Page 37 of The Falcon and the Foe

“Did you have some kind of Christmas Carol awakening last night, Scout Leader Russ? Were you visited by the ghosts of decent human beings past, present, and future?”

“What does that mean?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

I expected a witty retort. Or at least a humoring laugh.

What I got was Russ Ettinger pressing his mouth on mine in a full-on kiss.

WTF.

His lips were salty and hot and turning me into putty, but still….WTF.

Russ barely found me tolerable. Was he kissing me out of pity? And why was I kissing him back?

This was all kinds of awkward, and the boner tightening my pants added another layer of confusion.

“Um.” I hopped off my car and gulped back a massive lump in my throat. “I…”

My brain couldn’t think of viable words.

“Yeah.” Russ leapt off my car like it was on fire. “Not sure where that came from. Sorry.”

He gave a half-wave as he speed-walked away. In seconds, he was in his car driving out of there like a WTF bat out of WTF hell.

I spent a few moments standing still, alone with my scrambled, incoherent thoughts. I tried to remember the last time I was kissed. Years ago. Before Josh. A random guy at a random bar. Another random mistake. His kiss was sloppy and reeking of alcohol. Russ was awkward, but tender. Soothing.

Before I drove home, I touched my finger to my lips and tasted tender, awkward, soothing Russ one last time.

12

RUSS

Idrove in silence to Ralph’s to pick up Quentin.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I muttered to myself throughout the ride.

I couldn’t give myself an answer, though. I couldn’t explain what pushed me to kiss Cal—not with words. It was a feeling that’d been building in my chest that had staged a full coup over my brain. Everything about Cal that I’d found annoying now turned me the hell on. When we were talking on top of his car, merely the sound of his voice made my dick twitch in my pants. The way he arched an eyebrow at something I said triggered this primal desire to jump his bones.

I had jumped exactly zero bones since my husband died four years ago, and I wasn’t looking to start.

And not with Cal.

It didn’t matter because he was not into kissing me. That was clear as Saran Wrap. He pulled away so fast he broke the sound barrier. The look of horror and shock on his face told me everything I needed to know: that I’d had a horrible lapse in judgment.

It didn’t matter that I thought about him every night before I fell asleep or that at work, I sometimes rubbed my hand down my forearms to remember when he reached over me to type.

What the hell had gotten into me?

Cal was endlessly frustrating. Disorganized. Trying to change the fabric of the Falcons.

But he was also trying to hold it together like I was.

And he made me laugh.

He was just being Cal, though. That’s how he was with everyone. I wasn’t anyone special in his large orbit.

We had to see each other at weekly meetings and spend a weekend together secluded in the woods. Now was not the time to start acting like some horny teen kissing the first (damn sexy) guy I had a real conversation with in four years.

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