The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters(52)

“It’s not my fault every guy I meet is a prick.”

Liam sighed, long and loud. “What if they’re not, Toby? What if they were just nice guys who really liked you but couldn’t get close because we’ve got this crazy co-dependent thing going on and we wouldn’t let them?”

We?

I stammered half a response.

“I’m as much to blame,” Liam admitted. “Probably more. I started this whole thing, after all. That’s why I think it’s got to be me who stops it.”

“What if I don’t want to stop?” I whispered the words, my eyes wide and beseeching.

“Oh, Toby.” He cupped my cheek and I butted my head into his hand like a cat seeking comfort. “That’s why we’ve got to, don’t you see? Before one of us gets hurt.”

Before?

Something in my irritated snort and eyeroll must have given me away, because I can’t say I’d ever seen Liam contrite before, but that’s exactly how he looked. Instead of speaking, however, he rose from the high stool on which he was half-sitting, took my hand and led me onto the small, crowded dance floor. With the bass thumpa-thumping in our ears and the heat of a hundred closely-packed bodies surrounding us, he kissed me, in public, for the very first time.

It felt like goodbye.





*


We didn’t see each other for two whole months after that night. We kept in touch via occasional text messages and one strained phone call early on, but it was too painful, too raw for me to engage. Liam had his life and I had to let him lead it. I also needed to find a life of my own.

I went out with other friends, acquaintances, even escorted a receptionist from work who wanted a guided tour of the Village with some of her loud, obnoxious girlfriends. It was the longest separation from him I’d ever know and I missed him like a limb, like I’d lost one of my senses, given it up after he took me home and left me standing in the doorway, the ghost of an impression of his lips against mine the last thing I had to hold onto.

I vacillated between extremes for a while, yo-yoed from going out every night desperately seeking a man to help me forget, to staying in, closing the door and locking myself away from the rest of the world. My friends thought it a good thing Liam had called time on the physical side of our friendship, convinced he had been poisoning my other relationships. They took me to the cinema and for meals at ethnic restaurants, even bowling. Anything to provide an alcohol-free distraction.

I even thought I was starting to get over him. Starting to… Until he called.

Just the sight of his name on the screen of my phone was enough to stop my heart. His husky hello jump-started it again, a rapid tattoo I was sure he must be able to hear through the connection.

“Toby? Toby?”

I swallowed thickly. “Hey.”

“Hey. Um… I was wondering… Do you fancy doing something tonight? We’ve not seen each other in ages and, well,”—he cleared his throat—”I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” The words slipped out, too keen and too honest. “But what about Viv?”

“We, ah, um, we broke up.”

“I’m sorry.” A small part of me probably was, even if the rest was doing a happy dance.

“Yeah, well, turns out she wasn’t the one for me after all.”

I could have told you that! my inner voice screamed, but I bit down on actually speaking the words.

“Water under the bridge.” I could practically see him shrugging, the shoulders of his beautifully tailored suit rising with the rippling movement. “So, tonight? You doing anything?”

You. “No.”

“The Village?”

“Really?”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed? “I’ll meet you there.”

I spent forever getting ready. The dress code for the Village is generally lax, but that didn’t mean nobody made an effort. Liam would be in jeans and a black, close-fitting T-shirt if I knew him, and my own attire was similar, although the dramatic graffiti-style wings stencilled onto the back of my top added a splash of colour. It was early June so I left my jacket at home, the short capped sleeves of the T-shirt showing off the new tattoo an old uni friend had talked me into getting a few weeks earlier. The itching had finally stopped, my skin healed, and I wanted to show it off while it was still new and vibrant.

Liam noticed it immediately, grabbed my arm and shoved my sleeve up over my shoulder to examine it.

“What changed your mind?” he demanded. I’d been talking of getting it done for months, but had always put it off.

I shrugged. “Just seemed time to bite the bullet.”

Liam nodded, frowning in concentration as he traced the outline of the dark blocks of colour.

I waited with baited breath for his response. He wasn’t tattooed himself, but several of his exes had been. I wished I could have had some gorgeous twining, tendriled thing, but I lacked the definition in my biceps to make such a design work. Instead I’d opted for a more Celtic, tribal theme, large blocks of blue-black covering my upper arm and shoulder with stripes of unmarked flesh forming striking geometric patterns through the ink.

“I love it.” He released me with a broad smile that I returned in kind, secretly relieved, even though I hadn’t got it for him.