Page 40 of Your Kiss Is On My List

“Is that right? Name two more things you like about me?” It’s a flirty thing to say, but I can’t help it. My body is telling me to flirt, my heart is telling me to flirt and I’m not sure why I should hold out. Maybe the fear is outweighing everything else, telling me to ignore the blocks, the connection with the accident, because she’s the good part of the whole thing, standing by me. It’s easy to ignore the age and experience gap when she looks at me like she does right now, like she’s a sensual woman who knows how to flirt, confident about where it all leads and eager to get there. I hope to fuck it’s true, that I’m reading her right, that it’s not another false reading by my overeager dick.

But if we stay downstairs in the main room, it’s harmless flirting, right? No need to rush things now that we’ve cleared the air, right? Or maybe what Lou said is true. Maybe we were always together, always meant to be.

“Okay, I’ll tell you two things,” she says, jerking my dick to attention at her definitely flirty tone of voice. “If we can go upstairs to your room where it’s more private.” She arches a brow and now we’re both officially flirting. Fuck. Do we go there again? I look around the empty room.

“We have plenty of privacy here.” I mean to dampen the flirtation but my dick doesn’t pay attention to the message. And neither does Dani. Maybe it’s the hunger I know must show in my eyes giving me away, sending mixed messages.

“Your room or nothing,” she says, the picture of determination and maybe confidence too because she knows she has me wrapped.

I stand and put out my hand to haul her up from where she’s sunk into the too soft sofa, not that she’s heavy or out of shape or couldn’t get up on her own, but because I want to help her up, to take her hand, to seal the message that we’re flirting and we’re going there. Up to my room. Alone.

“You were going to tell me two things?” I say, closing the door.

“Let’s start with the business. I wanted to tell you about my progress on your profile.” She grins and in spite of the brilliance and the magic of her energy caught up and intensified in my room, she couldn’t have found a more effective way to bring my dick to heel.

“I talked to your old coach about the accident and got some clips of the game from him. I also got some high school footage for perspective and scheduled an in-person interview with your high school coach.

“He says there was never any hint that the incident ever happened, or that it ever had an effect on your play except that you were more serious than the others, more mature. He told me you never brought up the accident and neither did you.” She clears her throat. “But I found something else out. I visited Corey’s grave—”

“You what?” Shit.

“It’s okay. You know I’ve been there before. With you.” She pauses to let me settle and I do. We went to the cemetery together that same day she visited my room and talked me into going back to playing hockey. It had been her idea. She said we could let Corey know I was skating again and get his spiritual blessing. She’d insisted he’d be happy about it because there’d already been too much suffering over the accident. With emphasis on the word accident. I nod at her now, almost smiling internally at the memory because she’d only been ten years old and she acted like she was a wise old woman.

“The cemetery manager told me you visited his grave frequently. I asked him how he’d remember you visiting when so many people come and go and he said it was because you went there so often in the beginning and now it’s once a year around the time of his death. And I remember that you’ve come home in June every year, though not for long and I wondered about it. Remembered the anniversary like it was engraved in my bones.”

“You’re right. I visit Corey’s grave every June fifth.”

“Why?”

“Simple question. But I don’t have an answer.” I shrug, but the depth of compassion in her eyes compels me to dig deep, to give her something. “Maybe it’s guilt, or paying homage, apologizing, respecting him and his family’s sorrow. Acknowledging what happened, not forgetting, but putting it all in its place in my life.”

“Not letting it define you,” she says, “but incorporating it, swallowing it and digesting it in all its enormity.” She’s bang on. I nod. My chest tightens but I drag in a deep if shaky breath.

“How about if we talk about something else?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“What’s the second thing you were going to tell me?”

“Oh that.” Her smile turns shy. “It’s more a request but here it is.” She pauses, moves in close, has me captive with her eyes, her warmth, the promise of something more, something spectacular because it’s her and I find myself holding my breath waiting for whatever she wants to ask me, knowing without hearing it, without a doubt, that I’ll say yes to whatever it is.

“Come with me to my dad’s house. I could really use the moral support,” she rushes on before I can react with anything but a spike in adrenaline because the implications are off the charts complicated. “It’ll only be for one night, next Saturday after your matinee game, we can stay for Sunday and get back ready for Monday classes.” She pauses, then adds, “Not a whole weekend, a half, but a good start for me and my dad.” She’s close and I could swear she’s holding her breath waiting for my inevitable answer.

“How can I say no? You know I’ll be there for you. But what’s your dad going to think of you bringing me along? Don’t you think he’ll want to spend the time getting to know you?” My question is as gentle as I can make it, without saying it may be an awkward situation for all of us with me there.

“About that…” She huffs out a breath. “Okay I’ll just say it. I may have mentioned to him that we were seeing each other—it was before we broke up—so he invited you.” She pauses to give me a chance to react, but my mind is blank because I’m staring into her too blue, too expressive eyes. She goes on, “When he called back to confirm our plans, I meant to tell him we broke up, but…the truth is, I really do need the moral support and you’re the best moral support giver I know on the planet.” I huff a laugh.

“If you say so, but I’d say it’s the other way around. You’re the one who’s given me moral support. My biggest hockey fan.”

“Guess that proves we’re best friends.”

“Then it’s a plan. I’ll drive. As long as we get back early so I can get to my early skate around Monday morning.” As I finish my sentence, the implications of pretending I’m her boyfriend again come crashing down and my adrenaline spikes—again. “Only one thing—” She cuts me off.

“Yes, I know. We’ll be sharing a room,” she says. She doesn’t qualify and say how that’s going to work, doesn’t relegate me to the floor and I’m left with the choice of making assumptions, possibly wrong ones as usual, or asking her flat out. Fuck. Why is the prospect of asking her if she wants to sleep with me scare the shit out of me? I clear my throat and man up.

“Dani… how’s that going to work?” She gives me a long look during which my heart drums so fast I’m worried about having a coronary.

“We should see how we feel about that in the moment,” her voice is barely above a whisper. “You know I… have feelings for you. That hasn’t changed. I know you’re not interested in a virgin, but—”