Summer Breeze Kisses

by Addison Moore

“Hey,” I say as my heart ratchets up again, thumping so hard I’m sure she can feel it.

  “Huh.” She takes a step back, her stance suddenly set in defiance with her knee turned out her left hip hiked up. “It seems bumping into women is suddenly your new specialty. Is that how they taught you to cop a feel in law school? Make it look like an accident and that way your victim might actually apologize to you.”

  Any trace of a smile I might have had slips right off my face. “I don’t need to invoke juvenile moves to get any action, Lexy.”

  “Aarrggh!” Her face turns purple with rage as she hikes up on her feet. “I abhor that name, and you know it! I demand you rescind and never call me that again.” She takes a step in close and the warmth of her body touches over my chest, reminding me I’ve gotten a little too close to the flame.

  Our eyes latch, and I can’t find the words, nothing clever, nothing serious as hell, and nothing in-between. A part of me demands to know how she could not ask anything about Emilia after the way we left that conversation this afternoon. It’s most likely too painful. I get it.

  Just as I’m about to suggest we both get back to work, a familiar dark-haired ponytail bops in this direction—Teagan. She’s full on vamped out with a skirt that’s a little too short, a top that I can garner too much information from, and high heel shoes that seem to lift her a foot in the air.

  “Hey, big bro!” She leaps over me and offers a quick embrace. “Shep brought a few friends and me over tonight to check out the Sins.” She hitches her thumb my way while shaking her head at Lex. “He thinks he’s it now that the big boys have jumped on stage.” Her shoulders hike to her ears as she bleats a little laugh. “And he totally is.” She lets out a scream and hugs me all over again. “I can’t believe you pulled this off! I might actually want to hang out at this place now. Thanks for upping the cool factor. It’s about time.” She leans into Lex once again. “It was beyond embarrassing telling my friends that my brother owned the old miners’ fart downtown. But now I might actually spread the word.” She gives me a little hip bump. “Oh, hey!” She bounces in front of Lex, and I can tell by that look on Lex’s face she’s getting ready to bolt. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but I also know you have great taste—pun intended—and I would love it if you could spare a few ideas for this party I’m having here in a few short weeks. Is there any way we can get together sometime? The clock is ticking, and I really want everything to be perfect,” Teagan pleads with those watery eyes of hers, and Lex gasps as if she doesn’t know what to do with her.

  “Lexy is sort of busy.” My jaw tightens because I just called her the very name she demanded I never use again.

  “With what?” Teagan whines, stomping her heels to the floor. “I swear, it will take less than ten minutes of your time.”

  “Teagan,” I bark louder than I meant to, and my sister freezes solid. I can see Emilia there in her eyes, her own shock and disappointment gutting me without meaning to.

  Lex lifts a hand as if to wave me away. “Of course, I will. It’s dead here in the afternoons. Whenever you’re free, give your brother a call, and I’ll meet you down here. I just threw my sister a big birthday bash a few months ago, so I’m an old pro at it.”

  “Thank you so much!” Teagan wraps Lex in a hug before bolting for the group of girls she walked in with who have already hit the dance floor.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” I try to catch Lex’s gaze, but she’s still staring at Teagan, most likely wondering what the hell she’s gotten herself into.

  “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do it for you.” She barrels past me, and thus ensues an odd dance of avoidance for the next few hours, on her behalf at least. The night is wrapping up, but the 12 Deadly Sins are still going strong. I’ve watched Teagan cutting loose with her girlfriends as if global peace depended on those moves they’re doling out. I’ve also watched as a few frat boys made their way over and hit on them, but before I could break any noses, Teagan and her crew effectively shut them down. And unfortunately, I’ve also bared witness to Lex taking her break with none other than my brother. Abby happily took their order, and the entire alliance seemed unholy if you ask me.

  I head over to the bar and man the fort while Mojo, the head bartender, takes off for a quick smoke.

  Lex speeds this way, and her eyes widen in haste once she sees it’s me she needs to deal with.

  “I need two cosmos and a redneck cotillion.” The redneck cotillion is a drink that Mojo invented himself, too much whiskey and a dash of Coke and Tabasco sauce. It sells mostly because of the name he christened it with. I’m still waiting for a defamation lawsuit from the Redneck League. The world is so PC there has to be one.

  I put the drinks together one by one and land them on the counter in front of her.

  “Two cosmos and a redneck, all for you, Lexy.” The muscles in my jaw flex when I say her name that way. There’s a method to my madness, but I’m not up for sharing.

  A dull huff escapes her lips as she leans in, wild-eyed with rage as if I just crossed the line. “Where do you live, Collins?”

  Lex only invokes my last name when she’s had it with me. Usually it’s in jest—hell, she even called me that in bed a few times, and the thought alone curves a smile on my lips.

  “Jepson Towers. Penthouse.” A part of me wants to impress her with it.

  “Excellent. I’ll find a way to bribe the doorman and knife your balls off while you sleep.”

  My boxers twitch with the threat as if something about it had the power to turn it on. Hell, it did. Just the thought of Lex crawling into bed with me to do anything with my balls makes me happy.

  “Massage them first and it might be worth it.” I can’t believe the words as they leave my lips, but they did and I decide to own them.

  Her perfect pink lips fall open at the audacity I had to speak with her that way. The real reason I went there was because that’s the way we bantered once upon a time. She was sharp and caustic, and I’d lob it right back. We both loved every minute. Right now, I’m probably staring down the barrel of a sexual harassment suit. That too might be worth it if it means I get to spend more time with her—even if it is in a courtroom.

  Lex pushes a quick breath from her lips as if centering herself in the madness. “What on earth do I have to do to get you to stop calling me that?”

  “Go out with me.” I don’t miss a beat. Although, in hindsight I probably should have been more specific.

  Lex tips her head back so quick you’d think someone had shot her.

  “Okay.” She snaps her gaze to me once again.

  “Okay?” I parrot back in disbelief. My heart slams against my chest so loud and fast it drowns out all of the chaos in the bar. There’s no way I heard that right.

  “Don’t make me change my mind, Collins.” Her nostrils flare with rage as she piles the drinks on her tray and whisks off toward her table.

  Holy crap. Lex and I are going out. Hell has frozen over. Pigs are flying. It’s the twelfth of never. Every idiom of improbability is employed in my life all at once.

  My entire body enlivens with adrenaline. You could light a match under my feet and I’d rocket straight to Mars.

  Lex—my Lex is back in my life. We’re going to work this time come hell or high water, and we’ve already been through both. She’s softening, molding to me, no longer able to avoid the gravitational pull of who we are—or at least that’s the version I’m feeding myself. Nevertheless, Lex and I are off the ground. We have liftoff, and I’ll make sure we never come crashing back down to earth again.

  Joy of Sex With Your Ex

  Lex

  A week ambles by, and it’s all I can do to stave off Axel and that date I promised. But it’s Friday. He’s scheduled me off for the night and booked a table at Enigma—only the finest dining experience in the tri-city area. So, of course, I couldn’t say no. I’ve already selected my navy dress and matching heels with the straps that lace up past my an
kles. It will be cold in the dining hall, so I’ll bring my leather jacket, the one with the spikes running up and down my chest which will also provide a decent barrier if he decides that treating me to a meal entitles him to get frisky. And seeing that he’s a man, it will.

  I’m just about to get ready for my culinary rendezvous with a vegetable ratatouille crepe brimming with goat cheese, but before I do so, I feed Strudel two heaping scoops of his favorite lamb kibble. On nights that I eat well, I make sure Strudel does, too. Sure, the world might say Axel is my date, but he’s more of a transportation system, a conduit between me and one of my favorite meals. He’s nothing more than the middleman in this scenario. It’s not a real date. I would never date Axel Collins. I swore I would never go out with him again, and I’m not breaking a single vow I might have made to myself way back when. This is just sort of a—I step into the living room and groan—mess.

  Just the sight of my poor disheveled home makes me grunt with discontent. That horrid bridal shower I inadvertently threw Low a few weeks back may have ended, but I still have one party guest who refuses to find the door. After Raven confessed that her things were in her car and that she was essentially homeless, she’s been holed up here ever since. Suddenly homeless? Living out of her crappy car? She has so much in common with Low it’s scary. I can see why they’ve christened one another “besties”. God, I hate that word. It’s perky and annoying and it belongs solely within the confines of a sorority. Nevertheless, Raven has magically transformed my neat as a pin home into a hoarder’s playground.

  It turns out Raven isn’t so much a neat freak after all. She’s a master manipulator is what she is. She’s an Oscar to my Felix. In a single week, she transformed my Zen little paradise painted in calming hues of blues and greens and deconstructed it into an ode to a frat house complete with odd splatters of color dotting the floor as her clothes slowly migrate toward the laundry room.

  She’s curled up in a ball on the couch, clad in gray sweats, glasses that keep sliding down her nose, an ice cream bar pinned between her lips and a slice of pizza in her other hand. She’s so engrossed in that silly rom-com she keeps playing on a loop she doesn’t even know I’m in the same airspace.

  A tower of pizza boxes stacked near the sofa catches my eye. “You’re insane,” I belt out the words in disbelief.

  “I’m insane? I don’t have an entire army of people protesting my actions. I’m not the one with protesters on my lawn.”

  I glare at both her and the leaning tower of pizza boxes. “Please tell me this is some sort of performance piece you’re pulling. Or that the pizza recycling bin waiting to happen is installation art because God and I both know you mentioned your specialty was making my tiny home look unlived in.”

  Raven doesn’t take her eyes off the screen. “It was. It is. I mean the art, and the unlived in part.” She says so many nonsensical words at once, and the urge to smack her over the head with one of those pizza boxes comes on strong. She shrugs it off with her crooked ponytail lopping to the side, her slacked sweats pulled high on her waist as she wilts on the couch, craning her neck past me to see the television screen.

  “But I can’t seem to get another job. I can’t even get an interview,” she whines. “Something tells me if I ran naked through the Arctic tundra I couldn’t catch a cold.”

  “Oh, boo-hoo. Cry me an icy river. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get a paycheck already. Flap your wings down to The Pelican with me. I’m sure Axel will have you bussing tables before dinner rush.” I cringe at the thought of yet another waitress eating my lunch or dinner as it were. It’s bad enough that nutcase yippy-yappy puppy that I’m sure belongs in a sorority house somewhere Abby Wilcox keeps weaseling her way into my piggy bank. Twice last week she snaked two of my tables. Just snatched them from under me, claiming she didn’t realize I had that section. It’s odd how she gets her sectional wires crossed when there’s a party of ten or more—leaving me with her lousy date night couples with the sleazy male quasi-flirting with me while he’s too cheap to spring for two entire meals. Split an appetizer for dinner, my ass. I hope the losers never get laid again.

  “I can’t work at The Pelican.” Raven takes a healthy bite of her waxy looking pizza. Bleh. You couldn’t pay me to wipe my bottom with it, let alone push it past my lips. “My brother owns the place. It’d be weird.”

  “What you call weird others refer to as employment. The tips alone will keep you in cardboard pizza for a month.” My heart wrenches at the thought of losing my new moneymaking gig. I certainly don’t plan on working there forever. My ex owns the place. It is weird. Let’s get real. The only other way I can get this kind of money is if I steal it, and I’m too harebrained and terrified not to get caught.

  “My pizza funds are secure. An old frat boy I used to date gives me his employee discount. Believe you me, I’ve earned it.”

  “I’m afraid to ask how, so I won’t. Something tells me getting on all fours was involved.” I snap up a trail of rainbow colored tank tops and dump them onto her lap. “And feel free to tidy up any time you want. Be sure to have this place looking as if you never set foot in it by the time I get home tonight from my date.”

  “Date?” She balks at the idea through a mouthful of cheese wax. “Who the hell would want to date you? The only one off his rocker enough to even contemplate such a ball-busting move is—” She looks up at me and gasps so loud I’m half-hoping she’s inhaled the bolus churning in her mouth. Surely a lungful of crappy Italian food should qualify her for more hygienic quarters—say, the hospital?

  “Are you kidding?” Her limbs scatter as if they were trying to find the quickest exit off her body.

  A knock erupts at the door before I can electrocute her with another word.

  I head over and open it to find Low with her hair in a bouncy ponytail, a buoyant smile on her lips. “Long time no see, bestie!” She rings her arms around me in a strangulating hug. “Oh my God, I missed you like crazy!”

  “Relax.” I pluck her off me as she saunters on in and I entomb us inside lest the protesters meander up the walk as they’re prone to do. My God, don’t they have a home? Jobs? Children? Parole officers to check in with? “I’m just a girl you barely know, not a child you lost at the mall.”

  Low honks out a laugh before getting settled on the sofa next to Raven. “I know you all too well.”

  “Get this.” Raven gives Low a violent shove that nearly sends her flying off the couch. Nice. Break her arm before her wedding. Now that’s a bestie for you. “She’s going out with Axel tonight.”

  Low looks up at me as if I just plunged a knife into her belly, and believe me, I’m tempted.

  “With the Ax? As in Axel Collins, the ex who we were given strict instructions not to speak of? Axel Collins who not only had me arrested but was the ironic reason for that arrest Axel Collins? Are you off your meds again?”

  “As if I needed a single chemical to hold down the fort.” I smirk at the two of them all huddled together, ready for a night in with their plethora of soft porn. “Yes, Axel Collins. The jack-in-the-box that broke my heart.” I check my face in the mirror above the couch and note I’ll need a touch more blusher. I abhor looking pale in decent lighting, and Enigma not only has the best food, they have impeccable lighting capable of erasing decades off even the prunish of faces.

  “Jack-in-the-box?” Raven looks to Low for explanation.

  “Read jackass.” She wrinkles her nose. “Lex hates expletives more than she hates poor Ax the ex.”

  “Not true,” I offer quickly. “It’s about an even split.”

  Low flicks off her sneakers and tucks her feet under her bottom. “So where’s the big miracle taking place? Hallowed Grounds? Something quick and caffeinated?”

  Raven scoffs. “The Witch’s Cauldron? Something hot and immersive that a soul or two can drown in?”

  I chew on that for a moment. “As tempting as a scalding death sounds, I’m not up for suffocating him just ye
t. He’ll be treating me to a meal at Enigma.”

  “Oh?” Low muses as she swings her ponytail from side to side. “Then are you heading up to his place for a little nightcap? Maybe some whiskey with a twist of sin?”

  I pause a moment on my way back to my bedroom. “That’s right.” I gasp. “Enigma is in the Jepson Towers. He did mention his penthouse is in the same building. I guess I didn’t put two and two together.” My entire body fills with heat at the idea. “But trust me, that boy knows better than to think he can just whisk me off to his place and land me flat on my back. There’s no way he’s hitting a home run with me ever again. And the rest of the bases don’t stand a chance either. Nope. This is strictly about the food—and by acquiescing to the date, he’s kindly offered to stop calling me Lexy.” I take a moment to glare at Raven. “Don’t even try to say it.”

  “Oh, I won’t.” She spikes her ice cream stick into her next pizza slice as if it were a fork. “Low filled me in on all the levels of crazy it brings out in you. As delightful as it would be to witness from afar, there’s no way in hell I’d pop the cork on that bottle.”

  I glare at her for a moment until she sinks lower on the sofa.

  “I meant H-E-double hockey sticks, Mom.”

  “That’s better. Now clean this house before I get back or I’ll beat you with a wooden spoon until you’re black and blue.”

  The two of them titter out a laugh at my not-so vague threat while I primp and pamper myself into polished perfection.

  I strut back out and do a little twirl, thus breaking their TV trance.

  “Oh my God!” Low exclaims with marked excitement. “You are so getting laid tonight!”

  “No, I’m not.” I swing my hips from side to side. “Well, maybe. I have been flirting with Pink Thomas ever since you left him behind. I’d seal the deal, but Strudel’s already claimed him for himself.” It’s true. That dildo that was left behind on the night of the bridal shower wars is now fast friends with my little horny pooch. Although in Strudel’s defense, he thinks it’s just an incredible vibrating chew toy. I’ll admit I’m a bit envious. Especially on those nights where I miss a man—ironic since the only man I’ve ever been with is the one I’m going out with tonight.