Kiss Me Now: A Romantic Comedy

by Melanie Jacobson

  “It’s literally exactly what predictable means. You’re able to predict what I’m going to order at the bakery and then predict what I’m going to switch it to.” She was quiet a second. “Actually, that’s creepy. Instead of talking about how I’m lame and predictable, let’s talk about how it’s very suspect that you can do this.”

  “It’s not,” I protested with a laugh. “It’s more like...think of that Sherlock series with that one guy, Benjamin Cummerbund, and—”

  “Benedict Cumberbatch,” she corrected through her laughter.

  “Right, that guy. The point is, it’s all just observation, deductive reasoning, and a working knowledge of human nature. I’m not creepy, I swear.”

  “It’s creepy.”

  I took a few steps until I was in front of the bathroom and sat on the floor. “Brooke,” I said, to her well-shaped butt.

  She started and twisted around until she sat facing me. “See? You just creeped up on me. Now you’re literally creepy.”

  “I did not creep up on you. I walked over. It’s not my fault if I move with the grace of a ninja.”

  She reached out and plucked a piece of wallpaper clinging to my hair. “Yes, picture of grace.”

  “I’m not creepy. It’s possible that I may have seen your coffee cup with your order written on the sleeve sitting on your kitchen counter last time I was here, and it’s also possible I noticed a basket of teas next to the sink and guessed that scones are the right thing to eat with tea.”

  She looked mollified for a second. “Wait, but it’s weird that you remember that a week later.”

  “Not for me, it isn’t. It really is a job hazard. My brain catalogues this kind of thing. Sometimes it’s annoying, but mostly it’s helpful. Sherlock Holmes,” I said, pointing at my chest. “Are you less creeped out?”

  “That you were snooping on the contents of my kitchen?” She didn’t look reassured.

  I wasn’t sure where to pivot here. I’d meant to show off a little. Of course it would read as totally creepy to a single woman living by herself. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she broke into a grin.

  “I’m kidding. You’re not creepy. That all makes sense. I notice stuff like that at people’s houses too. I’m not sure I buy your Sherlock Holmes claims given the fact that you got me totally, utterly wrong, but I definitely concede that you aren’t a creepy dude.”

  “Thank you?” I wasn’t sure if I’d been complimented or insulted.

  She flashed a cheeky grin that did nothing to clarify the issue and turned back to her tiling. When I stood to go back to my wallpaper, I caught a glimpse of her progress. She only had about two feet left of the bathroom, and then I hoped she’d come join me on the wallpaper project.

  We worked in easy silence for the next hour as more of her slowly emerged from the bathroom as she filled in the tile, crawling backward as she went. I could almost guess how much tile she had left to lay based on how much of her appeared, bit by slow bit, until finally only her head and shoulders were inside the bathroom. At last, she backed all the way out and stood, glancing over the tile with a sigh that sounded very satisfied, like when I finished a full set of bench presses at a new weight.

  “Done?” I asked.

  “Yeah, come see.”

  I joined her in front of the doorway and peered in. The bare concrete foundation was now covered in a pattern of small interlocking black and white squares. With the grayish blue—or was it blueish gray?—paint she’d chosen and the light gray vanity, the bathroom looked like a designer had done it.

  “Nice,” I said as she stepped back to study it from beside me. “It’s both contemporary and timeless with an airiness that invites some rest.”

  “Timeless? Airy?” Brooke tilted her head to study me. “Is this another Sherlock Holmes thing, to be into interior design?”

  “It’s possible Gran talks me into renovation show marathons.”

  “Chip and Joanna or the Property Brothers?”

  “Chip all the way.”

  She stretched her arms overhead and reached way up before dropping them and shaking them with a sigh. “I think that’s it for today. I find it’s best to only do one major project in a day or I burn out.”

  “But I didn’t make much of a dent in the wallpaper.” I wasn’t ready to leave yet, I realized. I liked working near her, even in silence.

  She waved her hand. “It’s okay. That’s two hours less labor that I have ahead of me now. I appreciate it, but you’re forgiven. No further repentance required. Go hang with Miss Lily with a clear conscience.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “At this point, I’d be taking advantage of you. Seriously. Make your grandma happy. I’m going into town for some other supplies.”

  “All right. If you’re sure.” Don’t be sure, I willed her. Make up some other job for me to do.

  But instead she gave me a cheerful, “I’m sure,” and led me to the door.

  “See you around,” I said from the bottom of the steps.

  “Bye,” she said and had the door closed before I’d even turned toward Gran’s house.

  It bothered me as I crossed her yard to Gran’s place. It wasn’t that she’d been rude. She’d been relaxed, the edge of annoyance I’d felt from her disappearing altogether by the time she’d finished tiling. It was more that I didn’t seem to register with her at all, like she’d quit thinking about me before she’d even got the door shut, her mind on other things.

  It didn’t sit right, especially not since she’d taken up most of my free thoughts for almost two weeks now.

  By mid-afternoon, it still nagged at me. I’d taken Gran to lunch and enjoyed the conversation with her as I always did. We’d watched a couple of cooking shows together, and then Gran excused herself to take a nap, and suddenly I had the afternoon yawning before me, but it was all cluttered up with thoughts of Brooke.

  What was she doing right now? What kind of supplies had she run into town to get? What was she going to do with the sitting room she hadn’t touched yet? Was she giving herself a break? She started work on Monday, and she probably needed to give herself some downtime before diving into her first day of teaching.

  She probably wouldn’t slow down as much as she should. My investigation had painted the clear picture of a woman who was a go-getter.

  I needed to invite her to dinner. That way, she could enjoy a nice meal and easy conversation before the school year started.

  I crossed to her yard again, my step light, thinking about where I should take her. Somewhere with a great view. Good views were always relaxing. I knocked as I considered whether I should choose something casual or if she’d be up for a change of pace.

  She opened the door and gave me a puzzled smile. “Hi. Did you forget something?”

  She had changed into clean jeans and a UVA T-shirt. Her hair looked faintly damp, like it was still drying from a shower.

  “No. Well, yes, I mean.” I shifted my feet. I sounded like an idiot. Or like I was twelve. Same thing. “I forgot to ask if you’d like to get dinner later. Maybe a do-over at Caps where I behave like a normal person and we get to enjoy the food.”

  Her puzzlement didn’t clear. If anything, she looked more confused. “Are you asking me on a date?”

  I almost said no, but I had never been a coward. I wasn’t going to play this off with an excuse. “Yes, Brooke. I’m asking you on a date. For dinner. I promise not to apologize for anything or do anything I need to apologize for.”

  That got me a slight smile. “That’s really sweet, but I meant what I said earlier. Or didn’t quite say, I guess. I don’t have time for anything besides work and this house right now, and that includes dates.”

  I was surprised by the rejection and immediately felt stupid for being surprised. Why shouldn’t she tell me no, considering what I’d put her through? Did I really think I was such a prize that she’d overlook all of that for a dinner invitation?

  No. But I had sort of thou
ght I’d sensed a vibe between us while we worked.

  I must have waited too long to process my own idiocy before I answered, because she gave an awkward laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope that didn’t offend you. It’s not you. It’s just my life right now, I promise.”

  I held up my hands. “Whoa, no explanation necessary. I should be the one apologizing for putting you on the spot. I just thought...”

  “You thought...” she prompted me when I lost the right words.

  “Nothing.” I smiled, hoping she sensed that it was genuine. I hadn’t been wrong about our vibe. I was sure of it. But I could respect that the timing was off for her. “You don’t owe me any explanations. Sorry again for putting you on the spot. I hope this won’t make it awkward for you to come by Gran’s when I’m around.”

  Her eyebrow went up. “Since you’re barely ever here, I’m sure it will be fine.” But unlike the other times she’d made the same pointed criticism, her tone was teasing.

  “That’s going to change,” I said. “Gran’s trick worked. Scaring me down here did remind me of how much I love being here. Need it, even. It’s good to feel grounded, and that’s how I feel when I come out here.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m sure Miss Lily will love having you around more.”

  “I think so,” I answered. “She says she will, anyway. I better get back over there. Maybe she’ll be my date tonight.”

  I left with a wave and a smile she couldn’t see because I had a plan now. I would absolutely respect her no dating boundary, but I was going to make sure that Brooke began to look forward to my weekend visits as much as Gran did.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brooke

  Monday morning, I walked into Bixby’s Bakery a half hour early, nervous to start my day and not at all sure a jolt of caffeine was a good idea. But the routine already felt important to me.

  “Good morning,” Taylor called. “Order coming right up.”

  A minute later, she met me at the register and handed me an Americano and a blueberry muffin.

  “Thanks, Taylor.”

  “First day on the new job, right?” Taylor asked. “You nervous?”

  “Extremely,” I said, pulling out my wallet. “But trying to have a good attitude.”

  Taylor held up her hand. “This was already covered. Good luck today!”

  I paused, my wallet half out of my tote. “What do you mean it’s covered?”

  “I mean a mysterious benefactor paid for your morning coffee and muffin and asked me to wish you good luck.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll pay it forward. The next two coffee orders that walk in are on me.” I laid a bill on the counter and turned toward the door but stopped. “I have to know. Was it Miss Lily?”

  Taylor grinned. “Close. Definitely Miss Lily’s genes.”

  Ian, then. I took a sip of the coffee, made the way I liked it. “That’s what I get for being predictable, I guess.”

  “Sorry?” Taylor said.

  A smile tugged at my lips. “Nothing. If you have a way of getting in touch with my mysterious benefactor, tell him I said thank you, and it was a great way to start the day.”

  I drove to school, sipping the coffee and smiling at Ian’s gesture. I was grateful for something else to think about instead of obsessing over how my first class would go.

  Inside my classroom, a spray of flowers greeted me from my desk, but it wasn’t the same bouquet I’d gotten from Ian. These were peonies, full and luscious in vibrant shades of pink.

  For a moment, I wondered if these were his doing too, but whoever had put them there had keys to my classroom, so it couldn’t be him. It was early still, and from the mostly empty parking lot, I suspected I was one of the first teachers on campus. Maybe these were from the administration, wishing me good luck? Or the PTA? It seemed like a PTA thing to do.

  I plopped my brimming tote on the desk and plucked the card from the profusion of petals.

  Dear Brooke,

  I hope your first day is nothing but happy surprises.

  Good luck!

  Ian

  I studied the wild bunch of peonies. How had he gotten these in here so early? I was leaning down to smell them when my principal walked in. “Good morning, Ms. Spencer. Saw your light on and thought I’d check in to see if you’re ready.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Boone. I am. I think.” Then deciding it wouldn’t do for my boss to think I was uncertain I added, “No, definitely. Looking forward to the students arriving.”

  “Good, good. Looks great in here. Stop by my office any time if you need something.” She left with a cheerful wave, and I broke into action, unpacking the books I’d lugged from home, some of my favorites that I would set out for kids to read if they finished classwork early.

  The next hour was punctuated first by visits from other teachers wishing me well, then by the slowly increasing sounds of locker slams and chatter as more and more students arrived on campus. Finally, at 8:25, the warning bell rang to give the students five minutes to find their homerooms. I took a deep breath, propped open the classroom door, and stood beside it, ready to begin my new career.

  The first two periods went by in something of a blur, but an okay one. I didn’t butcher anyone’s names too badly, they all seemed curious about their new teacher, and only one kid in second period looked like a potential class clown. By third period, I had the pace down enough that I was able to give them the last ten minutes of class to take a Harry Potter sorting hat quiz to identify which Hogwarts house they belonged to, then find the taxonomy for their mascot.

  I slipped behind my desk and took my first deep breath since I’d opened the classroom door, and the faint scent of the peonies tickled my nose. I hadn’t even had a chance to thank Ian for them yet, or the breakfast either. I’d do that on my lunch break.

  They were too pretty to resist, and I leaned forward to sniff the one closest to me, but as my nose grazed the petal, I caught a deeply unsettling movement from the corner of my eye. The immediate sense of wrongness told me exactly what I would see when I turned my head. I had a sixth sense for spiders, and there it was: one largeish white spider which was somehow even more horrifying than the brown ones that regularly lurked in my house. But it was so much worse than I expected because there was also a stream of small ones. So many small ones. Dozens. Hundreds? I froze, but a small squeak came out of me, enough to turn the heads of the students nearest my desk as the first of the tiny, white peony-spawned devil spiders skittered toward me across the desk.

  I shoved back from it with a yelp and plastered myself against the wall, watching in horror as still more baby spiders tumbled from the peony and spread out on my desk.

  “Miss?” asked the young man nearest my desk whose name I couldn’t remember in my frozen brain. “Everything okay?”

  I tried to answer him, but my mouth only moved in silence, no words coming out. I managed to point a shaking finger toward my desk. He and the two other boys closest rose and came around to investigate the problem.

  “Whoa,” one of them said.

  “What’s wrong?” asked a girl in the class, her voice nervous.

  “Spiders,” the other boy announced.

  “So many,” the first one said in awe. Justin. His name came back to me.

  “A buttload of spiders.” That was...Kyle?

  I swallowed and tried to pull myself together. “Don’t say buttload, Kyle.”

  “Uh, right, Miss Spencer. Um, that’s a boatload of spiders.”

  I should probably say something funny about how “boatload” wasn’t a scientific measurement, but all I could do was inch down the wall away from the spiders. Pull yourself together, woman, I ordered myself. But myself did not listen.

  “Can you boys...” I waved in the direction of the spiders.

  “I got it,” said a girl from across the room. She hurried over to the desk. “Oh. These are crab spiders. We get them in our garden. They rarely bite.”

&n
bsp; “Rarely?” repeated Kyle, also backing away.

  “Justin, grab a paper and kind of sweep them in here,” the girl said, plucking up my can of freshly sharpened pencils and dumping them out on Justin’s desk.

  He complied and picked up the index card where I had written my carefully rehearsed welcome speech for each class, using the stiff edge to send all the tiny spiders into the pencil cup, finally sending the mother spider to join them.

  “I think we got them all,” the girl said, crouching to study the desk more closely.

  The panic in my chest loosened, and I stepped away from the wall but also far away from my desk. I wasn’t going near those flowers again.

  I crossed to the front of the room and cleared my throat before addressing the class. “I don’t love spiders.”

  “No kidding,” one of the boys muttered, and the other kids laughed.

  “I, uh, normally handle them better than that. I just didn’t expect to see a giant one crawl out of a flower right in front of my face.”

  “Why not?” asked the girl—Hailey, I finally remembered—holding the cup full of spiders. “That’s where a lot of them like to live. You’re pretty scared of bugs for being a biology teacher.”

  I swallowed. I could feel myself walking a delicate balance here. I needed to figure out how to cement my authority as a biology teacher despite having just freaked out over spiders. If I didn’t, I would lose their respect for the year, and that would make this class much harder, and probably my other classes too, if the story spread. And I had every reason to believe that it would.

  “I don’t love spiders,” I repeated. “But I do find them fascinating. Like, for example, beneath the lens of a microscope. In fact, we’ll do a whole unit on the essential part spiders play in our daily lives without us even realizing it.” I had no such unit planned, but I immediately added it to my to-do list.