Page 4 of No Angels

“Tell me why you thought about that kiss.” My nails are digging into my palms. So I won’t give into temptation again and touch her. She’s not here to stay. Why would she be?

She lifts her chin and resolve floods her face. It’s the same look she got every time I dared her when we were kids. “I thoughtabout it because it was my first kiss. And I’d been wanting it for a really long time before you finally made your move.”

I take a step closer, erasing my retreat. “How long?”

She bites her lip and I want to soothe it. “Since that weekend you tried to teach me to drive your old pickup truck.”

I smile at the memory. “You almost tore out my transmission.”

She wanted to learn to drive a stick so I offered to teach her. After we stalled out at a stoplight on the top of Harmar Hill, she panicked. We started rolling backward and I was shouting instructions and she was crying and red faced. When she finally managed to crank it again and floored it so we fishtailed when we took off, we both started laughing.

We were laughing so hard we couldn’t see straight, and I motioned for her to pull over at the Dairy Freeze. I bought us both waffle cones – vanilla for me and chocolate with sprinkles for her.

She asked for a taste of mine and I asked for a taste of hers. When I handed her my cone and her raspberry pink tongue snuck out and licked the melting vanilla, I couldn’t look away.

That’s when it started for me. It probably started way before that, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Some part of me knew she was it for me the time she beat me in the fifty-yard dash on field day in fifth grade. But that ice cream cone was the thing that brought it all home. It’s when I knew I’d never be the same.

“That’s when it started for you too?”

“Yeah,” she ruefully admits. “I thought you were going to ask me to the junior prom.”

“I didn’t.”

She grimaces. “No. You asked Cindy Houlihan. And even though she was the head cheerleader and you were a gearhead instead of a football player, she said yes.”

“And we were together until the day all of us graduated.”

“The day you finally kissed me – after I’d already been waiting for two years and after I’d already made plans to leave. You waited too long. I wasn’t going to stay – no matter how good the kiss was.”

I step back. If she could walk away from all those memories, away from me after I kissed her, maybe she was never the girl I thought she was. Or the girl I wanted her to be.

And maybe the woman isn’t for me either.

I give her a hard look and she glares right back. “Fine,” I tell her.

When I walk away this time, I don’t look back.

Chapter Two

Bianca

“Hey honey,” Mom callsfrom her spot on the couch as I toe off my shoes.

“Hey Mom.” She has chemo tomorrow, so I know she’s taking it easy this evening so she can gather her strength. “I was going to make potato soup for dinner, is that okay?”

She yawns. “That sounds delicious. If I can’t keep my eyes open, we’ll have leftovers tomorrow.”

“I saw Mike today. You never mentioned he was still here.”

Mom sighs and makes her way into the kitchen. She slides an arm around my waist. “I didn’t want to upset you. I always knew you wanted him to look at you as more than the neighbor kid with the braids hanging down her back.”

She’s always been able to see straight through me. “He was my crush all through high school. I thought he didn’t see me that way until he kissed me the night before I left.”

“Oh my. You’ve kept that secret close.”

I shrug as I set the cutting board on the island. “It didn’t mean anything. I was leaving and there was no point in dwelling on it.”

“Bee,” she chides. “I know you better than that. You purposely ghosted him didn’t you?”

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