Page 1 of Kiss Me Tonight

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Aspen

London, Maine

Handling balls isn’t for everyone.

But here I am, playing with the decades-old football that the Golden Fleece keeps around for whenever a Levi enters the pub.

Growing up, I always pretended the honor was bestowed upon us because someone in my family did the world a good deed. You know, something inspiring, like curing a rare disease or establishing a school for god-knows-what or proving, once and for all, that aliens exist and Earth isn’t the sole survivable planet. I don’t know, something monumental, something that carries weight and importance—something morethan the truth.

And the truth is, us Levis are notoriously notable for only one thing: football.

The town of London loves us for it. Lovesmefor it, even though I have two strikes against me. My lack of penis being the first, and my status as a “traitor” trailing behind in a close second place. The minute I eloped with Rick, the general manager for the Pittsburgh Steelers, heads started to roll. My mother’s included.

No New Englander betrays the beloved Patriots like I did and lives to tell the tale.

Luckily for me, Londoners are the sort to forgive, if not forget, a fact I’ve never been more grateful for than when Shawn, the pub’s long-time bartender, flips over a fresh pint glass, fills it to the brim with Guinness, and plunks it down in front of me with awe-knew-you’d-come-crawling-back-at-some-pointgleam in his dark eyes.

Out loud, though?

No questions asked.

No snide remarks about how my ring finger is surprisingly bare since we last crossed paths or that I’m already straddling the thin line between sober-and-boring and drunk-and-dancing-on-pool-tables.

It’s probably for the best that the Golden Fleece isn’t a pool table kinda place. It’s the oldest pub in town, built sometime just before the turn of the twentieth century, and the only technology in here is wired to the cash registers, the jukebox blasting Aerosmith like the 90s have risen from the dead, and a massive TV hoisted behind the bar. The bathrooms are hooked up to electricity, too, but that’s to be expected. The rest of the place is a waltz back in time, complete with tapered candles, which sit dead-center on every table, and equally fancy sconces decorating the walls.

I’ve missed the quirkiness of the place.

I sigh into my Guinness. Fifteen years is a heck of a long time to be away.

Catching my eye, Shawn drops his hands to the bar, a damp rag slung over one shoulder. “Never thought I’d see the day when Aspen Levi walked back on in here.”

Might not look like it,I want to boast,but I’m in celebration mode.

Celebrating my return to the motherland, as well as my new teaching job at London High. History isn’t my passion—not like football. Which is why I’m even more thrilled to take over as the new head coach for the Wildcats. The football field is my home away from home. Whistles blowing, refs charging up and down the turf, the sound of bulky pads colliding as players make contact, like modern-day knights hurtling toward victory.

I graze my thumb over the football’s cracked leather laces and breathe through the lingering grief. I’m here because Dad’s not. Not at the Golden Fleece, not at London High, not anywhere. He’d be disappointed to learn about the events that led to my return to London. His baby girl was strong, a badass on and off the field, intensely focused—and I’m . . . divorced, for one. An expert at putting on a brave face and a cheerful smile, for another. Unfortunately, I haven’t felt like a badass in years.

Beneath the football, my knee jiggles up and down. Dad may have passed away three years ago, but it’s Mom who wore me down eventually and convinced me to come home.

You’re not happy in Pittsburgh,she told me almost weekly.

Rick’s a good-for-nothing cheating bastard.

We need you, Aspen.Ineed you.

Mom hasn’t asked me for anything since I dropped out of Boston College in my senior year. Back when I was the first female kicker in all of the NCAA. Back when the NFL—for the first time in history—was considering drafting awomanto the professional level.

All my life, my parents urged me to rock the boat.

Push at sexist, big boys’ club sensibilities.

Show the world at large that just because I was born with a vagina, that didn’t mean I couldn’t make my mark on a league dominated by cocks and balls. It was nothing but an unlikely pipe dream.

Let’s put it this way: I had the world at my fingertips, and I lost it all.

No, that’s a lie—Igaveit away.

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