What She Forgot

by Tammy Falkner

  “Excuse me” he said. He went outside to answer it. He came back in and announced, “Sorry, guys, I have to go. Duty calls.”

  “MeeMaw will have to take his place again,” D’Shaun said.

  MeeMaw snorted. “Not a chance in hell. Last time, you boys ate my food and went home with all my money.”

  Every eye in the room turned to Shelly. “We need a fourth,” Eli said.

  Shelly looked at the deck of cards. “I’ve never played poker.”

  They very nearly began to salivate. “We can teach you.”

  Shelly looked at me.

  “We can’t play without a fourth,” I explained.

  “It’s only a twenty dollar buy-in,” Eli explained.

  “So it costs twenty dollars to play?” Shelly looked at me.

  “Only if you want to.” I might as well let her off the hook. She didn’t look too excited.

  “Do I have time to go and change clothes?” She looked down at what she was wearing, and everyone else did too, their eyes lingering just long enough to get on my nerves. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “By all means,” Eli said, passing his bowl to MeeMaw so she could give him more chili. “We have time.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Shelly said. Then she disappeared down the hallway.

  “Who the fuck was that?” Eli asked in a stage whisper.

  MeeMaw slapped the back of his head. “Watch your language, young man.”

  “MeeMaw, you used words worse than that less than five minutes ago!” he cried in outrage, rubbing the back of his head where she had just assaulted him.

  “I’m a grownup. I can do whatever I want.”

  “I’m thirty-nine years old, MeeMaw!” he protested.

  She stared him down until he demurred.

  “So who the heck was that?” he asked again.

  I shrugged. “She’s a friend.”

  “A friend,” they all repeated at once.

  “Yes,” I replied. “She’s my friend. And she works at my office.”

  “And she has clothes here,” Eli tossed in.

  “And she’s hot,” D’Shaun said. He stared down the hallway where she had just gone, like he was still watching her walk away. MeeMaw lifted her hand to slap him too, but he ducked away and laughed.

  “And she’s never played poker before,” Eli said. He rubbed his hands together with excitement. But they had no idea how quick Shelly’s brain worked. Shelly would probably wipe the floor with all of them. And she would do it quickly.

  Shelly came back out wearing a pair of leggings and a long t-shirt. I watched as more than one set of eyes skimmed her curves. MeeMaw drew her into the room and passed her a bowl of chili with cheese and sour cream on top, and Shelly walked over to stand next to me by the counter. She leaned close to me so she could whisper. “I heard you as I walked away. You called me your friend.”

  “So?” I replied, not sure where she was going.

  “Did you mean that?” she asked, her voice still quiet enough that only I could hear it. “Or are we pretending, like with the girlfriend thing?”

  I shook my head. “No, I meant it.”

  “Okay,” she said, then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose. She smiled at me, and I could have sworn that I could see her soul in her gaze. And it was easy and happy and light. “We’re friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” she whispered again.

  I nodded my head and went to take my seat at the table. She followed and sat down next to me, her knee accidentally brushing mine. She didn’t jerk away, and neither did I.

  Chapter 24

  Shelly

  Clark glared at me. “Why did you do that?”

  I stacked all the poker chips back in their protective case, making neat columns of each color, and returned the cards to their red and white box. “Do what?” I asked.

  “Why did you lose on purpose?” he asked.

  I let my mouth drop open in mock surprise. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “You just let them win.” He got up and started raking chip dust from the tabletop into his cupped palm.

  “I did no such thing.” I’d walked away from the game with exactly the same amount of money with which I’d started—twenty dollars. “I broke even.”

  He growled low in his throat. “And I still don’t understand why.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I stared at him. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was genuinely upset that I hadn’t taken all their money.

  Finally, he got in my face and stared hard at me, his hands braced on the table, his weight on his palms. I bent into the same position so that I could look into his eyes. “You and I both know that you could have won all their money if you’d tried,” he said. He glanced down at my lips really quickly, so quickly that if I’d blinked, I’d have missed it. My heart did a little trip in my chest. I stood up straight and took a breath.

  “That’s not the point of a fun game night.” I started to clear away the bowls and containers, loading them into the dishwasher. MeeMaw had gone to bed more than an hour ago, and I wanted to be sure she didn’t wake up to a mess. “A fun game night is supposed to be about camaraderie and a good time. No one has a good time if one person takes all the money.”

  “That’s what poker is for, Shelly.”

  “Poker is for people to tell funny stories. Maybe even tell some terrible jokes.” I pointed at him. “And that one you told about putting a little booger in a tissue, please don’t ever tell that one again. You seriously need some new material.” I cleared my throat. “But the point is that poker is about having fun, and this was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I was grateful, so I made sure that I didn’t win all their money.” I shrugged. “Thanks for letting me play,” I said quietly.

  “But you could have won every hand,” he continued to protest.

  I rocked my head from side to side. “Not every hand, but I could have won more than I did. I stopped counting after a while, and I played the same way everyone else does.”

  He jabbed his index finger at me. “I knew you could count cards.”

  “Do you think they liked me?” I asked, my voice so quiet that even I could barely hear it.

  “What?” he said, still bustling around the kitchen.

  “Never mind,” I replied. It really didn’t matter if they liked me.

  Suddenly, the back door burst open and D’Shaun ran in. “I forgot my hat,” he said, out of breath.

  Clark grabbed his hat from the counter where he’d left it and tossed it in his direction. It glanced off his forehead, but he caught it before it hit the floor.

  “Thanks, dude.” Then D’Shaun stared at me for a long moment. I looked at Clark and he looked from D’Shaun to me and back.

  “Dude,” Clark said. “Stop staring and go the fuck home.”

  “I just can’t figure out how you got her.” He adjusted his hat, lifting and lowering the brim as he looked at me. “She’s beautiful and funny and smart, man. We all know you’re not worthy.”

  Clark laughed. “Go home, D’Shaun.”

  Suddenly D’Shaun grabbed me, wrapped his arms around me, and picked me up in the biggest hug I’d ever had. He laid a loud smack on my cheek, and then he disappeared out the door.

  “They liked you,” Clark said.

  Yeah, I guess they did.

  “But I’m still disappointed you didn’t take all their money.”

  I laughed. “Maybe next time. We’ll raise the stakes to make up for it.” I cleared my throat. “You’ve known D’Shaun the longest?” I asked. I was insanely curious about them all.

  “He grew up next door to our old house.”

  I pointed to the floor under my feet. “But not this house.”

  “No, this is my house.”

  “It’s not MeeMaw’s?”

  He rolled his eyes. “No. My grandmother lives with me. I do not live with her.” He huffed out a breath. Then he
added, “Thank you very much.”

  I laughed at how offended he seemed to be by my question. “What’s the difference?”

  “MeeMaw fell about a year ago and broke her hip. She had to do rehab and came to stay with me. When she was better, I didn’t want her to leave.” He shrugged. “It’s not like she’s here all the time. Every few weeks, she gets tired of me and goes to visit a friend. And she spends the winter in Florida with her sister.”

  “But you prefer for her to be with you.”

  His voice grew soft and careful. “She took care of me when I didn’t have anybody. She didn’t even blink. She just took me in when my parents died in a car accident when I was twelve, and she never made me feel like I was a burden. I owe her everything. And I genuinely like having her here. I miss her when she’s gone.” He made that shrug again, and I was beginning to believe it was a signal that he was uncomfortable.

  “My grandmother raised me. But she wasn’t like MeeMaw.” I laughed. “She was hella different. Still is.”

  “Are you close?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  I shook my head again. “Not really.”

  “Do you have a lot of friends?” he asked. He was still bustling around the kitchen, putting things away, but I could tell that I had his attention.

  I shook my head once more. “No.” Heat crept up my cheeks. “Just you,” I said.

  He stopped what he was doing. “Okay,” he said. I kind of felt like he was letting me know it was okay that I considered myself to be his friend.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  Silence fell upon the room as we finished cleaning up. I dried my hands and hung the towel up where it belonged. “I guess I’ll go to bed.”

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  “Not really.” And I wasn’t. I was wide awake.

  “Do you want to walk Channing with me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” I went to put my shoes on, because I’d been walking around in my socks all evening. I got out Channing’s leash and put it on her. She danced around my feet, her feet tapping on the hardwood floor.

  My shoulder brushed Clark’s arm as we walked. He looked down at me and grinned. “What?” I asked. I brushed at my lips. “Do I have something on my face?”

  He leaned down like he wanted to whisper to me. “A smile.”

  I knocked his shoulder with mine and laughed.

  “You’re beautiful all the time, but fuck if you don’t blow me away when you smile at me,” he said.

  My stomach gave that little twitch that felt so foreign to me and I didn’t even try to squash it.

  “When you smile at me for real, your scar does this little quirk,” I said.

  He reached up and absently ran his finger along the scar. “Not much I can do about that, unfortunately.”

  “Oh, no,” I rushed to say. “I just meant…well…” I chopped my hand through the air. “Never mind,” I finally muttered. I shook my head. It sounded stupid even in my head.

  He knocked my arm with his again. “Say it.” I had all of his attention, and that was a heady feeling. It wasn’t one I was sure I liked.

  “I can tell when you’re faking it, because of the scar.”

  “I never fake it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You fake it sometimes.”

  He laid his hand on his chest like he was appalled. “I can assure you that I have never faked it in my life, Miss Punter. How dare you suggest that I would do such a thing.”

  I laughed out loud.

  He whistled. It was a low, soft sound. “There she goes again, being more and more beautiful,” he said, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

  He stopped and I stopped too, turning to face him. He reached up and touched my cheek gently with his fingertips. Then his hand slid down enough that he could tilt my face up a little, and his lips touched mine.

  A jolt of electricity shot from his lips to mine, and I felt like I had been scalded. I jerked back, surprised.

  “Shelly?” he prompted.

  “Hmm?” I replied.

  “Was that okay?” he asked, still staring at me, his gaze hard but soft all at the same time.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I lifted my hand to my lips, touching them lightly. They felt funny. Different. Not like before.

  “Can I do it again?” he asked, and he stepped a little closer.

  I lifted onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his, hoping against hope that it had to have been a fluke. Reactions like that weren’t real. The hot feeling wouldn’t assail me this time.

  But it did. I got the same warm feeling.

  I stepped back onto my heels again and lifted my hand back up to my lips.

  “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “I’ve been kissed before,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Most women your age have.”

  “But…”

  “But what?” He stared at me, his eyes lighting on my eyes, my nose, my cheeks, and then on my lips again.

  “But it’s never felt like that.” I took a breath to steady myself. “Did it feel weird to you?”

  “It felt fucking amazing.” His voice had a tinge of gravel to it that wasn’t there before. “It felt like I should have kissed you sooner.”

  “Is this what boyfriends do?” I asked. I looked around. “Do you think she’s watching?”

  “Who?” His brow furrowed.

  “Megan.”

  “Fuck, I forgot all about Megan.” He scrubbed a hand down his face and took a step back. “And yes, this is what boyfriends do.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  We finished walking Channing in complete silence. Afterward, I hung up the leash, kicked off my shoes and put them in the mudroom, and said, “I’m going to go to my room. Good night.”

  “’Night, Shelly,” he replied.

  I turned to walk away, but I turned back at the last minute. “Thank you for letting me hang out with your friends.”

  “Thank you for hanging out with my friends,” he replied.

  I smiled. “It was fun. ‘Night,” I said.

  I went to the guest room and closed the door behind me. Then I sagged against it, and I lifted my fingertips to my lips again. For some reason, I felt like I’d been kissed for the very first time. I’d done it many times in the past, but this time it felt different. And it was going to drive me crazy until I figured out why.

  Chapter 25

  Clark

  Shelly refused to look me in the eye. She had refused to look me in the eye all day today. This morning, when I’d gone to the kitchen, she’d been sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, working. She’d already dressed and was ready to go. But she barely looked up at me. That wasn’t abnormal for Shelly. When she was engrossed in her work, she often ignored her surroundings.

  But what wasn’t normal was that she stared out the window on the way to work, instead of asking me questions. Or the way she’d avoided my eyes in the elevator. Or the way she’d gone straight to her desk and ignored me the rest of the day. Even after I’d gone out to get us some lunch, she’d taken hers back to her desk and ate it alone.

  I’d made a big fucking mistake, apparently, when I’d kissed her the night before. But I wasn’t sure if my mistake was kissing her at all, or if it was in the fact that I let her believe I did it for Megan’s benefit.

  The kiss…well, the kiss was everything that a kiss is supposed to be. I’d been replaying it in my head all night long. And in the shower. And in the car. And in the elevator. And while sitting at my desk, I’d replayed how it felt it when she’d stepped up on tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine. I’d felt it all over. Everywhere. But now, it was like she’d slammed the door that kiss had opened. She’d slammed it shut and locked it, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  So, I did what I felt was right.

  I walked into the outer office where she was working and rapped on the desk with my
knuckles. “You feel like taking a walk?” I asked.

  She looked at the work scattered around her. “Right now?”

  I squared my shoulders. “No time like the present.” Then I added, “We need to see and be seen, Shelly, if this is going to work.”

  “Oh.” If I wasn’t mistaken, she deflated a little, but then she squared her shoulders and stood up. She toed the shoes she’d kicked off back toward her and slid her feet into them.

  “Can you walk in those?” I asked. Shelly always had on four-inch heels and, while they were sexy as fuck, I wanted to be sure she would be comfortable.

  She scoffed. “Can I walk in these? Of course I can walk in these.”

  I smiled at her, but she still wouldn’t meet my eyes. She wouldn’t even look in my direction.

  When we stepped into the elevator, I asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “Define everything,” she replied.

  I motioned from me to her and back. “Me and you. Are we okay?”

  She finally looked at me, confusion flashing in her eyes. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  “I don’t know,” I hedged. “I guess I kind of feel like you’ve been avoiding me all day today.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  I took her hand in mine as we stepped onto the sidewalk, and I gave it a squeeze. She finally looked at me. And I mean really looked at me. “I thought maybe you were feeling a little uncomfortable after that kiss last night.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable,” she said. She closed her eyes tightly in a full-face wince. “I’m just confused.”

  I squeezed her hand again. “About what?”

  “I just don’t know how you’re feeling.” She sucked in a breath. “It’s hard for me to read people.”

  I gave her hand another squeeze as we continued down the sidewalk toward the park. There, the path was paved, so I felt like Shelly would be more comfortable with her shoes. “You could just ask me.”

  She looked at me and sucked in a breath. Her eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “You can ask me anything.”

  “But would you tell me the truth?” she mused. She gave me a fake smile.