Page 158 of Friends Don't Kiss

“But?” He comes to a stop and looks at me. “Lemme be clear. My ex designed it. I should have thought of getting rid of it sooner. It wasn’t fair to you. Okay? That’s the only but.”

sixty-one

Kiara

Iendupnearlyfallingasleep in the booth at Lazy’s from jet lag and emotion. The whole town is there, and they all want to know how I liked the barn. I think some of them were afraid I might not stay after all, and it pains me that I’ve sometimes been so abrasive that people thought I didn’t really like it here.

I love it here. I love the people, I love the place, and more importantly, I love Colton.

“It’s more than I could ever wish for,” I say. “I just don’t know how to thank you.” There’s also the question of who paid for this, but I’ll get to the bottom of it later.

“Just keep baking!” someone hollers.

“Told ya,” Colton says, rubbing my shoulder.

He takes me to his apartment. We fall asleep in his bed, after some lazy, sweet, yet much-needed sex.

I jolt awake at three in the morning, Colton sleeping next to me, one arm thrown over his eyes. The sheets are pushed aside, his strong, beautiful body on full display for me. I lick my lips but resist the temptation to kiss my way down from his throat to his flat stomach. I want nothing more than to wake him with my mouth around his cock, but as arousing as it may seem, three in the morning seems unfair. The man can wait. He needs his sleep, after everything he’s done for me.

I slip out of bed before I give in to my desire and wake him up, and curl up on the couch in the living room. My apartment is rented out until next week, but I’m wondering if Colton and I shouldn’t just move in together. It seems like the reasonable thing to do, and it would continue to bring in some much-needed cash to finance the barn. I’m appreciative of all the efforts everyone has put in to make it happen. Truthfully, I couldn’t dream of a better location or look for my business, and I’m beyond grateful for the collective effort that made this happen. But I’m not letting anyone pay for it.

That’s a daytime problem, so I pick up my phone to kill time and scroll on social media. My attention catches on missed messages from my sister, wishing me much luck in Paris, then welcoming me back stateside.

That’s unlike her. I head over to her social media. She’s only posted two photos recently, both black and white. One is of a meadow under the snow. The other one an artistic rendering of her profile. Then I notice her proclaimed status: single.

I stretch my legs and shoot her a quick thank-you for her messages. I don’t even feel anything at this point. That chapter of my life is definitely over—the one where I try and fail to gain acceptance from my mother and my sister. It’s not that I gave up on them. I did that a long time ago, but it used to hurt so bad thinking about it. It’s that it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s irrelevant. They’re irrelevant to me, to my life. They can be a part of my life if they choose to, or they can not be. It doesn’t affect me. Strangely, I find that I’m more open to forgiving them, to letting them back into my life if they wanted to, now that I don’t seek their approval anymore.

My thoughts inevitably drift to my father, and I let them take me there. It’s okay. I’ve also accepted he’s gone, and I’ve accepted who he was, with all his imperfections. It’s still hard for me, at this point, to make peace with the fact that my childhood was a lie. I’m trying to reframe this way of thinking as well. Maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe it’s really what Mom said—that he was trying to protect us. Maybe the snowball fights and the dolls he’d bring back from his “travels” were as real for him as they were for us. I have no reason to believe he didn’t love us in his own way.

What’s still hard is the way everything went down, and how my family turned against me. It was unjust and cruel of them.

A small part of me is hyperaware that maybe I take after them when I’m stubborn in keeping people at arm’s length, even if Colton has helped me become much better at not being that way.

I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to be them. I want to be like my found family here in Emerald Creek—open-hearted, welcoming, forgiving, understanding.

“Boy, do you look serious this morning,” Colton says, standing in boxer briefs, hair all mussed up, one hand scratching his belly, the other behind his neck as he lets out a lazy yawn.

“Boy, do you look yummy this morning,” I answer, heat growing between my legs.

He chuckles and bends over to graze my lips with a kiss. “What’re you thinking about, sweets?”

“I think I should change my name. Take my mother’s maiden name or something. I dunno.” I know Smith is a common name, but I feel icky carrying my father’s name. Even if I’m telling myself stories about how he probably loved us in his own way, it still remains he was associated with organized crime and a cheat all his life. “I’d like to put some distance,” I say to try and explain to Colton.

“Sure, that makes sense,” he answers to my surprise. I was expecting a push back, a question. “I’m gonna make coffee,” he says.

I jump off the couch. “Why don’t you let me make coffee, and you go back to bed and get rid of the underwear and let me take care of you?” I’m up against him now, and I run my fingernails against his back so there’s no possible confusion about what kind of care I have in mind.

He pulls the cami I wear to bed off me, our skins now heating against each other. “Coffee can wait,” he says. “Get back to bed, it’s barely past four.” He leans over to take me in a kiss while I slide a hand under his boxers.

He hisses and I drop to my knees. “Or don’t get back to bed,” he mumbles while I take his length in my mouth. “Christ, Kiara, you have some mouth on you.” I lick his shaft, making eye contact with him, and his cock bobs. “That’s it, dirty girl. Lick it.”

I give it one more lick then take it as far as I can down my throat, sucking and twirling my tongue, reveling in his growls and hisses, and at the way his hands land on my head to give me direction. “Take it like a big girl.”

Wetness pools between my legs as he fucks my mouth, and I moan.

“Christ, Kiara, you’re gonna make me come if you keep doing that.”

I take him deeper, suck him harder.

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