Aulie Desfleurs
Play:Something is Happening by Hermans Hermits
While I haven’t conferred personally with Jane Austen, I’m fairly certain that George Wickham was not a forehead-kisser. Jack Parker, though, apparently is. A surge of electricity courses through my body as soon as his soft lips touch my skin, like a carnival circuit coming to life. The residual flips in my stomach feel like a never-ending rollercoaster ride, and with each twist and turn an anxiety-filled nausea increases.
I’ve never liked rollercoasters, and after five minutes stuck on this one, I’d kindly like to exit the ride.
Shivers work down my spine in the chill autumn air.
Yes, the air. That’s definitely why there is gooseflesh puckering my skin. The finely raised bumps have nothing to do with the five-second montage of Jack leaning over me, his lips quirked softly and his hand finding my shoulder, playing in a loop in my mind. As I breathed in, the scent of pine and cedar filled my nostrils, wrapping me up in a warm, flannel-clad blanket.
The whole thing has thoroughly ruined me, and that’s a problem because we’ll need to do more than kiss each other’s foreheads during the fair. In the past, Lydia and Wickham were found huddled together in compromising situations. Initially, it was supposed to be just enough to offend regency sensibilities, but we lost the drama in a generational translation.
When Emma and Callen took on the characters, keeping them to regency standards was nearly impossible, so we embraced a more intimate approach, and it ended up adding to the fair-goer enjoyment.
Well, until last year, when things started going a little too far.
But kissing and forced proximity have become a part of the characters’ roles. And me? I can’t even handle a simple forehead kiss.
“…Say what you want about Jack Parker’s skill level. But today’s game is a perfect argument for trading him,”a tin, hearty voice echoes from the multiple televisions, bouncing off the star-chipped trees that twinkle in the night sky.“He couldn’t control his emotions in the first game, and now he’s missing Stand Up to Cancer Night and the celebration of his dad’s birthday. If playing tonight didn’t motivate him to be a team player, nothing will. The man’s pathetic, Scott. I’m sorry.”
The rollercoaster car in my stomach careens off an unfinished track, hurtling into a freefall and crashing into the Ferris Wheel of Guilt. A long ride with no ending in sight. How could I have forgotten about his dad’s birthday? I never forget that.
Glancing up, I seek Jack standing by the bar. He’s been gone for longer than necessary if all he’s doing is buying our drinks. His shoulders slump over the bar top as Andrew, one of my high school classmates, pours a shot into a glass and slides it over to him, muting the televisions with his free hand. Jack throws his head back. His throat works as he swallows the shot, and I watch transfixed, following the lines of his bearded jaw.
He looks too darn good in a baseball hat, and it’s rude.
And distracting.
I blame his taut, tan skin and smoldering looks for frying my brain and making me forget something important, like his dad’s birthday.
Don’t forget how self-involved you’ve become with your own grief.
There’s also that. First Gus, now Jack—I’m letting a lot of important stuff slip because my grief’s suffocating me.
“Aurelie Desfleurs, you are a sight for sore eyes.” A slimy purr from an even slimier figure draws my attention from Jack’s broad shoulders. Standing in front of me in a white button-up and an infuriating smirk, is my ex-Fiancé, Tyler Higgins.
Sure, the train car in my stomach has already crashed, but now it’s tunneling past my stomach, firmly lodged in my lower calf. My deepest apologies to all the passengers on board. Refunds will be available upon exiting.
Sweat coats my palms, and I fold them onto my lap, discreetly wiping them on the rough wool of my sweater.
Why did I come out with Jack when I knew Tyler was in town?
His blue-green eyes flicker with amusement as his infuriating smirk widens into his devastating grin—a grin that got him just about anything when we were dating.
As pathetic as it sounds, Tyler’s the only person I’ve let myself love romantically—it was a shallow love built on the flimsiest foundation—and yet, I let it go too far.
Just like my mother used to do.
After Gus went away to college, I dated Tyler for three years. At night, I’d sneak out, meeting him on the banks of King’s Pond for late-night kisses under the stars and hot and heavy clothes-on make-out sessions.
It wasn’t until he proposed that we went further, and I gave him my heart and body, safeguarded by a promise. My first lesson in humanity, some people don’t keep their word. Tyler was one of them.
Five years later, I know now it was for the best, even if it devastated me then.
After him, I shut my heart off to love. I’m too foolish to trust myself with matters of the heart.
Clearing the thick bile in my throat, I go to speak and find I’m far too parched for speech. “Tyler, hi,” I croak. “How are you?”
