It's in His Kiss (2 page)

Finally. Something I could answer. “Blond, brunet, redhead.”

Her look questioned my almost perfect SAT scores.

“No. Jeep, Civic, Yugo. Obviously you want to avoid Yugos at all cost.”

“Obviously.” Note: more sarcasm.

“The Jeep is the hot guy. The one that always looks good. And just like his namesake, looks even better with his top off.”

“Are you serious?” If this is what I was going to learn out in ‘the real world,’ no wonder I stayed home so often.

“The Honda,” Lisbeth steamrolled my question. She motioned to my notebook with a pointed look until I raised my pen to capture her…um… brilliance. “Is a nice run of the mill guy. Depending on the year and model, he could be close to a Jeep or, you know, more like a rust heap. The Yugo, well, that’s self-explanatory.”

“And probably what I’ll end up with.”

“Jenna, you’re a solid, one-to-three year off the lot Civic. I’d say you’re silver. If you put makeup on, you might even be red. Don’t sell yourself short.”

So where did that leave me? I was dependable, flat-chested, shopped at the Gap, and you could get me drunk off one drink. Yup, I was a mid-level Honda all right.

I looked at my friend, the Jeep, and counted all the blessings of being a Civic. Low cost, reliable, compact, inexpensive maintenance, low gas mileage.

Lisbeth scanned the room, weeding out guys in her head like a chef tossing soft vegetables.

“Him.”

Almost directly across the bar sat The Target.

Plusses:

Lisbeth adjusted herself on the barstool to block the man trying to get her attention. “You can do this. Just be yourse–” Her gaze dropped to my notebook. “Just relax, and smile.”

“I can do this.” I nodded my head in self-affirmation.

I pictured myself walking around the bar without tripping. I pictured approaching him and no one stepping in front of me. I pictured him turning and smiling at me as I set my drink down without spilling it on him. I pictured him being sweet and understanding and agreeing that, of course it was necessary to research a fictional seventeen-year-old’s first kiss in a downtown bar.

“Maybe you should leave that here.” Lisbeth took my drink. “You can’t even keep milk in a sealed carton.”

Every part of me wished she wasn’t right, but I left the drink where she placed it. I rounded the bar, no tripping, no bumping, no spilling. First mental picture, completed.

I reached Target Guy’s side. My hands shook like a coatless club girl’s in a January bar line. Second mental picture, completed.

“Hi.” That was easier than expected. Guys complain about having to cross the room all the time.

“I’ve already got a drink, thanks.” Target Guy turned back to the bar.

“I’m not actually a waitress. I’m a writer.” I waved my pen and notebook in front of him like a B-movie cop with his badge. “I write YA, ah, young adult. And I’m doing some research.”

“In a bar?” While it wasn’t an encouraging question, it did give me my in.

“You see, Chloe, my main character, just turned seventeen. Now the publishing house says it’s time for her to get a boyfriend. They told Ely, my agent, the next book has to have a boy and a kiss. I disagree, but if I want to continue being paid, it’s boyfriend time for Chloe.” I laughed, trying to fill the awkward silence before storming forward again. “Which, of course, I worry about. I mean, I
know
she’s imaginary, but I feel very protective of her.”

I glanced across the bar at Lisbeth and the man sitting in my vacated seat. She gave me the keep going look.

“So, anyway,” I continued. “It’s been a long time since my first kiss. I’m not sure I could imagine it. I mean, can you even remember your first kiss? I don’t mean like who it was with, but like, what was it like, how did it feel. That kind of stuff. So I was wondering if, maybe, you would consider, perhaps, kissing me and I could think about what it would be like being a first kiss of sorts and, if you don’t mind, I’d just make some notes.”

Target Guy looked dumbstruck. It’s a common expression, but this was the first time I’d seen it in action. Or, as the case may be,
in
action

“Make some notes?”

Encouraged, I nodded and waved my handy notebook again to reassure him. “Yeah. I’m not some crazy pick-up girl. I just need to make some notes.”

I kept expecting the dumbstruck look to go away.

“Are you ordering another drink?”

The look stayed as he turned toward the new voice.

“I’m not a waitress,” I explained to the petite woman who appeared at my side.

“Sorry. Are you a friend from work? I’m Jamie, Mike’s girlfriend.”

“Oh.” I could feel the heat creeping toward my cheeks, starting at the edge of my waitress-wannabe-white shirt, past my neck and up to my ears. “Girlfriend. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t hitting on him. I’m just doing research for a book.”

“Wow, a book. What do you write?” Jamie asked.

“Young adult. I write about a teenage girl name Chloe.”

Jamie pulled her stool out to sit as she asked, “What kind of research are you doing here?”

“Ok. I think we have to go.” Mike jumped off his stool. “It was very, ah. . .nice, to meet you. We have a reservation. I’m sure we don’t want to miss our table.”

He had Jamie by the arm and was pulling her away under protest. “But our reservation isn’t for forty minutes.”

By the time Mike responded, the couple was safely at the door. He glanced over his shoulder, still slightly dumbstruck, as he pushed his girlfriend out into the street. She, sweet girlfriend girl, gave me a little half-shrug and waved as the door swung shut.

Men were supposed to be easy. They weren’t supposed to get embarrassed by a woman wanting to kiss them.

NOTE: Although prone to stating embarrassing things in public, men seem to be easily embarrassed by forward-thinking women.

EXAMPLE: Mike at the bar, who was too embarrassed to tell his girlfriend about being asked for a kiss.. This statement would not have reflected poorly on him, so why be embarrassed?

I set my notebook on the bar and contemplated the fact I might not be the type of girl to pick up a guy in a bar – or even to not-really-pick him up. Also, the fact we were in a bar was probably irrelevant.

Beyond the chair Mike had sat in, a pair of broad shoulders hunched over the bar and pulled at my awareness. It wasn’t the broadness of said shoulders that demanded attention, but their shaking. Dark hair with threads of auburn flopped over his forehead. He hid his face in his hands, elbows propped up on the bar.

Poor thing. To be weeping so openly in public. Some girl must have really ripped his heart out and carted it out the door with her. Pushing Mike’s chair out of the way, I slid over to the stranger. I laid a hand on his arm and softened my voice so no one else would hear.

“It’s okay. I’m sure whatever she said to you couldn’t be half as bad as it sounded.”

The shoulders shook harder and then slowly – so slowly – the dark head rose. Pink rimmed from crying, his chocolate eyes studied me a moment before the sound burst forth from his mouth.

The jerk! He wasn’t crying. He was laughing. At me.

Rejected and ridiculed, I pivoted to leave the heckler alone at the bar where I’d found him. Where he deserved to be. In typical Jenna form, my sleeve caught on the arm of the empty stool, tipping it over and tripping me up. An annoyingly strong arm caught me around the waist and lifted me away from the wreckage before I joined it on the beer-soaked floor.

“Whoa there,” a voice rumbled behind me, his chest reverberating against my back as he held in the laughter.

He was taller than he looked slumped over the bar. My head brushed under his chin as he lifted me over the stool and set me down. His hands slid around to rest on my hips as if he were afraid I’d spontaneously fall over if he let go.

I probably would have.

“Now,” the voice re-rumbled. “Why don’t you explain to me what you and your little notebook are doing in this bar.”

The hands fell away and I turned, my nose almost brushing his crisp, button-down shirt.

It was truly unfortunate. If Lisbeth had said, describe your dream man, I would have – without a doubt – described Mocking Guy, without having ever seen him before.

Tall enough to wear heels with. Dark hair flopping over wire rimmed glasses. White button-down sleeves rolled and tucked into jeans tight enough to look good and loose enough to, well, look good.

I glanced at the barstool lying on the floor and considered picking it up, but bending over in a bar seemed like a bad idea unless I was looking to get my butt smacked.

“Okay. Well, thanks.” I stepped over the stool, making sure each foot cleared by at least a clean inch, when a warm hand clamped around my wrist.

“I don’t think so, Sunshine.” Mocking Guy pulled my notebook from my hand and settled back onto his stool. “This is the closest thing to fun I’ve had since my friend dragged me in here.”

I gaped at him. I mean, I’d written that description before. Teenagers seem to gape a lot, but now, doing it, I felt just plain stupid. Where were all my snappy comebacks? Obviously I needed someone to follow me and do instant re-writes on my personal scenes.

In horror, I watched him flip the notebook open and page through to tonight.

“NOTE: Although prone to stating embarrassing things in public, men seem to be easily embarrassed by forward-thinking women.” Mocking Guy cocked an eyebrow at me. “Forward-thinking women? Is that what you are?”

Rounding the stool, I came at him from the other side and snatched at my notebook. “Yes. You probably wouldn’t understand the concept, but not all women believe they need to do exactly what’s expected.”

“And yet, I have a feeling that you always do.” He smirked and leaned back, crossing his arms over a chest that matched the aforementioned broad shoulders.

“Please give that back.” I was horrified at the squeak my voice made and hoped he couldn’t hear it over the man warming up with his tin whistle.

“Just a minute.” Mocking Guy reached over the bar and snagged a pen. Flipping to the next blank page, he began scribbling, his left hand held out to keep me at bay. Then, with a nod to himself, he flipped the book closed and said. “Okay.”

“Okay what? Okay you’ve violated my privacy enough? Okay you wrote something sufficiently mocking? Okay I can chalk this experience up to ‘what not to do in public’?”

“So.” His hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me toward the bar. “Can I buy you that drink now?”

A good-looking guy wanted to buy me a drink at a popular nightspot. There were so many things wrong with that statement I couldn’t keep track of them all.

Glancing across the bar, I signaled Lisbeth to rescue me. I expected her to sweep down in all her gorgeousness, distract the arrogant man and allow me to regain my notebook. Instead, the traitor shook her head and motioned for me to do something – probably flirt – with him.

“Listen,” he said, forcing my attention back to him. “One drink and you can have your little scratchpad back.”

Before I could reach for it, he stood, shoved it in his back pocket and sat back down. How was I ever supposed to write in it again now that it had been rubbing against those jeans I had admired a few minutes ago?

“Listen,” I tried to mimic his tone. “Give it back to me and I’ll introduce you to Lisbeth. All you had to do was ask nice.”

His whole face went all smirky-smirky and he glanced across the bar where Lisbeth was surrounded by a bevy of male model wannabes and a couple of geeky but successful-looking CEO types.

“So, if I asked nice, you’d cut me through that herd of followers to introduce me to your friend just to get this notebook back?”

“In a heartbeat.” That heartbeat stopped. He was going to ask me to introduce him to Lisbeth. The only guy who’d looked twice at me in six years, even if it was to laugh at me, and he was going to ask what every other guy did.

He eased his back against the bar, his hand still warm around my wrist, and leaned in to whisper over the growing noise of the crowd. “Not a chance, Sunshine.”

“Stop calling me that.” Dear God, the man took control of everything, starting with my humiliation and continuing with my name. “I am not your sunshine.”

This is the thing I hated most about being Lisbeth’s friend. It wasn’t the horde that surrounded her.

It was that one-in-a-billion man who got my attention and, even if he was arrogant and overbearing, held it when I knew all he’d want was to walk that beautiful Levi’s-covered butt over to see if she’d give him the time of day.

He glanced across the bar, his perusal slow. I could see him take in Lisbeth and knew what he saw. His eyes scanned the crowd around her, the men bantering for her attention, the women shooting her envious looks, the bartender keeping her well-liquefied.

Once, just once, it would have been nice to be the object of that type of study. The kind that takes in everything, weighs the odds and then ignores them to pursue regardless.

“I don’t want to deal with dolts vying for attention when I’m wooing a woman.” The left side of his mouth quirked up in a lopsided smirk. “It isn’t the competition. I just don’t like to share.”

“So, what exactly do I need to do to get my notebook back?” I eyed his bottom, wondering if I could just reach in his pocket and retrieve it. He really did have a nice butt. Maybe that’s what distracted me from grabbing my notebook and gave him time to swing around, that lopsided smirked aimed at me again.

“Here’s what I’m thinking.” He leaned in as if to tell me the best kept secret outside Julia Robert’s anti-wrinkle treatment. “I’ll grab my friend. You grab your friend. We’ll get out of here before she starts a riot and he starts a bar fight over someone else’s girlfriend.”