Page 107 of Friends Don't Kiss

Chris looks between the two of us. “You’re two of my favorite people. I didn’t see it coming, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I fucking love it for you guys, and for me.” He ruffles Kiara’s hair, and she swats his hand away, leaving my side to sit back with the group of women.

Then he takes me in a bear hug. “I kinda thought there was something going on between you two when you first brought her to me for a job. What happened?” he asks once he releases me.

“She uh…” Laughter takes a hold of me at the memory seared in my brain. “She said she’d chop my balls off if I ever looked at her that way again.”

He chuckles. “Sounds like something she’d say. She gonna be okay?”

“What do you mean?” Does he think her being with me is a problem?

Chris looks down at his feet, then over my shoulder. “Alex’s been wondering why she’s not applying for a grant with her. We all know she could be doing so much better. Not sure how to help her if she won’t let us.”

“She’s trying to make it on her own, but I’m working on getting her to ask for help. Right now, she’s looking for a place to open her own business, but it’s not easy to find.” From my research at Town Hall, getting the variance will be a tall order. “At the same time, she applied to this training in France. She thinks it’ll help her—”

“Help her with what? She could probably teach them.”

“She’s self-taught. Self-conscious about it.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. They have nothing on her.”

“She doesn’t see it that way. She thinks with a stamp of approval…” I hesitate and speak my fears, “hell, with a high position somewhere international for a while… she thinks it would make a difference in her career.”

“Dude—”

“Women have it harder than we do,” I say, suddenly seeing the world through Kiara’s eyes. “It sucks, and hopefully that bullshit will be over when your kid is all grown up, but it’s true. They have to fight harder to get to the same place. And if Kiara thinks going to that school can help her, I’m not gonna stand in her way and try and convince her otherwise. Because what do I know? I’d just be trying to keep her here for myself. I’d be part of the problem. And I wanna be part of the solution, even if that school doesn’t end up being the solution for her. End of the day, what she needs is confidence, and if Paris gives her that, and hell, Tokyo, Dubai, or wherever the fuck she might end up, then… I’ll support that.”

“But—”

“Look, Annabel wasn’t against it, so…”

“Annabel?”

“Yeah, Annabel Plum, the—”

“I know who Annabel Fucking Plum is! How do they know each other?”

I tell him the story of how I met Annabel’s husband, how Annabel was introduced to Kiara’s baking (he laughs so hard at the part where I suggested she take inspiration from Kiara’s pie that his eyes well up), and the date I arranged for Kiara.

“What did Annabel say about going to that training in France?” he asks, sobering up.

My gaze zeros in on Kiara at the other side of the room, currently gushing over Grace’s nails. “You know, she didn’t say. But she’s who made me realize the whole part about women seeking recognition more than men do.”

Chris grunts. “She didn’t try to talk her out of it?”

“Nope.”

“Thing is, with people like Annabel who come full circle and end up where they started, they don’t always realize the journey is what made their destination,” he says.

The fuck does he mean? “You’re gonna have to spell that out for me.”

“Annabel doesn’t seek fame and accolades because… she’s had those. She came back down from her high and settled in her home state, but it took her twenty years.”

“Thirty,” I snap, seeing where he’s going. “I love Kiara. And if that’s what she wants, if that’s what she thinks she needs, I want her to have it.”

“Even if that means losing her?”

My heart shatters at his words. I know it’s unrealistic to believe that we could have a long-distance relationship that would span decades and still survive. “One thing at a time,” I answer, more for my sake than his.

If I want to be there for Kiara, be the man she needs, there are certain things I’m not ready to fully face yet. Hell, I have a heart too, and it needs protecting like any other.

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