Last Time We Kissed_A Second Chance Romance

by Nicole Snow

  "Thirtieth floor please," I say. I can't remember the last time I ever sounded so weak, so mousy.

  So scared, if I'm being honest.

  Clenching my fist on the gold railing behind me, I softly exhale my relief as the stranger's eyes wander to the small digital screen above the door.

  “Same place,” he whispers, stabbing at the button. The doors pinch shut.

  We're going up fast. There's that heavy weight in my legs and a mechanical whoosh. It might as well be a dentist's waiting room, the only place in the world I'd thought with the miraculous ability to stretch time. Until now.

  And there's plenty reason to start staring again. Gawking, really, my eyes fixed on a face that's older, handsomer, and eerily familiar. It can't be. It's not. It's impossible.

  Not him.

  Not here.

  Not now.

  Oh, but his voice...that's different. I haven't heard Trent speak for almost seven years.

  This man's cadence sounds richer, smoother, older and wiser than the cocky boy I remember. Too much like how he'd sound if the playful confidence he always carried had aged, matured, and developed a soul.

  It'd be a lot like this stranger's voice – all four words he's spoken.

  Four. Holy crap.

  This really is getting insane, isn't it? This isn't me. Amy Kay doesn't go all stalker freak and stare at strangers.

  It's this place. This trip. It's set me off, tangled nervous, left me jumping at ghosts. I have to make it stop.

  Just when I'm about to force myself to look through the window at the slowly illuminating evening city below, the stranger clears his throat.

  His eyes shift to mine. More than a sideways glance. Like he's scoping me out, too, trying to place me in some tragic past we've both tried our damnedest to forget.

  Or so I imagine. If this isn't real, then why the curl in his lip?

  If he's not Trent, if there's any justice in this universe, then there's no way – no freaking way – his lips should be carbon copies of the ones I traced with my tongue countless times over one fatal summer.

  This doesn't make sense.

  Nothing about him ever did, it's true.

  But this is a whole new level of coincidence, of hell, that shouldn't be possible.

  Such a tall, handsome, improbable death blow to every set of odds, every sense of logic, can't be standing in front of me...right?

  But he is. Right there. And now he's staring back.

  That's where we're stuck for the next three seconds, the longest of my life, before my eardrums explode and everything spins in a furious metal shriek.

  It's dark, but it doesn't mean a thing to the merry-go-round in my vision. I struggle to place myself, put my hand against the glass. Everything feels...off, somehow.

  It's crooked. Slightly angled. One more thing that shouldn't be happening on an elevator ride to assess the furnishings upstairs. I see Seattle's lights through the cold glass and instantly start to sweat.

  They're all wrong.

  Too crooked. Too strange. Too sideways.

  We're wrecked. Dangling God only knows how many feet in the sky.

  Gasping, I twist my head to face my companion, who up until a few seconds ago was my biggest problem. “Jesus! We're –”

  “Stuck, Presh. What are the chances?” Apparently, the horrific mortal peril we might be in doesn't faze his cool, or that smirk I'd really like to wipe off his face with a nasty flick of my palm.

  The pet name doesn't register. Not at first.

  When it does, my heart stops beating. My blood runs cold. A chill swarms up my spine.

  Presh is something I haven't heard for years. Not outside my nightmares. That name is a ghost rising up, whispering in my ear, draining my life away.

  Presh was what he called me.

  Presh breathed sunny warmth into the coldest afternoon swept by the Pacific wind when it hung on his lips.

  Presh is engraved forever in my mind.

  How he groaned it mid-thrust, owning me, painting every inch of me with fire.

  Presh, sometimes Precious, but always Presh. Always.

  I was his precious girl. That means this stranger, this madness, is no one but...

  “Trent?” I whisper his name. Half-curse, half-denial. Entirely get-me-the-hell-out-of-here.

  The disinterested spark of recognition flaring in his eyes worries me a whole lot more than the world going crooked outside. He's too distracted to torment me as much as he'd like.

  Proof positive there's something terribly wrong with this elevator, and one wrong move might send us plummeting to our deaths.

  His smirk becomes a smile. The man, the bastard – Trent – nods.

  “Like poetry, isn't it? Perched above the world with the Reaper at our necks. Hell of a delay I didn't really expect. Guess this is a bad time to say you're looking well, darling?” It's not just the elevator that's slanted.

  It's him, his hand stretches behind him, holding on so gravity doesn't send him crashing into me. The floor is bent at such an angle it isn't easy to stand on his side without assistance.

  “Delay? What?!” My brain hits its limit. It shuts down. I can't process what the hell's happening between the fear, the shock, the loathing that sweeps through me, curdling my blood. “What...what do you mean?”

  “You didn't stop to wonder why I'm on an elevator heading up to your family's office? Shit. You've been through a lot in the last sixty seconds, Presh. Couldn't have been much fun twisting around, nearly bashing your head on the glass, this rusty old thing crapping out...so I'll go easy. ” He pauses, taps behind him on the glass, a sound that ricochets through the small compartment like a bullet. “Let me fill in the blanks for you, darling, because you were never much good at puzzles. I'm back in town to pay your fuckhole brother a visit. Back for justice. Fancy meeting you the evening I swore I'd get even.”

  The air I've had trapped in my lungs for what seems like forever hisses out. For a brief second, I imagine the cold glass behind me giving way, cracking, putting me out of my misery. Tumbling through the chilly spring air and impacting solid concrete seems easier than this.

  Far too easy.

  Luck, Fate, and Heaven itself just trampled me in the mud and laughed. The years I've spent running marathons, trying to forget, ruining endless pairs of sneakers in sticky muck haven't prepared me for anything.

  Not for today. I'm at least twenty stories up, hanging in mortal danger, trapped with the boy who trashed my family and left my heart a burning ruin.

  “Presh –”

  We lock eyes the instant I cut him off. “Don't, Trent. Just don't.”

  There's more clinging to the tip of my tongue, a proper lashing, heavy and bitter, but I just can't get it out. It's still caught in my throat when the elevator shakes a second time, groans, and drops.

  I'm thrown into a deep inky blackness before I can breathe the last words I want to say on this Earth.

  Don't you dare, Trent Usher. I still hate your fucking guts.

  2

  Memory Lane (Trent)

  She's out cold. Can't say I blame her.

  I'm wondering if it's a mercy. This damn elevator is acting like it really wants to kill us.

  When I hear the loud grinding noise, feel the mechanism overhead giving way, I think our little reunion is about to end with a life ending splat.

  But the spinning, the growling, the brutal plunge stops.

  Drops five, maybe ten feet and then catches, jerking us up again.

  I'm still gripping the gold banister. My fucking arm nearly rips off my shoulder, burning as the thing bounces once and then catches again.

  Miraculously, it holds. Stops. Leaves us suspended, closer to eye-level with the Seattle nightscape. I see the Seattle Great Wheel by the waterfront lit bright and slowly spinning, turning over like a clock counting down the impending end of our lives.

  It's stupid, really. I should care more about the prospect of becoming a pancake in a designer sui
t if we hit the bottom. More about the fact that I'm not sure if the way my arms just jerked back into their sockets will leave permanent damage.

  But all I can do is hang off the railing like a monkey, gazing at the woman under me. And for once, she's pinned under my body in a way I never wanted.

  She's as beautiful as I remember.

  Hell, maybe more.

  Hips for ages, chestnut hair, emerald green eyes. The color of those tawny locks I used to love curling my fingers through, she got from her ma. The ripple in her hair came from her old man.

  The elder Chenocotts couldn't have created a more perfect wonder. Or a bigger bastard in her brother, Jace. Have to hand it to them: they forged an angel and a demon from the same blood.

  Presh groans gently. I forget musing over the good and evil in her family DNA.

  Fuck.

  Six goddamn years, and this is how we reconnect?

  Somewhere, somebody's laughing. It's a colossal cosmic joke, our predicament. A knee-slapping, tongue-biting, sucker-for-punishment sorority prank, and it just might be the last one we ever get to throw an acid laugh at.

  A new pain burrows through my shoulder. My wrist tightens, but I can't hold on.

  The angle is too steep. My bones can only take so much. I wish I'd kept up rock climbing, but there hasn't been much time for that since leaving Washington in the rear view mirror, piecing my life back together, plotting my revenge.

  I grit my teeth. If only it were Jace, not Amy Kay, stuck here with me. I'd go out in a blaze of bloodletting, throwing the fucker who torpedoed my life through the glass.

  It's not him, though. It's her.

  Unthinkable, abandoned, still hot-as-the-devil's-fireplace Presh.

  She, who I wasn't supposed to ever hear from again.

  Much less lay eyes on.

  Much less wind up trapped in a ruined elevator with.

  A woman – and what a woman! – who's blossomed since I turned my back, left her behind, and told myself a million times I had to.

  For her good. For mine. For everyone's.

  “Trent?” Her lips open, whispering my name, but her eyes stay closed.

  First time since our run-in I can't detect raw hatred in her tone. My eyes crawl her limp, half-conscious body. She's slumped against the glass with one heel knocked off, lying in the corner. It's crunched underneath my briefcase, which I lost the first time the elevator went haywire.

  “I'm here,” I bite off.

  Her eyelids flutter shut. I get nothing back.

  Shit.

  I'm trying to decide whether to move, wake her the hell up, figure some way out of this together. But she'd just as soon give me the same treatment I've planned for her asshole brother, I'm sure.

  Worst part is, I can't even blame her. Not in this lifetime.

  Still, she could be hurt. I can't just stand here like an idiot, waiting for her to come back to life and breathe fire. I let my legs give, dangling, rocking my weight, testing the elevator's stability, hoping my weight won't be the last straw. So far, so good.

  It won't drop us again. I think.

  Only one way to be sure...I let go of the gold railing and let myself fall. I hit the edge of the metal divider between the glass, rolling next to her.

  It takes another minute to struggle into a crouching position. The elevator sways gently.

  Good. One less worry about the cord or whatever the hell's holding this thing snapping like a twig.

  “Presh?” I take her hand, squeezing.

  Nothing. Adrenaline hits my veins.

  “Presh!” I do it again, adding pressure, watching her eyelids flutter. Hoping she didn't bash her head in harder than I thought. “Come the hell back here. You hear?”

  Nothing again. She just twists her neck, moans a little, something soft and small and indistinct.

  Goddamn, this better not be a concussion.

  For all my brains – and they've worked miracles – I'm not a doctor. I reach up, testing the emergency button for the intercom, yanking the phone off its cradle.

  No tone. Dead silence. The more I press it to my ear, the heavier the void.

  Fuck.

  Whatever caused this one-in-three-million mishap, it's knocked out communications. And I'm betting our cell phones don't work either. The enclosed shafts of these old buildings are notoriously crappy for reception.

  Worst part is, I'm too busy to even try. I'm stuck, focused on my breathing, trying to still the fierce ache in my joints. Worried as hell Amy Kay will never wake up again.

  Tightening my hold on her hand, my eyes flick to the briefcase.

  “Shit!” Growling, I bash my fist into the solid steel part of the wall that's become our floor with everything spun nearly ninety degrees.

  This isn't how it was supposed to go down. Not at fucking all.

  I was supposed to come up here alone, find a comfy seat to perch for the night, and be there bright and early before the morning crew arrived. I was supposed to make my special delivery to Jace Chenocott in person, documents I've spent the better part of the last year piecing together. Tactical nukes made of paper.

  Unbelievable. This entire thing, starting with the fact that he used to be my best friend.

  Amy stirs, whimpering a little. With no better options, I scoop her up, hold her to my chest, and send a silent prayer through the glass.

  If there's anybody left to hear, I want this over, A-S-A-fucking-P.

  But I'd really like her to walk away alive a whole hell of a lot more.

  I close my eyes, waiting for her to come back to me, my patience for miracles running thin.

  Can't tell what's spinning faster: my head or every breath shaking my lungs.

  Before I know it, I'm back in Madison Park, almost a decade ago. You know that load they feed you about facing impending death and having your life flash before your eyes?

  I'm living it. Except my life didn't start until age seventeen, world hanging from my balls, face-to-face with the most beautiful woman in the world who'd ever learn to hate me.

  Nine Years Ago

  “Another English paper? Jace, what the fuck?” I look up. He doesn't even ask, just drops it on my desk, a shameless grin digging at his dimples.

  “Hot date tonight. I'll pay you double to get mine done. Look, I realize old man Matheson is up everybody's ass, wanting us to have some original spin on this James Joyce crap.” He pauses, rolling his eyes. “Guess the old fart's never heard of Google. I could find a ghostwriter overseas to spin college papers all damn day.”

  “Dude, don't. It's not just professors lining up to check plagiarism now. You fuck up that bad, you're out of Maynard. Besides, you know you'd get junk-ass quality. I'll write your crap again, okay? Just give me double, like you said. And wrap it the hell up if your date tonight's Georgia. She's been screwing those La Crosse players numb for the past semester.”

  Grin growing wider, Jace extends a muscular hand. We're about the same size and strength and it's always a small pissing contest when we shake.

  Then I turn back to my screen, cracking my knuckles. Another long night of writing lays ahead instead of trying to get my dick wet.

  That's for rich kids who can afford to be irresponsible. Guys like my boy, Jace, who lives in a damn Madison Park mansion. He's got a rotating harem of girls from millionaire families.

  My blessing is brains. Better work ethic, too. I'm living about as much as I really want to, taking money to crib Jace's papers, and hell yes I charge him big. If anybody ever found out, I'd be out on my ass like lightning.

  It's in my interest to make sure my best friend doesn't do something stupid that gets us both cooked.

  Exclusive academies like Maynard don't fuck around. I'm one of the few students there on merit, rather than money or blue blood. There's more pressure than ever on the principal to crackdown lately, too. Ever since the Randolph kid did the unthinkable on school property.

  An accident, they said. A bad fight that got out of hand. A
complete clusterfuck.

  It was the big, ugly finale to a whole lot of corruption tarnishing the academy well before I ever enrolled three years ago.

  “You can stay here and work. Ask mom for dinner,” Jace says, tapping his fist next to my laptop. “Shit, sometimes I think my parents like having you around more than me.”

  His confidence dims. I give him a crooked smile, unsure what the hell to say to that.

  The Chenocotts are good people.

  Like any high class Seattle family, they're also demanding. Sometimes, I think they've already given up on Jace. He was grounded for weeks last year after pulling a C in chemistry. It's more likely they're putting their chips on their daughter.

  Amy Kay.

  Fuck.

  Don't even think about her, I tell myself. There's a very good reason.

  Amy Kay Chenocott is on my mind way more than she should be. She's everything Jace isn't: soft spoken, sweet, intelligent, and way too fucking young.

  She's only in her freshman year. We're Seniors. I've always told myself I won't be one of those assholes who hooks up with the fresh meat and leaves them high and dry. I definitely can't be the prick who does it to his best friend's little sister. For more reasons than I've got time to list.

  “I'll get it done and then I'll eat the shit out of your ma's chocolate muffins.” I grin, slapping my friend on the back. I have to deflect the wicked thoughts his little sister always manages to give me somehow.

  “Gross, Usher. If you weren't so damn good at what you do, don't know why we'd be friends.”

  “Because you need to shore up your GPA if we're heading to Bellingham next year. Blood pact, remember?” I turn back to my screen, well aware he's still staring through me.

  “You're a madman for turning down the Ivies. I've seen what's on your desk at home – Yale, Princeton, Stanford. Fucking scholarships out the wazoo. Beats me why the fuck you want to stay local, getting rained on up and down this dreary coast.” Jace walks across the room, yanking an expensive craft root beer off the counter, bringing one for me. “If I had the grades...shit. I'd be down in SoCal so fast and I'd never look back. The world's a whole lot bigger than Seattle and months of no sun.”