Summer Breeze Kisses

by Addison Moore

  I suck in a never-ending breath. “The audacity! I don’t know whether to slap you or deck you.”

  Low pops up. “Sounds like things are getting kinky in this corner of the room.” Her brows do that faux waggle I hate so much for many, many reasons, but mostly because it implies that something lascivious is percolating between us. I bear into him with beams of hatred as Raven claps the room to attention.

  “Enough chitchat, y’all!” A country twang expels from her, and my hate filled beams switch directly to her. If I detest anything more than waggle brows, it’s a faux country accent that grows thicker with every shot of tequila, and a bottle of tequila is exactly what Raven is waving around. Great. Hopefully, she’ll black out soon and cast a pall on the party. Which by the way I did not sign off on. I believe this was billed to me as an intimate gathering that consisted of just the three of us. It’s clear that math is not the educational focus over at Whitney Briggs. And judging by the wild whoops that keep escaping Raven’s lips, neither is sobriety.

  Raven has Chip and Levi scoot the coffee table off to the side and instructs us all to sit in a circle on the floor—my teal diamond silk Oriental rug, that is. Poor Nannette did not ask for all this action tonight.

  I sit between Low and Mer the Trollop. I dubbed her that quasi-derogatory moniker officially earlier this summer when Low let me in on the fact Mer cheated on Levi with his twin. With his twin? Really? Those two are practically interchangeable, but Low swears the trollop knew oh so well whose hotdog was plugging her crater.

  Raven clears her throat before taking another swig of tequila from the bottle. “As y’all know, I’ve got way too many big brothers in this room to play any games so I’m the official mod, and if any of you get out of line you’ll have me to deal with. This here is serious.” She gives a wink over to Low as if she’s in on whatever is about to transpire. Raven and Low are a dangerous combination. Trust me, I know this after spending five minutes around the two of them together. They’re both seated at opposite ends of our psychotic sphere, so I’m torn as to who to glower at first. Grown-ups sitting cross-legged on a rug as if this were kindergarten. Ten bucks says someone will start to complain about their creaky joints. Both Nannette and I will laugh.

  Axel grunts as he leans back on his elbows. “This is tough on my knees. Let’s move it along.”

  “Forever complaining.” I sneer. Knew he’d be the first to crack. “It’s nice to know some things never change.” Axel didn’t actually complain that often—but once we were through, it was all that incessant whining—Take me back, Can’t we work things out? Please, Lex, talk to me.

  Our eyes latch for a moment, and my stomach squeezes tight. I remember those long hard days after the breakup. Axel Collins tried to rearrange the planets for me, but I wouldn’t have it.

  “Spin the bottle!” Raven waves that jewel-toned tequila bottle over her head as if reveling in a victory.

  The room fills with groans, mostly from Chip and Mer. I can see how this can get awkward quickly.

  Brody shakes his head at the idea. “I can’t get behind this.”

  “Oh hush, you.” Raven lands the bottle dead center and proceeds to spin it, and we watch mesmerized as it transports us all back to seventh grade. Only in seventh grade, we were savvy enough to understand you needed two circles and two bottles. Come to think of it, this might be more entertaining than previously anticipated. It lands on Brody, and Raven gives it another spin. Round and round it goes until I’m tempted to pick it up and bash Raven over the head for ever coming up with such a stupid idea. The bottle finally slows and lands on her.

  “Well, Tater Tot?” Brody offers an ear-to-ear grin.

  Tater Tot. It’s all I can do not to gag on site. I’m betting that was some adorable nickname she earned once upon a rosy childhood after stuffing her potato hole with the deep-fried tots and barfing them all over his shoes. My version does have a certain flare about it.

  “Not on your life, Animal.”

  Animal? I snarl at her for the lack of imagination. I get it though. Brody Wolf—thus animal.

  She spins the bottle again, and it lands on Chip then Mer. Thank goodness. The last thing I want or need is sibling rivalry rearing its ugly head and wrestling moves on my silk rug. They lean in and do the lip-lock nasty, and I keep an extra eye on Levi through the entire event, but he doesn’t even flinch. So it’s not bad enough they’ve canoodled behind closed doors and procured an heir from their infidelity—they now do it right here in the open, defiling my innocent rug with their lack of social decorum. Idiots.

  The bottle spins and spins and Levi kisses Low. It didn’t quite land on Low, but Raven’s big toe helped a bit. And bare feet on my pretty Nannette? I don’t care how cute your bright pink painted talons look. I don’t want or need your sweat on my pet. Speaking of pets. Strudel has nestled himself under Axel’s knee. I knew I couldn’t trust his alliance.

  Finally, the bottle lands on me. “Action at last.” I cock my head to Axel because I’m secretly hoping it’ll land on Levi. The two of us hit it hot and heavy a few weeks back after I accosted him at the bar. It was all a ruse, of course, as I tried to convince Raven that Levi was my man. And, of course, after that, it was a heavily contested point between Low and me whether or not Levi gifted me some tongue. He didn’t, but I needed to get a rise out of her for putting me in that ridiculous situation to begin with. There’s nothing like driving someone insane over a well-contested fact. I still refer to Levi as The Frencher to this day whenever Low is around.

  The bottle lands on Chip then nods and bobs until barely cresting its way into Collins’ territory. Crap.

  “Ha!” I balk at the idea. “As if that’s about to happen. I wouldn’t even let you kiss my dog.”

  Axel’s lips curl at the tips in that obnoxious way they tend to do when he thinks he has the upper hand. His fingers curl around Strudel’s ear, and my goofy pooch proceeds to lick him over the back of his hand.

  My mouth falls open at the sight. Damn traitor. Twice in one night!

  Raven snaps up the bottle. “All right, girly, let’s have it. The two of you need to pucker up so we can move this show along.”

  “Move it along.” I shoot a barbed look her way. “Move it or I’ll arrange to have those long raven locks chopped off at the ears when you’re passed out drunk on my couch later.”

  Mer gasps. “My God, you’re a monster.”

  I cut my eyes her way. “Isn’t that the wandering wife calling the kettle a beast in her own home?”

  “All right, ladies.” Raven dares to tap me with her prehensile toes. “Keep it clean. Lex, if you’re not going to kiss him, he gets to ask you a question and you have to answer it no matter what.”

  “Of course, I do,” I muse. “Who am I to protest the sacred rules of middle school games.” I channel all of my rage over at Axel and those pale gray eyes that keep vying for my attention like some annoying siren. Yes, Axel is drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, my pink parts have morphed into the wild rivers since he’s set foot in the house tonight, and yes, I still blush if I look at him too long, but as for now, rage is the emotion of choice, and I plan to wear it well. “Ask me anything. I dare you.”

  The room grows eerily silent. Raven turns down the music via her phone, and even the chanting of the protesters outside fades a notch.

  Axel’s affect melts down to something just this side of serious. Gone is that obnoxious know-it-all grin, replaced with the timidity and ferocity of anger mingled with pain. Pain is a perfect emotion for Axel to feel. He should marinate in it until his bones and organs dissolve from the grief of losing me. I bet he’s going to ask if I still pine for him. I bet he’s going to try to invoke the tragic breakup card and dig up a skeleton or two about those crazy hazy days just after we ripped apart from one another. He still feels pain, and deep down he wants me to feel it, too. I know he does.

  He tips his chin back enough. Smug move on his part. “When was the last time you slept with anyone?�
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  My heart stops beating and glares at him right along with the rest of me. Of all the mother-loving questions. The audacity. The pig-headed ego of it all.

  Mer flicks a finger in the air. “Anyone? You mean she swings both ways? I thought you were smelling my hair.” Now it’s her glowering at me, and it’s almost comical.

  I hold up a hand in her direction, not even quantifying it with a reply. Instead, my eyes are dead set on Axel’s, so very laser-focused on my ex even Strudel starts in on a low-lying growl as if he senses a disturbance in the force. Good boy. Now bite his balls off and I’ll take you to the dog park and let you hump the living daylights out of that Springer Spaniel you’ve had your eye on with the long thick lashes.

  “How very crass of you,” I growl out the words, and Low sucks in a breath because she obviously senses imminent danger. “How very tasteless.” I bite the air with my words. “So you want an answer—an accounting of my vaginal wanderings.” His eyes round out showing his discomfort. As much as Axel tries to pass himself off as an everyman, he’s an aristocratic snob through and through. I’m sure having his ex tout the word vagina in front of his high-brow legal eagle friends is appalling to him on some level. Come to think of it, there are enough lawyers in this room that should a Molotov cocktail come crashing through the window, it would be doing a public service for delousing the world of four of them.

  “I give.” I toss up my hands, and just as I’m about to spout off some random number, offer up some random name with enough random facts about an entire string of fictitious nights, I can’t seem to do it. Instead, my gaze remains sealed over his. “There was just you.” I try to swallow the truth back down, but it’s impossible. A part of me is hoping that the truth will sting far greater than a lie, but I can already feel this won’t be the case. “The last time I slept with someone was with you—your apartment just after Halloween, exactly six years ago. It was as you suggested, a memorable night.”

  The room stiffens as the air grows stale. The thick scent of tequila flirts with my senses, but I’m too paralyzed to move, think, or breathe. Axel’s wide-eyed reciprocation of what I’ve just uttered has him frozen, stone-faced as if it were all too difficult to take in. As if he didn’t want any part of the truth. Maybe the truth was the best route after all.

  Mer expels a cross between a groan and a belch. “I call bull. I saw the way you tackled Levi. Trust me, honey, you’re no novice. Moves like that are honed over time, not some distant memory from over half a decade ago.”

  Levi shakes his head. “I think it’s real. Is it real, Lex?” he says it soft as if talking me down off a sexual ledge. The concern for me on the faces of those around me is almost comical. It’s as if the idea of not committing coitus with another person for six long years was something akin to a felony.

  I press my lips tight as I look to Ax. “It’s real.” A thousand different emotions run through me all at once, embarrassment, anger, resentment because I know he can’t say the same, but the most surprising of them all is relief. It’s as if I’ve lanced a wound and let the pus gush out between us. If anyone should see all the ugly parts of me, it’s him.

  Mer huffs as if we personally offended her. “So, you think you’ll hit that mattress with Axel again?”

  “No.” I don’t let a beat go by without answering. That’s how sure I am. But I never take my eyes off his. “We’re over and done. We crashed and burned with the best of them. We were a disaster.”

  The muscles in Axel’s jaw pop in silent protest to my words. He knows I’m right, though. That’s why he’s not contesting it.

  Raven unscrews the lid on that bottle and takes a quick swig. “How about we open some gifts?”

  After everyone slowly gets back to an upright position and the coffee table is moved into place, the room breaks out into hushed conversations as Raven gets the music going again. Everyone is paired off in twos and threes, and it’s just Axel and me staring at one another from across the room as if we’re about to have a showdown at high noon. Believe you me, if there was a weapon in the house that required gunpowder, I would have lunged for it by now.

  Raven herds us all onto the sofas with Levi and Low sitting on the hearth to my left. Strudel sits dutifully at their feet as if vying for front row seats.

  Raven plucks at the tag attached to a white gift bag. “First gift of the night is from Brody Wolf.” She nods to him, amused. “Let’s see what Animal thinks is an appropriate engagement gift.”

  Low plucks it from her and pulls out a beautiful silver frame with the words Our Wedding inscribed across the top.

  “Well done,” I muse. “A frame is a perfect gift for the happy couple.” I’m quick to laud him for his accomplishments because it was Brody who made up my first week’s schedule for me, thus issuing me all the juicy hours. I garnered so much green by the end of the week, I felt as if I was robbing the patrons at gunpoint.

  “Next gift”—Raven reads the tag off another gift bag—“is from me.” Her cheeks pinch with color, and she bites down over that cherry lip of hers with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Enjoy!” She practically shoves it at the poor couple.

  Low plucks a bunch of tissue paper out of the bag and shakes her head. “I don’t get it. There’s nothing in here.” She turns the bag upside down, and sure enough, it’s empty. Air from an airhead. Sounds perfectly appropriate.

  “It must be there.” Raven gives the tissue paper on the floor a quick tug and out rolls a bright pink, thick, slightly curved rubber stick of some sort, and both Mer and Low gasp with delight.

  Strudel wastes no time in making a beeline for the shiny pink plastic toy and takes a bite right out of the center of it. And just like that, the hideous thing gyrates to life, violently whipping back and forth as if it had a mind of its own. The room breaks out into hysterics as poor Strudel barks up a storm, but the tiny pink jumping bean dances across the rug and lands between my feet, beating them both in turn. Neither Nannette nor I are amused.

  Raven howls with laughter as if she belongs in an insane asylum. Low turns red as a lobster as she laughs and points.

  Mer harks out something that sounds more like a sandblaster turning on and off in spurts in lieu of a laugh. “It looks like that dildo has a foot fetish!”

  “The what?” I squawk so loud the room erupts an entire notch louder with its riotous laughter. I’ve heard of dildos before, but I’ve never seen one live and in person—and for the love of all things holy, why is it breakdancing over my Manolos? And son of a monkey on fire, Nannette is being sexually defiled!

  I pull my feet up on the sofa as if an entire cage full of live rats were just set loose.

  “Oh God!” I scream, hopping onto the couch, swatting at it with a throw pillow. “Kill it with fire! Kill it with fire!” I knock over a glass of someone’s chardonnay and let out a howl of my own as I watch the ink splat sink into my beloved silk rug. Not Nannette! A blood-curdling scream escapes me as I summon the courage and stomp the ever-living crap out of the dancing dick that’s set my every last nerve on fire. Finally, I manage to trap it under my heel, and it throbs a slow and vibratory death until Raven yanks it from me and turns it off.

  “Enough!” a male voice thunders from the side, and I turn to find Axel standing there with his hands cutting the air as if he were an umpire. “The party’s over. I think it’s time we call it a night.”

  Raven clicks her tongue in protest. “But what about the penis cake?”

  Both Levi and Chip groan at their naïve, dirty little sister at the thought of the inappropriate confection.

  Levi pulls Low to her feet. “There’s no way in hell you’re shoving that down our throats.”

  Chip is quick to hug Low goodnight. “He’s right. It was fun. We’ll have to do this again, sans the tequila and blowup man parts.”

  The room clears out in a hurry with Raven buried in the kitchen doing who knows what to that crude appendage sticking out of the not-so innocent cake. And I don’t ev
en want to know where one would procure such a treasure.

  Axel lingers at the door, glaring at me as if I owed him money.

  “If you’re gunning for affection, there might be a protester or two willing to whack you over the head with their signs.” I step forward and peer past him, but there’s not evidence of a single soul out there. It seems even Stumpy has called it quits for the night.

  He leans in, and the heat from his chest warms mine. “Hey”—he says it sweetly as if summoning me to look at him and I do—“about what you said—”

  “No need to put yourself on the altar. The last penile sword I’ll be falling on will be yours. Besides, I have a new friend who’s dying to get to know me better.” I glance to the broken dildo lying limp on the floor.

  He gives a hard frown. “I wouldn’t touch that thing. Your dog had his mouth on it.”

  “As did he you.” I offer him a firm shove out the door, and my palm lays flat over his rock-hard abs a moment too long. My God, what is he doing in his spare time? Lifting buildings off their foundation?

  “Touché.” He offers a rumble of a laugh as his eyes remain pinned to mine. “You always did have a way with words.”

  “And you’ve always had a way with tramps. Be gone.” I’m about to shut the door on his face, but he wedges his shoe in the threshold before I get the chance.

  His gaze is unmovable, and as much as my head screams look away, my eyes can’t seem to obey. He shakes his head ever so slightly. “That’s not what happened.”

  “It happened. It happened over and over and over again.” I kick his shoe so hard it nearly sends him flying from the porch, and I manage to slam the door shut before I can appropriately appreciate his literal downfall.

  I turn to find Raven trying to sop up the wine from Nannette’s silken locks, and she jumps to her feet admiring her handiwork. The dishrag in her hand looks as if it’s been party to a massacre, but miraculously, thankfully, the rug has been spared a stain.

  “How did you do that?” I marvel.