by Mimi Strong
At the next table, the girl explained the program she was taking at school while the guy peppered her lilting monologue with nods and I'm-listening cues. He seemed calm and cool, but her hands were out of control, flitting like sparrows to her hair, glasses, cell phone, then gripping the edge of the hard wood table. Oh, she wanted to show him her special date panties.
I took my red laptop out of my bag and prayed that my new coaching client, Devin Nelson, would be ugly. He'd sounded cute on the phone, and that was the last thing I needed.
Most of my clients were women, but I'd helped a few men, and the experience was intense for both of us. I call it the Best Man Effect. When you go to a friend's wedding, you might see guys you've known your whole life, but suddenly they're in a rented suit, and shaking with nervous energy, especially if they have to give a speech. They're different. A guy you'd never considered dating shoots past the Potential Boyfriend category and straight to Husband Material. Next thing you know, you're in the back of the wedding party's rented limousine with a groomsman's hand up your skirt.
As a coach, my clients were supposed to be off-limits, no matter how good they looked after shopping sessions and confidence exercises. Let him be hideous, I thought.
I opened my laptop and punched in my password: princessbitch.
I had just typed Devin Nelson into a google search screen when someone said, “Feather!”
Now, I don't know about where you live, but I've never met another girl named Feather, so I shut the laptop and smiled up at the man.
“Chuck!”
Chuck Wysocki had been a tough client. He was a programmer, and like so many of them, he'd had a hunched posture and the worst kind of man-ponytail—the scraggly kind, with fuzzy fringe around his face. He'd been near tears the day I chopped the hair off, but we both knew it was for the best, as evidenced by the adorable young woman at his side.
“This is my girl, Doreen,” Chuck said.
She smiled and shook my hand. Her glasses were the wrong shape for her face. She had a high forehead and… I forced myself to notice something positive. (A hazard of my career is I break people down unintentionally.) She had gorgeous, full lips, perfect skin, and she seemed enamored with Chuck. Love for another person makes everyone more attractive.
Smiling, Doreen said, “I hear you held him down and cut off his hair.”
“I can't comment.” I grinned. “Confidentiality.”
“I hear you made him throw away his collection of free video game T-shirts.”
“Sounds like something I would do.”
Doreen looked at me sideways. “Did you teach him how to kiss?”
I laughed and picked up my coffee cup to hide my shock.
After I took a long pause, finishing the drink, I said, “It was lovely to meet you.” I nodded up at Chuck. “So good to see you again. Stay in touch.” I shuffled the objects on my table. “I'm meeting someone in a moment.”
“Of course,” Chuck said, and he dragged Doreen away.
A moment later, a dark-haired young man in a blue coat approached my table.
“You must be Devin,” I said as I stood.
He shook my hand, his grip weak. I made a mental note to add handshakes to our work plan.
“Feather,” he said. “Now, did you parents mean to name you that, or did the ink smear on your birth certificate form?”
“Do you always insult someone within seconds of meeting them? If so, I'll add that to my notes, along with weak handshaking.”
“Oh.” He took a step back. “Do you always meet clients with coffee dribbled down your blouse?”
I pulled my red jacket closed to hide the stain. The spill must have happened when Doreen the Nosy Explorer had been interrogating me about my coaching methods.
“It's five minutes past four,” I said, checking the clock on my phone. “You're late.”
He put two mugs of coffee on the table between us and took a seat. “I got here six minutes ago, and took the liberty of ordering you a latte. It says on your website that's your favorite drink.”
I tsk-tsked him and shook my finger. “Never google a woman.”
He was already rotating my laptop toward himself and opening it up.
“Says the googler herself,” he said with a chuckle, staring at the incriminating screen.
I snapped my computer shut. “Women have different rules.”
“They certainly do.”
I picked up the new, hot coffee and took a sip as I looked him over.
His ink-black hair wasn't ponytail-long, but it was loose and shaggy. He could pull the look off, though, because he was model-sexy and vaguely European. Italian, perhaps? From the neck up, he looked like the guy in the magazines that other guys aspire to look like. Below the neck, he was lean, but broad in the shoulders, like a swimmer. In the private change room of my dirty mind, I stripped away his sporty blue windbreaker and tight-fitting black T-shirt, and sent him out on the runway in nothing but a pair of Calvin Klein underwear, all the better to show off his washboard abs.
As for his style, he wore designer jeans in a brand I recognized as being expensive and incredibly hard to track down in the city. The guy looked like he could give me shopping tips, which meant he didn't need my help as a style coach. That left dating.
His voice deep and sexy, he said, “What's my score?”
“For a casual date, this is an eight out of ten. Lose the windbreaker for something more form-fitting, and you're up to a nine. Honestly, you look better than most of my clients do after months of work.”
“That doesn't say much for your service.”
I tried not to flinch. My voice icy, I batted my eyelashes and said, “I can only give the advice. I can't force people to take it all. Some men are… stubborn. I'm guessing you know a thing or two about that?”
He feigned ignorance. “Not really.”
“So, Mr. Devin Nelson, what are the top three issues you'd like me to help you with?”
“Besides my apparently weak handshake?”
“I'm listening.” I waited for a moment as his gaze wandered around the coffee shop. I leaned in and said, “It may seem like you and I got off to a rocky start, but we haven't. The way I see it, neither of us is afraid to say what we really think, which means we can get straight to work. I'm passionate about my work. I love to help people, and I truly want to help you.”
He took a visible breath and extended his hand toward me. “We'll start over,” he said. “Devin Nelson.”
I smiled and put my hand in his. He squeezed it firmly, but not too hard.
“Feather Hilborn,” I said. “And I'd give this handshake a ten out of ten.”
He released my hand. “I hear you're an excellent coach.”
“Flattery,” I said, grinning. “The chocolate of human interaction.”
He laughed. “Chocolate?”
“Nobody can resist.”
“I should be making notes,” he said.
“Stop stalling and tell me what your issue is.”
He started looking around the coffee shop again.
“Fine, I'll guess,” I said. “Your girlfriend wants you to propose, but you're not sure if she's the one.”
“No girlfriend.”
A little voice in my head squealed with excitement that he was single. He looked about twenty-four, just two years older than me. That voice in my head started reasoning with me, saying that perhaps after our coaching contract, we could…
I finished the thought with: destroy my reputation as a coach.
No. Cute and infuriating as he was, Devin was my client, and I had to use those boundary things I'd never been good at.
I said, “So… is your problem that you don't know how or where to meet women?” Because if that's it, hello, I'm right here!
“That's not the issue,” he said.
“You're afraid of rejection.”
He winced. I was getting closer.
“You're afraid of…” I nodded for him to finish
the sentence.
He pointed to his lips.
“Your big mouth ruins everything.”
“Projecting much?” He laughed, then leaned in and said, “I've never kissed a girl.”
“Is this because of a strict, religious upbringing?”
“No.”
“You just haven't met the right girl?”
He winced.
“Is it a full-blown phobia? Contamination or germ fears?”
He frowned. “I don't know.”
I pushed my latte mug his way, then rotated it so he was looking at the pink smudge left by my lip gloss. “Could you take a sip from my mug, right where my mouth was?”
He picked up the mug quickly and took a drink.
I squirmed and held my hand over my face, embarrassed. “It was hypothetical. I didn't mean for you to do it.”
“But I passed,” he said.
“I'm just a life coach. I'm not a psychologist, and certainly not an expert on phobias, but I feel like we can rule out a germ phobia.”
He began to fidget with his hands, first twisting a napkin, and then playing with the drawstring of his jacket. Most clients warmed up to me and became more relaxed over a session, but Devin seemed to be ratcheting up tighter.
He'd never kissed a girl.
Heaven help me, I was staring at his mouth, which had just touched my lip gloss, and the spot where my lips had been a moment earlier. I wanted to put my lips on his, and see what would happen. My whole body tingled with electricity at the thought.
I could kiss him.
Amidst the noise of blind dates and gurgling milk being steamed, I found a quiet place inside my mind. The coffee shop blurred and disappeared, until it was only me and Devin within the cone of my attention.
I was biting my lower lip, staring at his mouth.
He looked at my lips and swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.
“I can help you,” I said.
“I need help. I'm twenty-two, and it's getting ridiculous.”
“Wow. I would have guessed you were twenty-four, or older. You and I are the same age.”
“Yeah? And how many guys have you kissed?”
“Not nearly enough.”
His gorgeous eyes widened and he laughed. He had such thick, dark eyelashes, and his chocolate-brown eyes sparkled with mischief. Gravity slipped away, and when he turned those dancing eyes on me, I felt myself floating, caught in his gaze. He seemed amused by the situation, and staring at me intently, which only made me more nervous. At least he was smiling.
I hadn't meant my comment as a joke, but I joined in and pretended I had.
“There you go,” I said. “A sense of humor will let us beat anything but trained ninjas.”
“What do we do next?”
“I'll have to get someone else to assist at our next session. Perhaps a friend of yours? Do you know anyone who'd be willing to let you practice with her?”
He shook his head. “No way. This is not something my friends can know about.”
“There are people, surrogates, who do this sort of thing professionally. You know, I can probably ask around and give you a referral.”
“No way. Not with a prostitute.”
“They're not prostitutes. Some of them work with people in rehabilitation, or who have special needs, or—”
“This is starting to sound like way too much trouble. Maybe I should get really drunk and just go for it. Like ripping off the Band-Aid.” He crossed his arms. “Though I don't actually drink.”
“You don't drink?” I was incredulous. “That explains how you got to be twenty-two without,” I looked around, mindful of our privacy, “you know.”
“Fine, I'll meet with a surrogate or whatever. But you have to arrange everything, and you have to be there to help me.”
I opened my laptop to check my schedule. I tried focus on my screen, but in the presence of such masculine hotness, the screen and keys were a blur. Staring was so embarrassing, but I was only just noticing how incredible his skin was, so dark and rich compared to my own, and I couldn't tear myself away. How would our hands look together, with interlaced fingers? Or our legs?
My eyes wandered down his smoothly-shaved cheeks, over his sexy Adam's apple, and down to his throat where it met his shirt. His pulse was visible beneath his begging-to-be-licked skin. I could just barely smell something musky, like an expensive cologne, and I breathed deeply, hoping to catch more of it, more of Devin. I felt my cheeks burning with forbidden thoughts, and I looked back up, only to be caught in his eyes again, glinting and darker now, like obsidian.
I broke away from his smoldering eyes and tapped at my keyboard frantically.
“I'll need some time to get everything organized,” I said.
“Soon, though. I want to get this over with.”
I peered at him over my screen. “What's the rush? Is there a time constraint I should know about?”
I looked down at my schedule, and when I looked up again, he had his head turned, and he was staring at the couple at the next table, the ones on a date. They were holding hands across the table, gazing into each other's eyes, their faces close. Kissing looked imminent.
“That went fast,” I said. “Those two are sure hitting it off.”
Devin turned back to face me, the fire in his obsidian eyes dimmer. “I could never do that. Be confident with a girl like that.”
“I'm a girl, and you seem confident to me.”
He chuckled. “This is different. This is safe, because I'm paying you. You have to be nice to me.”
With that, he withdrew his wallet and handed me the money for that day's short session.
I tucked it away quickly, before anyone else in the cafe saw. I really preferred checks, and in the mail. Cash on the spot always felt so icky.
“I don't have to be nice to anyone,” I said. “But it certainly is better for referrals. Which reminds me, how did you get my name? Was it through a friend?”
“Internet search. I typed in Kissing Coach and your name came up first.”
My cheeks flushed, my pulse pounding. It was on the internet?
“Kidding,” he said. “I got your name from a list of coaches in the area.”
“Right.” I fanned my face. “Of course.”
We set up a time for the following Tuesday, but I was uncertain about the venue. The whole kissing business was not something appropriate for the coffee shop—although the couple at the next table wasn't having any problems. And in the middle of the day! It had to be Spring Fever… all the extra pollen in the air.
“You're good at this,” Devin said. “I'm hardly panicking at all. How about you? Are you okay? I guess I dropped this all on your lap and didn't ask if you were comfortable helping with such a ridiculous thing.”
“Don't call it ridiculous,” I said, then I repeated a line I'd had to use often, “You wouldn't have called me if it wasn't important to you.”
“You're a cute girl. Do a lot of your clients hit on you?”
“Not enough,” I said, then, “Sorry, bad joke. They don't, because when we begin, I email them a document with a few ground rules, and one of them is that coaches can't date their clients.”
“I see,” he said, nodding. “That makes sense. Well, you wouldn't have to worry about me trying to kiss you or anything.”
“Not until after you're all fixed up.”
We grinned at each other, making awkward eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time.
I ducked my head down and tapped at my keyboard. “Tuesday, and we'll meet at my apartment, if that's fine by you.”
He said it was, and I got his email address to forward the details.
I disliked having clients in my personal space, because I didn't want them seeing I wasn't perfect. It would take me hours to clean the apartment before a meeting, but on the bright side, if it wasn't for a client coming by once a month or so, the place would never get cleaned.
He finished his coffee as we made some
small talk, then he started getting up to leave.
The couple at the next table was in full makeout mode.
I could feel my face twisting up in a grin as I said, “Wanna just plant one on me now, and I can chalk this up as the most successful coaching session of my career to date?”
I stood up to shake his hand, my question lingering between us.
He licked his lips and stared at my mouth, then he took a step closer to me.
My mouth began to water, and my pulse pounded in my throat. The idea of kissing someone certainly caused anxiety. Perhaps he'd simply confused the normal excitement of a first kiss with something more serious?
His face moved closer to mine.
I was the world's greatest coach! Maybe?
Before his lips reached mine, he staggered back again, as though bouncing off my force field.
“Sorry,” he growled, and he ran out the door, his head down.
I looked around the cafe, feeling ashamed. The guy had hired me to help him, and I'd gone and pushed him two steps back. What were the odds he'd even come to our next session?
I sat down again and fought the urge to cry pitifully in public.
Three days after my horrific meeting with Devin (horrific in the sense that it could be used as a teaching example of how not to life-coach someone), I was finally able to confess to what I'd done. I met with my best friend, Steph, for a yoga class.
We took our usual places, at mats in the back corner. The instructor, a humorless woman with silver-shot hair, gave us a dirty look as soon as she saw us.
“Perhaps you two shouldn't sit together,” she said.
“We'll behave,” Steph said.
I hissed at Steph, “Lies.”
The woman shook her head and started lighting candles. Of all the ridiculous parts of yoga, the candles are probably the silliest. I don't think I've been to a class yet where someone didn't kick over one of the glass votives—at the end of class, when people are stumbling around. In the dark. Without their glasses.
Steph lay back on a round bolster, broadening her chest. Steph's a blonde, like me, and we're sometimes mistaken for sisters, which I take as a compliment. We wear the same size, and when we were roommates during college, we started sharing clothes. Steph's more careful, and I swear my clothes would come back from her looking better. I'm a food dribbler, though, so I always ask about the replacement value before I borrow her stuff, just in case.