“How’s your hand?” Mabel asked Zane, her gaze darting down to it as it rested on the cart handle and then back up to meet his eyes.
“It’s fine, Mabel Joan,” he said, spreading his fingers and rolling his wrist. “Would have done it all over again.” He surprised himself by his use of her middle name. He hadn’t done that in a long time.
Her eyes narrowed, and she swallowed hard. “Yeah, well, you might not be so convinced of that when you get the documentation in the mail from the hospital.”
Oh, that. Yes. He’d figured he’d be written up. “Small price to pay, Mabel.” He looked into her eyes, but she only looked away. “How’s your throat? I think I might have that scene burned into my memory for the rest of all time. What a loser.” Even now, his fists involuntarily flexed as his blood pounded in his ears.
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat as if to prove it. “Thanks for, um, helping me like that.”
I’d travel to the ends of the earth to help you.
“I did what I had to do. I’m just glad it turned out okay.” With a swift hit to the gut, he missed how things used to be with them.Even just a year ago, although slightly on edge, they could still talk, banter, and laugh. His love for her was always there, and maybe it always would be, but at least back then he could see her and talk with her without feeling like his head was going to explode.
But then everything changed. He’d finally messed up in Jamaica. Losing control like that was not okay for a man like Zane Taylor.
“I should have stayed longer to make sure you were okay,” he offered, the guilt of it roaring back up again.
Mabel pulled a pen and notepad out of her back pocket. “I didn’t expect you to. It’s fine.” She stuck the pen in her mouth while she thumbed through the little sheets of lined paper. As per the usual, Zane’s focus drifted to Mabel’s mouth.
Their first and only kiss. Oh, how easily that memory surfaced at the most inopportune times.
They’d been in the library at the middle school, “studying” for a science test. But he totally wasn’t studying.
Studying Mabel? Yes. But there was no book learnin’ going on. He was into her, and with all of his nonexistent experience as a ninth-grade kid, he’d thought she was into him too.
She’d written a note on the top of their study guide,Do you “like” like me?
He’d stared at it, his heart pounding. When he turned to her, her eyes were sad and wistful. He was sure her heart had to have been beating as fast as his was.
Without warning, she kissed him.
It was only slightly more than a simple peck on the lips. But it was pure, real, and sweet…unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. The shock of the spark caused him to move away with uncertainty, suddenly shy from his lack of experience.
But something happened in that moment, and now that he was an adult, he thought maybe he understood it better. Mabel’s expression turned to embarrassment, her lips pursed so hard that her anger dimple popped, and she turned back to their study guide. She quickly finished quizzing him for the science test, her voice low, and then left.
The next day, he noticed she’d erased the question on their study guide. Unable to understand what had happened, and frozen with fear and a feeling of ineptness, he did nothing.
Then her mom got sick, spent a few weeks in the hospital, and passed away. Then there was no going back because everything had changed.
If he could go back, he would have fixed things, told her he did indeed ”like” like her. He would have been by her side when she lost her mom.
But the strain that was already there soared to impossible heights after her death. And now here they were, at Food ‘N’ Friends, where he was reimagining their kiss like a relic stuck in a time warp. Because he’d never felt with any other women since what he’d felt with Mabel.
At the sound of footsteps, she turned.
“The deli said the ham slices will be six dollars a pound,” the man behind them said as he reached Mabel’s cart. He was almost as tall as Zane, but he had the coloring of a Scandinavian California surfer dude.
Mabel’s gaze moved between the two men, and her cheeks flushed. “Dallin, this is Zane, an old friend of mine. And, Zane, this is Dallin from school.”
From school? As in, the Dallin, hot-for-teacher guy?
The only thing worse than a sandy blond lock falling over his eyes like he was in a Mr. America contestant was the way Mabel looked at him. It was brief, as the two men shook hands, but Zane’s insidesburned at the way her glance at Dallin should have been meant for Zane.
Great. He needed to move on, all while knowing she was into this Ken doll replica?
You snooze, you lose, buddy. And you started snoozing a long, long time ago.
Mabel pursed her lips a moment before speaking again. “Dallin and I are in charge of getting the hors d’oeuvres for the nursing program’s annual formal event in a few weeks.”
