want to ruin all the nice shirts she bought me, so I’ve been trying not to cry as much as I used to. I quickly glance up at her, hoping she didn’t notice, but she just smiles and squeezes my hand.

“Now Olivia, you knew when you came to stay with me that this was only temporary. I’m getting too old to keep foster children and I hadn’t planned on taking any more children at all before you came.“ She bends down and puts her arms around me. I automatically tense up at the gesture, like I do every time. I’ve been here three months and, although I’m still not used to it, I’ve been hugged more in these three months than I have in my entire ten years of life.

“I knew it was only until they could find me somewhere else to live again, Mrs. Katie. I was just…I was hoping you would change your mind.” I plop down onto the bed behind me and fold my hands in my lap. The fingernail polish on my thumb is already starting to chip. When Mrs. Katie painted them last weekend, I couldn’t decide which color to choose, there were so many. She told me that sometimes the best choice is when you choose all the choices. So that’s what I chose. All of them. Each one of my nails is painted a different color, like a rainbow.