A Kiss For You

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Hey, I like pedicures!” I said. “But just because I’m not…Kimber doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own qualities or whatever.”

  “I only needle you because I love you. I just want to make sure you’re happy. I don’t want to see you waste your life away at the Buddy Holly Center again.”

  “You set me up to work there!” I accused.

  “Temporarily. I thought you’d be going back to school.”

  “Well, I’m not,” I said. My mind was still locked on Jensen, and here was my mother, trying to plan my career. As if I wanted to add to the list of things that I had to deal with right now.

  “You used to be so full of love for things. Things I hated but you loved them. Soccer and that horrendous skateboard and coaching and tutoring after school and honors society and—”

  “Yes, I get it. But, now, I’m adrift, and I need something of my own.”

  “Exactly.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”

  My mother put her hand on my arm and sighed. “Maybe you should consider working at the high school. You have the degrees. You’d need to be certified, but I know you could do it.”

  “High school students?” I shuddered.

  “You’d make a difference.”

  I brushed her hand off my arm.

  I didn’t want to admit that she was right. I probably could get a job teaching history at the local high school, and maybe I’d even get to help coach the soccer team. I’d played on the intramural team at Oklahoma and at an adult rec league for two years at UT. I just didn’t know if that was it.

  I’d loved teaching when I was in graduate school. That was the best part. The least stressful part honestly. It was the research and papers and endless criticism that had done me in. Some people were made for that and loved it but not me. I could take some critiques, but eventually, my head had exploded, and I’d felt like it was doing more harm than good.

  “Just think about it,” my mom said as we pulled into the church parking lot.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good, or else I’d have to start talking about Jensen Wright again.”

  I groaned and parked in a spot. “You kill me.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. Then, she hurried toward a cluster of her friends standing at the entrance.

  I scanned the parking lot for Jensen, but it was impossible. The church was huge, and I would never find him out here like that. I killed the ignition and then checked inside the church to see if the Wrights had arrived yet. No luck.

  Then, I planted myself at the front of the church with my arms crossed. I felt like I was staking the place out as I waited, but if Jensen was here, then I needed to talk to him. I needed to figure out what the fuck was happening…or end it. Because I was not going to be toyed with.

  Just when I had that thought, a bleach-blonde bob appeared before me.

  “Ugh! Are you literally following me everywhere?” Miranda asked.

  She was in a skintight blue dress that barely hit her at mid thigh and had a low-cut neckline. She looked good in it, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice for a relatively conservative church service.

  “I go to church here,” I responded with a sigh.

  “Uh-huh. Oh, I’m sure.”

  “Miranda,” Landon said, hurrying to catch up, “let’s just go inside.”

  “You knew she was going to be here.”

  “We’ve gone to the same church since we were kids, Miranda. I can’t help that.”

  “And I get no warning?” she asked.

  “You don’t need a warning,” I said, “because there’s nothing going on here, and you’re worrying for nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me how I feel. Just stay away from us.”

  Then, she sauntered inside, as if she owned the place, and Landon gave me a sympathetic look before following her. I shook my head at her ridiculousness and then looked to see if the rest of the Wrights were following. I wasn’t disappointed.

  Little Sutton Wright and her new husband, Maverick, had finally come back from their honeymoon in Cabo. She was a deep olive tan, and his nose was a bit red, but they both looked happy. After them, I saw Morgan and Austin enter. She looked to be scolding him, pointing at his pocket. I narrowed my eyes to try to figure out what she was saying. Then, I noticed the top of a flask peeking out of his pocket.

  Oh, eesh!

  Then, I couldn’t be bothered. Because walking straight toward me was none other than Jensen Wright himself. He looked…unbelievable. I might be mad at him, but he was undeniably attractive. He was in a tailored charcoal suit that fit him like a glove. He had on a red patterned shirt and a dark tie. His cheekbones were sharp, and his eyes were even fiercer. But I could see underneath it. He looked like he’d lost weight…and definitely sleep. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he’d been living off of caffeine and power naps.

  He caught my eye, and I stopped breathing for a second. In that second, I just wanted to forget the last week. I wanted everything to be right. I wanted Wright to be right even though it felt so wrong.

  But then that moment passed, and I knew what I had to do.

  I marched straight over to Jensen and blocked his path before he could get inside. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Language, Emery,” he said, his voice clipped.

  “Don’t do that,” I ground out. “Just answer the damn question.”

  “I’ve been in New York.”

  “Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or messages?”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said simply.

  I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him out of the way of the entrance. “I’m missing something here. What the hell happened? Is it because I didn’t answer your calls that night? My phone died, and I didn’t see you’d called until I got home. I called you back as soon as I charged it,” I rambled on.

  “Not as soon as.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, not following him.

  “I really don’t want to get into this with you, Emery.”

  He moved to brush past me, but I latched on to his arm. “Was it Vanessa?”

  Jensen turned back to face me with confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you still love her? Is that why you were in New York?” I knew I sounded desperate and jealous, but I cared very little at this point. If it was going to end, then I just wanted him to do it.

  “You ask me that after last week?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” I demanded. He wasn’t making any sense.

  He took a step toward me, towering over me. “I saw you with Landon. I saw the way you were all over him that night. Landon is still in love with you, and it sure looked like you felt the same.”

  Landon was in love with me? Ha! That was a riot. And Jensen thought I was still in love with Landon? That was equally laughable.

  “That is not what you saw!” I told him.

  “Save it, Emery.”

  Then, he turned and walked into the church, leaving me sputtering in shock. He thought I loved Landon. He thought that I had somehow chosen Landon over him. And I didn’t even know how he could think that.

  Where had he seen me with Landon? At Flips? I definitely had not been all over him then. I’d never even touched him, except when he’d helped me to the door so that I wouldn’t fall over.

  I stumbled back a step. Oh, shit.

  Kimber had said Jensen had come by. Maybe he’d seen Landon help me. Maybe he thought something had been there that wasn’t. Because nothing was there. And it was preposterous to presume something like that. It was even worse to assume it, not have a conversation about it, and then run.

  Chapter 27

  Jensen

  Emery’s gaze burned me like a brand throughout the service.

  Luckily, the Christmas Eve service was almost entirely comprised of singing, and there was never a point where she could talk to me.

  I’d b
een prepared for her to be here tonight. I’d figured, after the way I’d left things—or hadn’t left things—that she would want a confrontation. She was that kind of girl. But she’d made her choice that night, and then I’d made mine when I hopped on that plane and flew to New York.

  What I did regret was that things were still tense with Landon. I should have fixed things with him before leaving. He was my brother. He would always be in my life, and if I had to endure his love for Emery, then I should at least let him know that I would stand down. I knew he was married to Miranda. But I always thought that was a temporary thing and that he’d find someone better in the end.

  It had been impossible to get near him when I got back this morning. Miranda never left his side, and I couldn’t be in her vicinity for more than a few minutes before wanting my eardrums to burst.

  But I would fix it tonight.

  When the service ended, I reached down for my jacket, and when I stood back up, there was Emery, looking pissed as all hell. She was looking up at me with fire in her eyes, and it was impossible not to stare back. She was…stunning. Breathtaking. My chest tightened when I looked at her.

  Avoiding her had seemed like the best option. I’d thought that telling her what I had seen would send her careening away from me. Yet, here she was, gazing up at me, as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kiss me or punch me. What a quandary, this woman.

  “You’re an idiot,” she snapped.

  “Not now,” I muttered.

  “Yes! Right now. I’ve waited all week for this. Why wait another minute?”

  I could see in her eyes that she was in no way going to let this go. “Fine. Let’s do this somewhere else.”

  “Fine,” she spat. “Outside then.”

  I made my excuses to my family and then followed Emery outside. Emery nodded her head to the left, and we started walking in the bitter cold weather. She was in a warm jacket and scarf, and already, her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold. Temperatures were dropping rapidly, and we were actually expecting a white Christmas.

  “All right, we’re outside,” I said. “What is it that you have to say to me?”

  “You’re being such an incredible idiot right now.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  She glared in my direction. “I can’t do this, Jensen.”

  “Can’t do what?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant.

  “You don’t trust me. You don’t value my opinion. You couldn’t even bother to talk to me. You ran at the first sign of trouble. Then, when things got tough, you went to see your ex-wife.”

  “This has nothing to do with Vanessa. You know that.”

  “How?” she demanded. “How could I know that? Do I know anything at all about what the hell this is about? You’re pissed about Landon. Then, you ran to your ex, and you expect me to not care about that? Look at how you reacted when you thought something had happened with Landon. I have every right to be upset.”

  “You do,” I conceded.

  None of what she was saying was wrong. But that didn’t mean I was going to stand here and let her yell at me. I knew Landon. I knew what he was feeling and thinking. She must just be blind to it.

  “But it doesn’t change what I saw or how you feel about Landon or how Landon feels about you.”

  “Oh my God, give it a rest! I do not love Landon, and Landon does not love me,” she hissed.

  “I know what I saw.”

  “No, you don’t. You really don’t. You have never given me a chance to explain what you think you saw. I can’t sit around and let you walk all over my heart, Jensen. I put myself out there after I’d been hurt. And then, at the first sign of trouble, you ditched me. And all of it could have been fixed with one little conversation that you refused to have with me.”

  “If you think that one conversation will magically change everything, then tell me what I saw. Tell me what really happened.”

  “Look, the night you saw me with Landon was in no way romantic. He came to apologize to me for being a dick when he found us together. Then, Heidi and I got drunk, and he offered both of us a ride home. I was too drunk to walk to the front door, so he helped me. I got inside and immediately called you. The end. That’s the whole story.”

  “And you were all over him because…”

  “One, I was not all over him. Two, I was drunk, and I’m not a good drunk. I’m a face-plant-into-the-concrete-and-bust-my-nose-and-get-two-black-eyes kind of drunk. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

  I snorted, just imagining her falling over like that.

  “That’s really all that happened?” I asked.

  I suddenly felt panicked, like maybe Landon hadn’t been the one who overreacted…that I had been the one to overreact. If what she was saying was true, then I had hurt her this week for no good reason.

  “Yes!” she cried, exasperated. “And you would know that if you had bothered to pick up the phone. Go ask Landon. Go ask Heidi! She was in the car that night. If anything, I think that Heidi might be into Landon. Not me! I don’t understand what I did to make you not trust me, but I hate this.”

  “Emery,” I said slowly. I was an idiot.

  “Save it,” she said in frustration, throwing my words back at me.

  “You’re right,” I said automatically.

  She gave me a wary look. “I am?”

  “Yes. I am an idiot.”

  “Well, that’s very obvious at this point.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, I was so afraid of losing you that I pushed you away. I made assumptions. It didn’t help that Landon had said that, if I didn’t know what had really happened in your breakup, then I didn’t know you at all.”

  Her eyes ignited in fury. “He said what?” she cried. “Oh, I’m going to kill him, I swear.”

  “What I’m saying is that I want a second chance,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I don’t want to argue with you, and I don’t want to run. I was an idiot. A complete idiot.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, turning her face away from mine. “How do I know that this won’t happen again?”

  “You don’t. But I don’t know how else to make this right. We both have pasts. We both have issues. Trust is mine. After what happened in my past, I have a hard time taking anyone at face value. But I’d really like to try to handle everything together. To start over.”

  She sighed. “Jensen…”

  “Give me a chance, Emery. Please.”

  Snow slowly started to fall around us. She looked up at me through snowy lashes with fluffy flakes tumbling into her dark hair and blanketing her jacket. I knew she was hurting, and I had done almost irreparable damage. But I wanted to make this right…if she would just let me.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “One chance, Jensen. That’s it.”

  Then, I tilted my face down toward hers, and our lips met, gently and nurturing. It was a kiss I’d missed all week. A kiss I’d remember forever.

  “You won’t regret it,” I whispered against her lips.

  She sighed into me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I hated the last week.”

  “Me, too. I hated being away from you.”

  “Why are you such an ass?”

  I laughed. “Can’t seem to help it.”

  “God, we’re so fucked up.”

  “Emery?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What really happened with your breakup with Landon?”

  She sighed again, heavier, and took a step back from me. “You really want to know?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I would like to be on equal footing. Figure things out together. That way, maybe neither of us will be blindsided again.”

  “All right.” She dropped her head forward, swallowed, and then nodded. “Landon and I had dated nearly two years when he got into Stanford on a golf scholarship, and I got into Oklahoma as a National Merit Scholar, but both of us wanted to stay home and go to Texas Tech, so we could be together. We had this whole plan.
Then…as far as I know, your father told him to go to Stanford.”

  “No way,” I argued. “My father wanted nothing more than for all of us to go to Texas Tech, just like him and all our relatives.”

  She shrugged. “I was there. This is what happened. He thought Landon should be more serious about school and about sports. He wanted Landon to go to Stanford and try to walk onto the football team, which Landon didn’t want to do.”

  “That at least sounds like my father.”

  “Yeah. Landon was a good football player, but he always preferred golf. He got into a huge argument with your dad one night right before the deadline where we both had to decide where we were going to school. His dad said that he needed to break up with me or something like, if I was so important, then we could make it work long distance. As you know, your dad died shortly after that.”

  I nodded. That part, I was well aware of.

  “Landon felt…responsible for what happened. As if that argument had pushed him over the edge.”

  “He wasn’t and it didn’t.”

  “I knew that; I still know that. But the last thing that he ever said to your dad was something mean, and he couldn’t cope. He accepted the full ride to Stanford because that’s what your dad had wanted, and I took the Oklahoma spot. Then, Landon was just…gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Adrift. I tried to bring him back and to help, but he disappeared those next couple of weeks before graduation. We were still together. I knew he still loved me, but he was broken. So, he broke up with me the day of graduation. He told me that he’d talked it over with his family—with you—and you’d all agreed it was best.”

  “We never talked about this. He told me that you were going to different colleges, and you’d grown apart.”

  “Well, I see now that you didn’t know.” She swallowed hard. “But, as you can imagine, as an eighteen-year-old, I was heartbroken. He still loved me. I still loved him. I knew he was only doing this because of what happened to your father. I tried calling him and messaging him and emailing him. No answer. He just disappeared off the face of the planet. I know he got my messages. He never blocked me. He knew how much I was hurting and ignored it. Sound familiar?”