Kiss Kiss

by Various Authors

  The droning repetitive tones from his left hand and the sparse, chilling high tones from his right collided in my throat, forcing me to suppress a sob. I didn’t recognize the melody, but my body felt it anyway; anticipating each note. The single lamp remained on in the recording room, but I couldn’t see Bo’s face. His dark, arresting figure over the piano was unsettling. I needed to see him.

  My palms broke into a sweat as I stood and crossed slowly to the piano. I was mesmerized at the intensity with which he played. I stood motionless behind him. This was different than his passion with the guitar, it was a different level of deep - it was haunting. Unable to resist, I carefully placed one hand on each of his shoulders. Bo slowly relaxed back into my body, but continued to play.

  His skin was pulsing, burning with whatever emotion was coursing through his veins. I chanced a glance at the sheet music; my mouth ran dry as all the moisture from my body huddled in my eyes. It was hand-written on staff paper and titled, ‘Goodbye’, with the initials ‘B.C’ barely visible underneath it. I muted the sharp gasp that escaped my mouth with my hand; he’d written the song for his parents.

  When Bo finished the song he sat motionless facing the piano. Without turning around, he placed his left hand on mine. Expelling a labored sigh, he blindly reached his right hand behind him and pulled mine away from my mouth; bringing it back down to his shoulder. He kept his hands firmly atop mine, never turning around. I swallowed hard, begging ineffectually for moisture to return to my mouth. Soon, the last lingering chord of the piano drifted away and silenced the room. Seconds felt like minutes as we stayed frozen, unmoving, letting the funeral hymn hang in suffocating silence around us.

  I leaned forward and kissed the top of his head and he kissed each one of my hands. When he turned around, I nearly buckled at the sight before me; his eyes were black holes of sorrow and grief, yet still held unmistakable beauty. The space between his eyebrows sank into a deep crevasse of hollow pain. A tear threw itself down my face at the sight of his brokenness and I wanted to look away, but couldn’t bring myself to emotionally abandon him.

  He placed his forehead on my stomach for a second, taking a deep breath and pulling me to his lap. I kissed his temple and his nose before he grabbed each side of my face and drew me into his mouth. This kiss was different. It was pleading; begging me to understand, begging me to pull him up from the hole that opened as soon as he started playing that song. His grip moved to my waist and a restrained moan sprang from his throat.

  I pulled my face away and stared at him. Tears flowed freely, now, down his cheeks; my thumbs couldn’t wipe them all away before they splashed on my thighs. With one bottomless, primal sounding wail, his forehead pressed into my shoulder as he gave in to the music, his body quaking beneath my arms. Grief encased me; I buried my head in his neck and met him sob for sob, my legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

  After what felt like several minutes, our mouths found and comforted each other between silent cries of love and loss.

  “Ember,” he forced apologetically between kisses and tears.

  “Don’t. I love you. This is what it means.”

  I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t respond as we continued making love with our clothes on and our souls bared.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sunlight speared through a tiny part in Bo’s heavy curtains as I awoke in his arms. By the time we made our way back to his bed from the studio, we both buckled under emotional enervation and fell asleep immediately.

  I peered up at a still-sleeping Bo. How do guys look so young when they’re sleeping? Tilting my head, I kissed under his chin before nuzzling back into his neck. Forever. The thought rang loudly in my ears; my heart raced at the want of forever, and the realization that tomorrow morning would be the last time I woke in Bo’s bed for who knows how long.

  “Mmmm, I could get used to waking up like this.” Bo just barely opened his mouth and eyes, as he tightened his arms around me.

  His swollen, red eyes were the only reminder of being in the studio last night; I realized mine must look the same. Without question, he had played his song for me. I saw and tasted the suffering, but he never stopped. He didn’t question when I absentmindedly asked him to play the music on the piano; he trusted me with his soul completely. He told me he loved me by baring the very essence of his soul, without hesitation.

  “Good morning.” I shifted upward and stretched my arms overhead. I combed my fingers through his hair.

  He planted a kiss on each hipbone before sitting next to me, knees bent. He draped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me back in to him; there was no awkwardness in our silence - it was perfect comfort.

  I reached for my cell phone to check any missed messages, and noticed an email I’d missed from last night. It was from William Holder, DROP’s grant writer, telling me he was looking forward to meet me and wondered if he and I could schedule a time to go over our contacts.

  “Do you have anything planned for today?” I turned to Bo, who sat staring at me with something playful in his eyes.

  “Not really, we’ll go out for drinks tonight since tomorrow will be a long day but that’s about it, why?”

  “I got an email yesterday from your grant writer asking to get together sometime so we could go over our contacts, and all that other boring grant writer nonsense. I figured since I was here, I could see if we could get the meeting out of the way before the big meeting tomorrow.” I thumbed through the rest of my emails and texts.

  Bo was silent for an inordinate amount of time. When I turned to see if he’d fallen back asleep, his face was twisted in deliberation.

  “Something wrong?” I elbowed him.

  “Huh? Oh, no, sorry, just spaced there for a minute. Does Bill know you’re in town already?”

  “No, I haven’t emailed him back yet. Do I call him Bill, or is that just because you two are friends?”

  “Bill’s fine. Just email him and let him know you’re in town, and that we’ll be at McCarthy’s tonight if he wants to stop in to introduce himself-we don’t need to worry about other business stuff today,” he dismissed, though I could tell he was pulling from reserves of lightheartedness.

  Bo jumped out of bed and pulled on his blue plaid pajama pants that hung dangerously low off his hips.

  “You’re right. Today can be spent in frivolity. I’ll email him,” I giggled as I sat on my knees, heading toward him.

  Bo stiffened. “I gotta head downstairs to the office for a quick sec; towels are all set in the bathroom if you want to shower.” He placed a tight kiss on the top of my head before heading downstairs.

  What the hell was that all about? Was he expecting me to talk about what happened last night? Shit, did I offend him by not mentioning it?

  When I stepped out of the shower, I could hear Bo shuffling through his dresser.

  “Hey, better?” I said into my towel as I dried my hair upside down.

  “What do you mean?” He walked over and impishly messed the towel through my hair.

  “You got all weird earlier, just checking.” I shrugged, righting myself and wrapping the towel around my head.

  “No, sorry, it’s fine. I’m just tired.” He slipped on his dark jeans, and pulled a snug emerald green shirt across his chest.

  Shit, if that’s not his color, I don’t know what is.

  He caught my lingering stare and straightened his shoulders proudly.

  “Color of your eyes; looks good on me, I’d say.” He smirked sophomorically.

  “I’ll say. What are we doing today? I need to dress accordingly, lest we run into the likes of Ms. Ainsley Worthington again,” I quipped as I reached for my suitcase.

  “You don’t need to be worried about Ainsley, November.” He was annoyed.

  “Oh, I know,” I added teasingly, “but I just want to make sure she knows.” I winked.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he laughed, as he lifted me in the air.

  “As I said, a
nything you want.” I pressed into his mouth desperately.

  * * *

  Our morning was spent ambling through town; it quickly became clear I was with New England royalty. Every shop owner engaged Bo in honest conversation, congratulating him on everything with DROP, and wishing him well with a pat on the back as he left. As we drove back to his house in the afternoon, my phone beeped with a text.

  Adrian: You’re in town?

  Me: What town? Don’t you live in Boston?

  Adrian: Concord, smartass . . . meeting tomorrow, remember?

  Me: How’d you know I was here, Stalker?

  Adrian: You caught me. I saw you and Cavanaugh walking through town today.

  “I didn’t realize Adrian would be at the meeting tomorrow.” I looked from my phone to Bo.

  Bo shrugged. “Legal team. Does it matter? I can ask him not to come.” Half his mouth turned up.

  “I’m sure you could.” I looked back to my phone.

  Me: yea, I’m staying with Bo . . . you really are a hopeless stalker Adrian

  Adrian: Want to get together before tomorrow? I’m staying at The Centennial

  Me: Nice try

  Adrian: What? :)

  I leaned forward and thumped my head on the dashboard.

  “What?” Bo chuckled.

  “Fucking Adrian . . . he wants to get together before tomorrow. I told him the other day we could have some time to talk before the meeting Monday. Should I invite him to the apparent party we’re hosting at McCarthy’s tonight?” I asked, reminding him Bill Holder was planning on showing up.

  “I suppose. Maybe I could tell Ainsley and we could make a real night of it.”

  I flashed him the middle finger before returning to my text.

  Me: Bo and I will be at McCarthy’s tonight- 9:00. Some of his friends will be there, too.

  Adrian: see you then.

  “Well, if nothing else, tonight’s going to be interesting. Hey, do you think we should hook Adrian and Ainsley up?” I jested as I pressed my head against the window. “Rachel sure has some choice words for Ainsley, what’s that about?”

  “Do you really want to know or are you going to get ‘all girl’ about it and use it to form some jealous rage?”

  “Excuse me? What part of the last week and a half leads you to believe I’ll act ‘all girl’ about anything?” My mouth dropped open in mock-horror.

  “Ha! True. Ainsley and I dated a bit off-and-on in high school; you know-the whole cheerleader and football player deal?”

  “Um, you played football? Oh, please tell me you were the quarterback.” He tried, and failed, to suppress a grin as I spoke. “You were the fucking quarterback? Let me out now so I can go puke in the bushes.”

  “Hypocrite. Like Adrian Turner was some wallflower bookworm.” Bo turned up his sarcasm.

  “Fair enough. So you and the trampy cheerleader dated, trampy being Rae’s word not mine.” I cocked my head to the side, mimicking Ainsley’s move from the night before, “Why’d you break up?”

  “We went to different colleges; I went to UNH and she was down at Northeastern, it was kind of an easy out for me - the whole distance thing, since I didn’t want to be with her anyway.”

  “You pig - love it. Rachel said she tried to get back together with you after your parents died? Better words than trampy are typically used to describe that kind of move.” I rolled my eyes out the window.

  “Yeah, it started innocently enough; I mean, we’ve been friends since we were little. After a few months she tried to move in on me physically and I called her on using my grief for her gain. She was pissed, but that’s only because I was right.”

  “Well played.” I nodded.

  “That’s really it. She still flirts with me constantly; it bugs the hell out of Rae and she’s told Ainsley off a few times.” A proud big-brother grin stretched across his face. “So, what about you and Turner?”

  “Well, you know about all there is to know.”

  “Yea, Blue, I guess I do.”

  Ouch. Bo saw the tense look on my face.

  “I’m sorry, that was out of line. Why’d you break up?”

  “Well, like I told you, I told him I loved him. He said he loved me back, but I thought it was panic on his part. Wouldn’t have mattered, we were too young.”

  “What was it, if it wasn’t panic?”

  “Well, the other night he told me he wasn’t kidding, that it was love - that he really did love me then,” I spoke in a near-whisper.

  “What? What do you mean the other night?” That was not a whisper.

  Oops.

  “Oh calm down. He just thought the reason why I’ve basically avoided him since graduation was because I thought he was a jackass-”

  “He is a jackass,” Bo interrupted through gritted teeth.

  “Easy! I know Adrian well enough to know that he wasn’t telling me that to get back in my pants. Believe me, a guy like Adrian Turner does not have to use ‘the L word’ to get what he wants.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, haven’t you seen him with women around here? Don’t they just throw themselves at him? You said you knew he was ‘fast’ with women.”

  “I haven’t spent much time with him apart from being with you; I just know guys like him.”

  “Oh, well, you’ll see tonight - he doesn’t have to do anything but walk in a room, kind of like you.” I smirked.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, do not compare me to Adrian.” Bo rolled his eyes, exasperated, as he turned down his driveway.

  “What the hell is your issue with him? As far as I can tell, he did you a huge favor by not telling me about the blackmail even though he had ample opportunity to. But, he let, or made, you do it. Did he make you do it?”

  “No, he didn’t make me do it Ember, Jesus. We covered this already; for a split fucking second Adrian knew you better than I did, and pointed out that you would likely figure the whole thing out eventually.” The leather of the steering wheel groaned under his tightening grip.

  “Right, and that split second is over, I’m all yours. I was all yours before Adrian ever showed up, and I’ll be all yours long after he moves on.” I pried his right hand off the wheel and smoothed my fingers across his.

  Bo maintained the strained silence as he drove down his driveway and I shook my head thinking about going out later. Perhaps I’ll text Adrian and tell him not to come.

  “Is it going to be all weird tonight having Adrian there - if he decides to show up?” I asked as Bo exited the car.

  “Oh, he’ll show up. And, no, it’s fine.” Bo slammed the door. “Hey, why are you just sitting there - are you pissed?” He crossed over to my door.

  “Just waiting for you to open the door.” I shrugged and his face cracked as he let out a raucous laughter.

  “Come on, let’s get ready so we can go have a quiet dinner before we introduce Ainsley and Adrian - if Ainsley shows up, that is.” Bo winked as he opened the door and swooped me into his arms.

  “Oh, she’ll show up.” I mocked his previous tone, as he carried me up the front steps to his house.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Oh, come on, are you really wearing that?!” Bo rolled over and buried his face in his pillow as I strutted across the room.

  “You bet your sweet ass I’m wearing this,” I purred in to the mirror, brushing off the bright red, backless halter dress as I steadied myself in my nude patent heels.

  “OK, why are you wearing it? Are you trying to incite a riot?” His voice rang with lively wickedness as he lifted his head from his pillow.

  “Ha, quite the opposite actually. I’m wearing this for several reasons. One, I look hot in it, two, you know I look hot in it, and three, there’s no other way to prove to you that Adrian’s not trying to get in my panties unless I wear this very dress. He’ll look, don’t be fooled, but if he has any residual feelings for me, they’ll throw themselves on the floor in front of me.” I turned to
see him sitting slack-jawed.

  Adrian totally has feelings for you, Blue. Let’s hope he doesn’t act on them.

  “Alright, you cock-tease, what if he does throw himself in front of you?” Bo’s laugh echoed in the room.

  “Permission granted to kick his ass . . . if I don’t do it first. And, I never tease - you know that. Now, get yourself all prettied up; you can’t be seen with me looking like that.”

  “Alright, alright, I’ll change. But first . . . I want to give you this.” From under his bed, Bo produced a wrapped package with a card taped on the front.

  “What’s this?” I charmed, slinking toward him.

  “A little something from the real me to the real you, November.”

  Ignoring the card, like an excited child, I tore the wrapping open. Inside was a hard cover music composition notebook; it was all black with no wording on the front. I cracked open the front cover and my eyes welled with tears. There, on the first page, was the lullaby, my lullaby, with Bo’s original accompaniment, scribed in his hand.

  Seeming to sense my lack of words, Bo grabbed my knee, “It was incomprehensible to me that someone with your talent didn’t own one of these.” He cocked his head, “I wanted to be the one to lead the way. You need to take yourself seriously here, November. I’ve been playing for years, and your raw talent supersedes most that have spent years in a studio,” he encouraged through pleading eyes.

  “Bo,” I choked at the sight of my past and anticipative future together in one gorgeous visual harmony, sitting between us in the present, “this is . . .”

  “Forever, Ember. Something brought me in to Finnegan’s that night. Something sparked in me when we shook hands before you sang-”

  “You felt that?” The memory of my first physical interaction with Bo warmed my senses.

  “Hell yes, I felt it - it’s what made me join in that damn Wailin’ Jennys song with you. I couldn’t deny the pull I felt to you and I had to test it out on stage. The crowd noticed too, Ember - it was like they were watching James Taylor and Carly Simon or something!”