Page 14 of Kiss and Tell

Joey reclaimed his spot on the couch. “Okay. Care to enlighten me on why Rhiannon called last night?”

Miles took a swig of beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did I tell you Rhiannon and I have known each other our entire lives? Like literally since birth?”

Joey shook his head.

“We were neighbors, our apartments right next door to each other. Our moms have been best friends since they were in elementary school.”

“I didn’t know that. I always got the impression you met Rhiannon in high school.”

Miles knew why Joey thought that. It was because that was what he’d allowed him to believe. “Nope. We grew up together, and for most of those younger years, we were best friends. I was closer to her than I was to my own sister.”

Miles had even thought of her as a sister, until one day—one fucking random Tuesday in ninth grade—when the veil had been pulled from his eyes and suddenly, he wasn’t seeing the rambunctious, dramatic girl he called “best friend”. Instead, he was seeing the beautiful, sexy young woman she’d become…and he’d lost his heart to her.

Between one beat and the next, it was just there.

Love.

He’d started acting differently toward her after that. They’d just started high school, so no doubt his fourteen-year-old hormones had kicked into overdrive. At first, Rhiannon had rebuffed his flirting, thinking he was joking or even crazy. It took most of their freshmen year for him to convince her that his feelings were sincere. Just before summer break started, he’d gotten her to say yes to a date, and then a first kiss, and from that point on, they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

“Obviously, those feelings changed,” Joey said, pulling him from his thoughts.

Miles nodded. “We started dating when we were fourteen. Of course, we were teenagers in high school and prone to drama, so there were a few mini breakups along the way. Usually over stupid shit, like her thinking I wasn’t paying enough attention to her, or me getting jealous whenever I thought she was flirting with another guy.”

“Sounds like High School Dating 101.” Joey crossed his ankle over his knee, settling in. It amused Miles because Joey really did love a good story.

“What is this? Another bedtime story?” he joked.

Joey surprised him by not laughing. “No. This is something you should have told me a long time ago.”

Miles couldn’t argue with that, couldn’t even figure out what had held him back. There was very little he and Joey hadn’t shared with each other. Rhiannon had been Miles’s big holdout.

“What happened after graduation?” Joey asked, getting them back on track.

“We kept dating. Got our own apartment in Queens, not far from where our mothers still live, and we started doing the adult thing. Rhiannon was an aspiring actress with her sights set on Broadway. She waited tables between auditions. I was doing some professional voiceover work, but I made most of the money needed to pay the rent by driving a taxi. We lived together for four years, until…”

“Until?”

“She was waiting for me one night when I got home from work. Said she couldn’t do it anymore.”

Joey tilted his head, confused. “Why not?”

“We’d been a couple for over seven years. We’d been each other’s first kiss, first love, first time, first fuckingeverything. First…and only.”

Joey grimaced. “Ah. She wanted to sow her wild oats.”

“Yeah. Something like that. She’d been getting constant rejections after her auditions, so she decided she was wasting her time on New York and Broadway. She’d come to the conclusion her dreams were going to come true in Hollywood.”

Joey sighed. “So she left?”

“Yep. And that was when she added another first to my list. She was the first girl to ever break my heart. Shit, she’s theonlyone to ever do that.” He paused, then added, “A few times.”

Joey winced. “Damn, man. She kept coming back?”

“We didn’t talk for two years after she moved to California. My heart was shattered, and I dealt with the pain by staying pissed off at her. Then she came home for Christmas. You remember me saying our moms are best friends, right? Part of that friendship includes spending the holidays together. I showed up at Mom’s place Christmas Eve, and there was Rhiannon. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming, wanted it to be a surprise for her mom.”

“Kind of a shitty thing to do,” Joey grumbled. “She should have told you, at least.”

Miles lifted one shoulder casually. “She knew I’d stay away if she’d told me she was going to be there, and that I wouldn’t give her a chance to apologize and tell me how wrong she’d been.”

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