Manhattan

by Steiner, Kandi

  The words were barely out of my mouth when his hand shot out, gripping my wrist and whipping me back around. My keys fell from the opposite hand, and I frowned, opening my mouth to lay into him again.

  But I couldn’t.

  Because he kissed me.

  My next breath was a gasp and it lodged in my throat when our lips met, hard and fast, angry and hot. He kissed me like a punishment, and I took it like a sadist, the shock gone as fast as it had come as I leaned into him. My hands snaked around his neck, fingers curling in his hair and pulling him closer, desperate for more.

  He tasted familiar somehow, like my favorite candy or the toothpaste I’d used my entire life. When his arms wrapped fully around me, pulling me into him, crushing me with the need to be closer — I saw stars.

  My breath was shallow and loud, my inexperienced mouth slow compared to his, and my entire body was hot and sensitive like an exposed wire. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening, couldn’t grasp the fact that we were kissing — not until he nipped at my bottom lip with a guttural groan that sent me slamming back into reality like a car into a brick wall.

  I ripped away from him, and though I couldn’t be completely sure, I thought I screamed something like no or stop. And then, with a hand that didn’t feel like my own, I slapped him.

  Everything went quiet.

  There was no music thumping from inside the bar, no laughter from those who had filtered into the parking lot, no trucks roaring to life or cars passing on the road. It was just me, staring at my best friend holding his cheek where I’d slapped him and watching me with wild, confused eyes.

  My breath came back all at once, and I gulped the fresh air down, swallowing it and shaking my head as tears welled in my eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting my whole life for you to kiss me, Michael Becker,” I said, voice trembling and hoarse. One lone tear slipped from my left eye, and I swiped it away before it could fall past my cheek bone. “How dare you do it when you’re thinking about her.”

  Mikey deflated like a leaky balloon right in front of my eyes, his shoulders sagging, mouth falling slack as he ran his hands back through his hair and braced them on his head. “Kylie…”

  I shook my head, covering my mouth with one hand as I bent down for my keys with the other. I kept my fingertips on my lips as I turned, climbing into my truck.

  “Find another ride home,” I said without looking at him again.

  Then, I shut the door, revved the engine to life, and drove away from my best friend and my first kiss, determined to forget them both.

  Michael

  I’ve been waiting my whole life for you to kiss me.

  Eleven words.

  Eleven words that might as well have been a giant bucket of ice-cold water for how they woke me up on Friday night.

  Eleven words that played on repeat, over and over, assaulting me from every angle as I sulked in my own misery all day Saturday.

  Eleven words that changed everything.

  I wish I could say I spent Saturday coming up with some grand plan to apologize to Kylie, that I had swallowed my pride and knocked on her door first thing that morning. But the truth was I’d submitted myself to a sort of torture, an awakening in the form of replaying every moment I’d ever had with my best friend through different-colored lenses.

  Because I couldn’t for the life of me believe that I’d missed it.

  Since we were eight, we’d been practically inseparable. We’d had sleepovers and video game marathons and ice cream trips after school and lazy days watching movies and early mornings of her dragging me to some other volunteer thing that I never understood but did because I knew it made her happy.

  We’d spent birthdays together, and Thanksgivings, and Christmases and Fourth of Julys and — perhaps most importantly — our parents’ death anniversaries.

  I knew when she was hiding something that upset her, and she knew when I was really sad but disguising it as anger. I knew her favorite books and movies and candy bars, and she knew all my moves in Mortal Kombat.

  I’d helped her pick food out of her braces, and she’d helped me think of what to do for my first date with Bailey. She’d cried when she heard me play my first original song on the guitar my father bought me — a song I wrote for him — and, though she never knew, I’d cried on her sixteenth birthday when her dad gave her her mother’s favorite pair of diamond earrings as a gift.

  She never took those earrings off, not since that day.

  My mother saw her as a daughter, and I was the only person other than herself that her father could stand for longer than an hour at a time. In every single way possible, we were tied together, Kylie and I.

  She’d always been there for me.

  And I’d always been there for her.

  How had it never occurred to me that maybe she wanted more than just a friendship?

  How had I never known that she’d wanted me to kiss her?

  And why did it take her finally turning her back on me for me to realize I wanted to kiss her, too?

  It took an entire twenty-four hours of me lying in my bed, staring up at my ceiling and running through every memory I had with Kylie, trying and failing to dissect it for clues I’d missed before I realized one very important thing.

  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known before.

  What did matter was that I knew now.

  And what mattered most was what I did now that I knew.

  I felt like a dog with my tail tucked between my legs when I parked at the nursing home on Sunday afternoon, and I wagered I probably looked like one as I made my way inside, a small box of Kylie’s favorite caramel candies from the next town over in my right hand. I had approximately zero clue of what I would say when I saw her, or how I would explain my actions on Friday night.

  All I knew was that I had to see her.

  “Oh! My goodness,” the woman at the front desk said when she saw me enter. She was petite, with short blonde hair and a gap between her two front teeth, and she felt familiar in some way I couldn’t place. She pressed her hand to her chest, shaking her head as she looked me up and down. “Heavens, I’m sorry, it’s just… you look so much like your older brother. For a second there I thought I was going to be able to tell the ladies that their favorite water aerobics teacher was back.”

  I chuckled, placing the box of caramels on the counter as I realized she was Ruby Grace’s best friend. I remembered Noah talking about her when he and Ruby Grace were dancing around each other like they were just friends.

  “Noah taught water aerobics here?”

  “Indeed, he did,” she said, with a far-off gaze that told me she might have enjoyed his instruction more than the women of the nursing home. “And trust me, he was quite a hit around here. I’m Annie, by the way. Ruby Grace’s friend.”

  I reached over to shake her hand. “Mikey. I’m surprised Ruby Grace didn’t drag my brother down here when she came back to visit.”

  Annie waved me off. “Oh, please. Like those lovebirds could leave the bedroom long enough for a trip to the nursing home.”

  I grimaced.

  “Sorry,” she said, making a motion as if she were zipping her lips shut. “I’m sure you don’t want to think about your brother that way.”

  “It’s not exactly at the top of my list of things I like to picture, no.”

  She chuckled. “What can I do for you?”

  “Uh…” I cleared my throat. “I was actually hoping to speak with one of your volunteers… Kylie Nelson.”

  Recognition lit up Annie’s eyes, a coy smile finding her lips. “Oh, you’re a friend of Kylie’s, huh?”

  I grimaced again. “Well, before Friday night I was. Now, I think the term friend is debatable.”

  She eyed the candy on the counter before looking up at me again. “What’d you do?”

  “What does every man do?”

  “Something stupid, that’s for sure.” She sighed, nodding down the hall to my left. “Room o
ne-oh-nine.” She paused, smirking as I grabbed the box of candies off the counter. “Good luck, Becker.”

  I held up the box in a thank you, making my way down the hallway with a sinking feeling in my gut. When I reached the end of the hallway, the door on room one-oh-nine was covered with a red and white wreath, and it was ajar. I peeked in, smiling when I saw Betty rocking in her chair, and Kylie sitting on her bed, reading a gossip magazine out loud.

  “Now just wait a second,” Betty said, interrupting her. “You mean to tell me that the Dennis Quaid, as in hunky Nick Parker from The Parent Trap is now dating some Texas college student?”

  Kylie pressed her lips together. “Apparently.”

  I stared at those lips, at the ones I’d kissed so haphazardly Friday night. That kiss had been hot and fast and I hadn’t even truly realized it was happening until she’d shoved me a way and slapped me.

  Rightfully so.

  Just looking at them brought the memory back in a rush, and I could feel them — soft as velvet, timid and giving under my own. Already, I wanted to taste them again.

  I wanted the chance to kiss her proper.

  Betty tsked, snapping my attention away from Kylie’s lips. “But he had that beautiful wife! What was her name… Kim? And they had those gorgeous twins together…”

  “Well,” Kylie said, flipping the page. “What can I tell you, Betty? Guys suck.”

  I figured that was as good a cue as any, and with that tail tucked securely between my legs, I knocked on the door, opening it farther as I stepped inside. “You can say that again.”

  Kylie looked at me like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leap into my arms or run for her life.

  Betty, on the other hand, glared at me — and there was no mistaking what she was thinking.

  “Oh, lookie here,” she said, still rocking in her chair. “If it isn’t sweet Mikey Becker.” She said sweet like an insult, and her smile was sarcastic and wide.

  “Afternoon, Betty. Catching up on the latest celebrity gossip?”

  “Oh, you know, just reading up on how many good men are left in the world,” she bit back, tilting her head at me. “Seems that number is increasingly low nowadays.”

  I managed a smile, clearing my throat. “Yeah, well, I hate to admit it, but we men have a tendency of walking around with our heads up our butts half the time.”

  Betty scoffed. “You can say that again.”

  “Do you mind if I steal Kylie away for a minute?” I asked, turning my attention to her then. Her eyes were still wide, her pink lips parted as she watched me.

  “Depends,” Betty said. “You going to give her another reason to smack you?”

  Heat creeped up my neck, and a blush covered Kylie’s face, too, as she gave Betty a pointed look.

  “That’s not my plan,” I answered. “But, to be fair, she has plenty of reasons if she really needs an excuse.”

  A small, noncommittal smile tugged a Kylie’s lips, and Betty made a condescending noise before slowly pushing herself up from her rocking chair. I crossed the room to offer her my help, but she waved me off with another harrumph.

  “I’m going to sit by the pool,” she said, glancing back at Kylie when she was standing. “You holler if you need an old woman to put this young man in his place, you hear me?”

  Kylie bit back a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Betty gave me one last glare before she walked past me and out into the hallway, closing the door behind her when she was gone.

  The click of the door closing left me and Kylie in a muffled sort of quiet, with only the distant sounds of games and voices and a vacuum cleaner going somewhere down the hall. I looked at Kylie, and it was for what felt like the first time in my entire life.

  Because I saw her.

  I really, truly saw her.

  Those brown eyes of hers — the ones she hated, the ones I’d always thought were perfect — were bloodshot and tired. She never wore makeup, so there was nothing to disguise the fact that she’d been crying, or that she seemed to have had as much sleep that weekend as I had — which was to say, none. The tan she was already building that summer was somehow faded, her skin ashen white, and she folded her legs up under her on the bed, wrapping her arms around herself as if to shield her heart from me.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  With a deep inhale, I sat on the edge of the bed, giving her space, but facing her head on even if she wouldn’t look at me. My fingers drummed on the box in my hands before I slid it across the quilted comforter to her.

  “From Maribel’s,” I said, as if Kylie didn’t already know that turquoise and gold-ribboned box so well. It was her favorite candy store, one that was a special treat, since it was forty-five minutes away.

  She glanced at the box, but didn’t move for it, wrapping her arms around herself tighter, instead.

  “I’m sorry, Kylie,” I said, because I knew that even though those two words weren’t enough, they were the only place to start.

  Her eyes found me then, and she didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away, either.

  “I don’t have anything that excuses my behavior Friday night,” I started. “Nothing that isn’t just that — an excuse. My father taught me many things before he died, even as young as I was, and the biggest thing was to not make excuses.”

  Her eyes softened, and I took my chances, scooting a little closer to her on the bed.

  “That song…” I said, swallowing as my nerves jolted just at the memory. “It triggered me. And I know it seems weak and stupid to you, but to me? In that moment?” I shook my head. “It was like trying to breathe under water, like trying to run in quick sand. I felt suffocated and confined, with everyone’s eyes on me, knowing they knew she was my ex, that some of those lyrics were about me…” I sniffed. “And that she left me behind, and when she did, I broke.”

  Kylie lifted her head then, frowning in sympathy as she watched me.

  “I’m embarrassed, Kylie,” I finally admitted. “I’m embarrassed, and depressed, and ever since she left, I feel…” I swallowed. “Lost. In every sense of the word. I don’t remember who I was before her. I can’t be who I was with her. And who I am after her?” I shook my head, trying to make her understand. “I don’t know who that guy is supposed to be. I don’t know what he loves or hates or where he wants to go or what career he wants to make or what his future looks like, because for two years, all those things were tied up in her.”

  I reached over, and blessedly, Kylie let me take her hand in mine.

  “But, I’m sorry I took out my embarrassment on you. I’m sorry I blamed you, like you could have known they would play that song, or that I’d react that way. And I’m sorry I said you don’t understand, because if anyone knows how low I’ve been, it’s you. And for some reason I will never understand, you’ve stuck by me — even when I was a depressing mess, and even when I was an asshole.”

  Kylie smirked. “You really were an asshole.”

  “I know,” I said on a short laugh. “I know, and you didn’t deserve it. And I am truly, truly sorry. I promise, I won’t do that again. I will not take out what I’m feeling on the one person who’s actually here for me, trying to help me out of the dark.”

  Her shoulders deflated on that, and for a long while, she just watched me — her eyes flicking between mine, looking for signs of a lie or something else I couldn’t quite decipher. Then, she pulled her hand away from mine, balanced her elbow on her knee, and stuck out her pinky.

  I smiled, looping mine through hers, and we hooked them, kissed our thumbs, and pressed the pads together to seal the deal.

  “Thank you,” she said, letting out a long breath like she’d been holding it since Friday night. “I’ve been… well, let’s just say it’s been a rough weekend.”

  “For me, too,” I said.

  She reached for the box of candies next, hastily unwrapping a caramel and popping it into her mouth. They were small and delectable, and she closed her eyes on a
moan, sucking on it until it evaporated. “Besht cawamels evew.”

  I smirked, but I was already debating my next move, because I wasn’t done talking — not yet.

  I could have been. I could have stopped right there, right then, and left the apology where it was. The fight was squashed, we were friends, and everything could easily go back to normal.

  Except I actually couldn’t stop there.

  Not now that the curtain had been lifted, and I’d seen what I’d never seen before.

  “Ky.”

  “Yeah?” she said, swallowing the last of her caramel and reaching for another.

  I licked my lips, holding her gaze. “There is one thing you were wrong about Friday night.”

  She scoffed, crossing her arms. “Oh, yeah? Please, do tell me how I was wrong and you were right. I know you love to do that.”

  Kylie chuckled, but not even so much as a smile found my lips, and when Kylie saw the seriousness in my eyes, her laugh faded.

  I scooted closer, pulling both of her hands into mine — even the one holding on to the caramel for dear life. My thumbs rubbed her wrists as I held her, soothing my anxiety as much as I hoped I was soothing her with my next words.

  “I wasn’t thinking about Bailey when I kissed you.”

  She stilled, her lips parting, eyelids fluttering as she watched me.

  “And if it’s alright with you,” I continued, still holding her tight. “I’d like to try that again.”

  A shallow breath slipped through her lips, the sweet scent of caramel touching my nose. I felt like I was hanging onto the edge of a cliff by one hand, reaching up to her with the other, hoping I hadn’t read the entire situation wrong and that she’d tug me back up to solid ground with her and not let me tumble to the unforgiving waves below.

  “Now?” she whispered.

  I choked on a laugh, something between relief and a heart attack hitting my chest at the same time. Then, I shook my head, smoothing my thumbs over her hands again. “No,” I said, still chuckling. “No, not now. But… soon.” I swallowed. “If you want to.”