Countdown to a Kiss

by Mara Jacobs

  ***

  Lewis tucked his shirt back into his pants as he made his way into the Club. It was just before midnight. If he hurried, he’d get there just before the craziness. When he’d pulled his phone out to show Darcy the kissing game, he’d noticed texts from Tess, but didn’t bother reading or responding to them. The point seemed moot at the time, as it looked like he’d be in the hospital at midnight, not in any position to help out Tess.

  Now he fumbled in his pocket for the phone as he approached the Club. He patted his pockets, but came up empty. He must have left it at the hospital. Was Darcy hanging on to it when they’d started kissing? Honestly, he lost his phone all the time when he was on top of things. But to be able to keep his wits—and possessions—about him during and after that kiss? Not remotely possible.

  He entered the building where all his friends still were. And some people not so much his friends. He remembered the co-worker of Grace’s. Ramos. Was he still here? Would he be Grace’s first kiss of the new year? The thought of that would have seriously pissed him off just a few hours ago. Now, Lewis found he couldn’t work up any anger over the idea.

  Maybe Grace really liked the guy. Maybe they’d make a good match. They could clean their guns together in front of the fireplace.

  He walked by the coat check girls, thinking that he should get Darcy’s shawl thingy to bring home to her. Or maybe he’d just tell Ellen and John that it was still with the coats, because he wasn’t sure if Darcy would even want to see him around the house later. Or tomorrow.

  Man, if she was pissed at him, and regretted their kiss—and he wasn’t sure about either of those things, unable to read those last few minutes in the examination room—being a guest at the Bennett house was going to be pretty awkward.

  The unfinished floor of Brooks’s place was sounding better and better.

  But maybe if he could…just maybe

  When he entered the main ballroom, he stopped. It was too quiet, something was off. He realized everyone was looking at the stage where Grace stood, looking proud, and yet a little bit nervous.

  Grace, nervous? That didn’t seem right. He took a step back, and then another, and then another until he was standing back in the hallway. He could hear Grace’s voice, but not her words.

  He turned around, and ran smack into Brooks.

  “Dude, what are you doing here?” Brooks asked him.

  “I’m…I’m….” This was crazy. What was he doing here? It was a dumb, futile idea. He’d never be able to….“I’m going back,” he finally finished his sentence, and looked at Brooks fully. “I’m going back to Darcy. Right now.” He’d simply ask her why she’d kicked him out. He could do that, couldn’t he?

  “Um. Okay. Good. She’s okay, right? Mom said Darcy would text if it was serious. That’s not why you’re here, is it?”

  “No. She’s fine. Just a sprain. Bad sprain. But it doesn’t look like anything’s broken. They’re doing an X-ray just to be safe, and she’s waiting on that.”

  Brooks let out a sigh of relief. “So…?”

  “I just….” How could he tell Brooks why he was really at the Country Club? It sounded idiotic in his head, he could only imagine what Brooks would say, so he decided to fudge the truth a bit. “I, um, wanted to let John and Ellen know. And that I’d be bringing Darcy home from the hospital.”

  “Hey, Lewis, there’s these new things called cell phones that allow you to call, or just text people, and tell them things so you don’t have to drive all over town.”

  “Very funny. I—”

  “Listen, buddy, I’d love to find out what the hell is going on with you, but if Darcy’s okay, I was actually on my way out.”

  “But it’s not even midnight yet. You can stick around for a couple of minutes can’t you?”

  “Nope. Can’t do it, not even to steal a kiss from somebody. I just got a call that there’s an ice storm headed our way. Could be really dangerous driving. Add that to the usual drunk drivers on New Year’s Eve, and it could be a bad night.”

  “You got called in?”

  His friend nodded. “Me. Vance. All of us did. Anybody who was off duty.”

  “Aw man, that sucks.”

  Brooks just shrugged. “That’s the job. We can’t all be CEO of our own company.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “I’ve got to go. Tell Darce I’ll stop by the house tomorrow and see how she’s doing,” Brooks said and hustled down the hall and out the front entrance. Lewis followed close behind him. Then stopped.

  Crap.

  He had to look. He had to try. He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, turned around and started heading back toward the main room. A man who was dressed like a waiter or bartender neared him and asked if he needed help.

  “No, I’m just looking for….” But he couldn’t explain it to this stranger any more than he could to Brooks.

  “It’s not in there,” the youngish man said. Odd that he said “it” and not “they.” One would assume he’d be looking for a person. And how did he know who or what Lewis was looking for, anyway?

  “You should look in the other direction,” the man added as he walked past Lewis.

  Confused, Lewis turned and watched as the man strolled down the hallway and around a corner. Lewis turned back toward the main room just as Tess walked out.

  “You’re here,” she said. She looked at him strangely, but it’d been a very weird night already, so Lewis didn’t even try to understand her look.

  “Yeah,” he answered. Could she help him with his quest? Or would she be pissed about him not answering her texts and tell him to piss off? “Uh…”

  “Just in time. I should have known you wouldn’t miss it,” Tess said. She glanced behind her, back into the ballroom, but Lewis was still in the hallway and not able to see what she was looking at. “It’s two minutes till midnight. I think you should kiss me tonight.”

  Seriously? Tess wanted him to kiss her? After all the years they plotted together so she wouldn’t have to kiss him. Which had been fine with him, because then he got to kiss Grace. He glanced around the hallway, tried to see into the ballroom. If he had to kiss Tess, at least it’d be out here and nobody would see. Grace wouldn’t see.

  And Darcy wouldn’t find out.

  “Uh,” he said, stalling for time, still searching the hallway with his eyes.

  “One minute,” came the call from the ballroom.

  “I—” he started, not really sure what to say. Just a quick peck and then he could get on with what he’d really come here for.

  Tess stepped toward him, putting her hands on his upper arms. She looked kind of surprised to grab onto something solid, like she thought maybe he really was just a brain in an empty suit. There was resignation in her voice—resignation Lewis shared—when she said, “Let’s just kiss each other and be done—”

  “Why break your streak now, Tess?” said Johnny Wilder, who’d stepped out of the ballroom behind her. At the sound of his voice, Tess swung away from Lewis. “After all, it’s been ten years. You’ve never lost the bet yet,” Johnny added, his eyes never leaving Tess.

  And from the way Johnny was looking at Tess, Lewis knew she wouldn’t be losing it tonight, either.

  “Ten,” came the cry from the ballroom.

  “Oh, hi Johnny,” Lewis said in greeting. Not really surprised at the scene that was unfolding in front of him. So, Johnny finally was playing his cards. Good for him.

  “Nine,” from the next room.

  Yeah, they were so not going to notice if he just slipped away. He could go into the ballroom and try to finish this. Or he could call the whole stupid idea off.

  Tess and Wilder continued talking as Lewis turned and started toward the doors but did a detour to the coat check area. He’d at least get her shawl. The girls that had been manning the area were nowhere to be found. They’d probably stepped out from behind the booth and snuck into the party, it being so close to midnight.

  “Eight.”<
br />
  Lewis looked around to see if anybody was available to help, but there was nobody.

  “Seven.”

  But he could see the corner of Darcy’s filmy wrap on a table behind the counter.

  “Six.”

  He scooted around the counter and moved a couple of fur stoles on the table out of the way.

  “Five.”

  He grabbed Darcy’s shawl.

  “Four.”

  Started back.

  “Three.”

  Saw something shiny on the floor out of the corner of his eye just as he stepped on it.

  “Two.”

  And went down like Darcy had done hours earlier.

  “One.”

  Collapsing to the floor in agonizing pain.

  “Happy New Year!”

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else we can get you, honey?” Darcy’s mother asked her the next morning.

  “No, I’m fine, Mom, thanks.”

  “Okay, well, we won’t be long. There are just a few items we forgot and need to pick up for later.”

  Odd. Her mother was the consummate hostess, and they’d always hosted a bowl game watching party on New Year’s Day. Never could she remember her mother not having exactly everything she needed. Maybe she would send Darcy’s dad out for ice as game time drew near, but that was it. “You’re both going out?”

  “Yes,” her mother said, looking pointedly at her father. “Both of us.”

  “I’m good here,” she assured her parents. Her father had helped her down the stairs and into the big, overstuffed chair, gotten her wrapped ankle settled on the ottoman, propped her crutches next to the chair, and given her the remote. She pulled her cell out of the pocket of her hoodie, putting it on the table next to her. Her mother had already placed a glass of water and Darcy’s pain pills on the table as well as a couple of pieces of toast, heavy with peanut butter, just like she loved.

  “Text us if you think of anything we could pick up for you,” her mother said and hurried her father out the front door.

  Darcy pulled the throw off the back of the chair behind her and threw it over her yoga pants-clad legs. She picked up the remote, turned on the television and surfed until she found the Rose Parade, a New Year’s tradition for her. The games would come later, and that’s what drew the party crowd, but she was a die-hard parade fan.

  She reached for the pain killers, but figured she should eat the toast first so she picked up the plate and laid it in her lap. The pain wasn’t unbearable, but the pills she’d taken last night when her parents delivered her home had given her a nice warm glow. It helped to take her mind off the fact that Lewis hadn’t come back for her.

  She was too proud to ask her parents about it, but the very fact that they’d shown up at the hospital and Lewis hadn’t was all she’d needed to know. She desperately wanted to know if they’d seen him kissing Grace, but had kept mum. She did, however, nearly rip the prescription for pain meds out of kid-doc’s hand when he assured her the ankle was not broken, just sprained as everyone had suspected.

  So, she’d slept like the dead in her drug-induced haze, never hearing whether Lewis had walked down the hall. Not knowing if he even made it home last night. She had hobbled her way over to her bedroom window this morning when she woke and could form a coherent thought. Lewis’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

  He hadn’t come home. Had he spent the night with Grace?

  And apparently there’d been some kind of freak winter storm. Patches of melting ice were all over the yard and driveway.

  She finished off the toast, put the plate back on the table, and eyed the bottle of pills. She moved her ankle, turning it slightly. It hurt. And yeah, she deserved to get some—what did Georgie call it?—la-la.

  Just as she was reaching for the anti-thoughts-of-Lewis pills, she heard a large thump coming from the staircase. She craned her neck, but couldn’t see out into the hallway from where she sat. And another thump. A few seconds later, another. They came in a rhythm, about fifteen seconds apart.

  “Mom?” she called. “Dad?” But she’d heard them go out the front door and heard the car pull out of the driveway. “Brooks?”

  The thumping stopped, and Darcy reached for her phone, ready to dial 911 if needed. A different, quieter thump came now. One that Darcy recognized because she’d made the same noise herself just a while ago.

  Lewis, wielding crutches, entered the living room, his leg in a cast from ankle to just below his knee. He wore sweatpants that were cut off on his bad leg, a wrinkled tee shirt, and had what looked to be a grey sweatshirt tucked between his arm and his body. His hair was at all angles.

  “What happened?” she gasped. “Are you all right?”

  “I tripped and fell,” he answered, swinging his way into the living room, sitting in a chair next to hers. He set the sweatshirt on the floor in between the two seats, and propped his crutches on the other side of his chair. “Care to share your ottoman?”

  She was so stunned it took her a moment to respond, but she finally nodded. He got out of his seat and, hopping and balancing, pulled his chair closer to hers so that he could put his leg up too. Her right foot, bandaged, sat next to his casted left one. That small movement seemed to exhaust him and he let out a large sigh, running his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end even more.

  “When did this happen?” she asked. “Where did this happen?”

  “At the Club.”

  So, he had gone back for Grace. For a fleeting moment she’d allowed herself to think that maybe he’d hurt himself leaving the hospital or something. That maybe he’d turned around so quickly on his way back to her that he’d run into something. That would be very Lewis-like.

  “I was leaving.”

  “Oh.” At the end of the night? After his kiss with Grace? Had she been with him? Helped him to the hospital? Had he tripped on the hem of Grace’s gorgeous gown as they’d danced closely together?

  “I mean, I never really stayed.”

  She looked over at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “I got to the Club, but I didn’t stay. I barely walked into the ballroom.”

  Something sparked inside Darcy. Hope. “Go on.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair again, pushed his glasses up his nose. He was adorable in the mornings, all bedheady and rumpled. She yanked at her ponytail. She didn’t pull off rumpled very well. More like completely trashed.

  “I realized that’s not where I wanted to be,” he said.

  “It wasn’t?”

  He shook his head, and reached for her hand. “I wanted to be with you, Darce. You’re all I could think about. I didn’t know why you’d asked me to leave the hospital. I was trying to figure it out and I got a stupid idea to, well…But in the end, I just decided to screw the idea and get back to you. Make you tell me what happened. Why you kicked me out. But—”

  “But….” she pointed at his leg.

  “Yeah, I fell. It was crazy after that. It was right at midnight, so it took a while before I could get anyone’s attention. I was going to text Brooks to see if he’d come back. He’d only left minutes before me. But I didn’t have my phone.”

  “It was with me,” she said.

  “I figured that out,”

  “Did you also figure out why I asked you to leave?”

  A look of exasperation crossed his face. “No. I figured I’d just misread the situation. That you were pissed I climbed all over you.”

  “No. I wasn’t pissed about that. I was very happy about that.”

  Relief crossed his face and Darcy realized she needed to walk him through this carefully. “I wanted what happened between us, Lewis. Badly, and for a long time.”

  “Really?” he seemed genuinely shocked, and maybe like he didn’t quite believe her.

  “Absolutely.”

  “So, then, why ask me to leave?”

  “When you had your back to us, waiting for your….” she
waved her hand in the general vicinity of his crotch.

  “Yeah, yeah. Go on.” His face grew red with embarrassment. Adorable!

  “Your phone reverted to the full face picture on the game.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you knew I’ve had a thing for Grace. And obviously I designed that app way before last night, before I realized I…”

  “You what?”

  “That I—I mean…sort of….”

  “Lewis, speak.”

  “Have feelings for you.”

  “And you know that now?”

  “God, yes.” And she believed him. The sincerity in his face, the hunger in his eyes, even when she looked like…well, like she’d spent the night in an ER.

  “Wait, how did we not see each other in the ER? And how did my parents know to come and get me?”

  He shrugged. “I told them. They brought me to the hospital. It was obvious my leg was broken, so they put me in a different area. I told Ellen and John not to say anything. To just bring you home.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Well, at the Club it seemed like a great idea to come back and tell you how I felt. And then…”

  “And then?” Dread crawled up her spine. Was he going to say his feelings changed?

  “As usual I started overthinking why you sent me back to the party in the first place.”

  “Oh, Lewis. I sent you away because you needed to figure out for yourself who you wanted to kiss at midnight.”

  “Oh, I already had,” he said, smiling at her. “But for much more than just a New Year’s kiss.”

  She smiled back, the dread gone. “Good.”

  He leaned across her chair to try to kiss her, but their bum legs knocked into each other and they both let out moans of pain. Sitting back in their respective chairs they smiled at each other and held hands.

  He nodded toward the television. “You always did like the parades more than the bowl games.”

  “Yes, I did. Still do.” Then a thought occurred to her. “How did you get home? Did my parents go back for you?”