Kiss in the Dark (13 page)
Authors: Marcia Lynn McClure
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary
“Yeah…I know,” Danielle said. She was still blushing—still a little rattled at having been in Dempsey’s arms. Boston loved it!
“You know what, Kara?” Max began then.
“What, baby?” Kara asked, still giggling now and again.
“I’ve got something for you.” Boston held her breath as Max reached into the front right pocket of his pants.
Danielle looked to Boston, an expression of anticipation on her face.
“I’ve been trying to find a moment…or a way…to give this to you for three months,” Max said. “I think it’s time I quit messing around.”
Boston and Danielle gasped in unison as Max dropped to one knee in front of Kara.
“No way!” Halle breathed, stepping from behind Dempsey.
As Max held out a red velvet jeweler’s box, Kara’s eyes filled with tears. She covered her gaping, gasping mouth with trembling hands.
“Will you marry me, Kara?” Max asked.
“M-Max!” Kara breathed through her tears. “Of course! Oh, Max!”
Boston felt her own tears trickling down her cheeks as Max stood, capturing Kara in a strong embrace as she threw herself into his arms.
Dempsey chuckled as Danielle, Halle, and Boston squealed, jumped up and down with delight, and began congratulating Kara.
“Good job, man,” Dempsey said, patting Max on the back. “Congratulations.”
“What did I miss?” Vance asked Boston as he returned. He pulled a black T-shirt on over his head.
Boston brushed a tear from her cheek and smiled at him. “Just a marriage proposal. That’s all.” She nodded toward Max and Kara, who stood kissing in the kitchen as chili and hot dogs simmered on the stove.
“That’s all?” Vance exclaimed. He smiled and laughed. “I was only out of the room for sixty seconds. Dang! You people move fast around here.”
“He’s had the ring for, like, three months,” Boston whispered. “It’s taken him this long to get up the nerve.”
“I can understand that,” Vance said, nodding.
“You can?” Boston asked.
“Sure,” Vance told her. “He’s a quiet guy, probably scared to death of rejection…not that all guys aren’t. But Max, he seems like a guy who likes things organized and in control most of the time. Proposing marriage…that’s something that can sometimes have an unpredictable outcome.”
Boston’s mouth gaped open as she looked at Vance.
“What?” he asked when he glanced over and saw her expression.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she began, “but isn’t tonight the first time you’ve met Max?”
“Well…yeah. So what?”
Boston simply shook her head. The guy was incredible! She wondered if Vance’s ability to read people at first sight would ever cease to amaze her. She thought not.
As the Friday night soiree at Danielle’s wore down, it seemed the lighthearted moments of shared friendship only grew. Kara and Max were in la-la land, overjoyed and content in their new official engagement. Dempsey was as hilarious as always, forever dropping the funniest answers to game questions or going on about the most bizarre things. Halle was her typical energetic and giggly self. And Danielle’s eyes never stopped sparkling, especially if she were looking at or listening to Dempsey.
Several times during the evening, Boston found Vance’s elbow nudging her ribs as he drew her attention to Danielle and Dempsey’s rather uncharacteristic flirting. Boston tried to ignore the fact she liked feeling Vance’s elbow at her ribcage. As everyone was sitting on the floor in a circle playing a game of cards, she tried to ignore that the magnetism he radiated was pouring over her like hot syrup.
Vance leaned over and whispered, “Maybe we’re starting to get somewhere,” as Danielle and Dempsey laughed over a shared amusement.
At the sense of Vance’s warm breath on her neck and ear—the pure fact he was so close to her—Boston found her entire body suddenly riddled with goose bumps.
“Let’s hope,” she whispered in return.
“I’m out!” Halle announced, tossing her last card onto the floor in the middle of the circle of friends.
“No way!” Dempsey exclaimed. “I got stuck with, like, three hundred points in this hand.”
“Too bad, Dempsey!” Halle giggled.
Boston smiled and began to count the points of the remaining cards in her hand.
“You know,” Dempsey began, “I’ve just got to say this…though I know you guys are all too nice to. I know you’re probably all thinking the same thing…but I’ve gotta say it out loud.”
“We never have this much fun when Steph is here,” Danielle stated.
“Way to be brutal, Danielle!” Dempsey exclaimed.
“It’s what you were thinking…wasn’t it?” Danielle asked him.
“Unfortunately…yes,” Dempsey admitted. “Though I feel like a dirty dog about it.”
“But it’s true!” Kara said. “I feel so free…like I can be myself tonight. And I haven’t felt that way when Steph is around…ever!”
“I know!” Halle added. “I’m feeling guilty about feeling so carefree and happy…but I can’t help it.”
Boston frowned, a tidal wave of conflicting emotions snapping around within her. It was obvious—more obvious than ever! Stephanie Crittendon was a mean person who caused everyone around her to feel intimidated, frightened, nervous, and unhappy. She seemed to poison self-esteem the way rotting flesh poisoned water. Yet Boston felt guilty—guilty for consciously thinking such things. After all, Steph was a human being; she deserved to be treated kindly, even if she was mean.
“Right about now, old Boston Rhodes here is whipping herself,” Vance said. “Am I right?”
Boston looked to him, frowning. “Maybe,” she admitted.
“It’s not your fault, Boston,” Dempsey said. “We all tried to help her…tried to be her friends. In the end, sometimes you just have to cut out the infection before it spreads.”
“Kind of like gangrene in a wound,” Vance offered. “If you leave it there, it spreads, destroys everything, and you’re dead.” He looked to Boston. “Same goes for your mental health…for your soul.”
“That’s right,” Max said. He tossed his cards to the pile in the center of the floor. “Wanna know why it took me so long to propose to Kara?” he asked.
“Of course,” Dempsey said.
Max nodded. “About six months ago, Steph pulled me aside one Friday night…and told me that she’d overheard Kara talking to Boston about how scrawny I was…about how I’d never amount to anything.”
“What?” Kara exclaimed.
Max nodded again. “It’s true. She told me that. I figured she was making stuff up…but then, she also told me that I was too tall and skinny…that I’d be lucky to find a woman who would be able to look beyond my weak exterior.”
“You’re kidding, man!” Dempsey exclaimed. “Are you serious?”
“Oh, yeah,” Max admitted. “I knew she was full of it…but you know how people can get into your head.”
“Baby, you’re gorgeous!” Kara said, snuggling against him. “That’s why she tried to pull us apart. She was jealous.”
Boston wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She felt sick—literally sick! She wondered what else Steph had pulled behind her back. She wondered what other kinds of cruelty her true friends had endured because Boston Rhodes was too weak to pull herself out of the trap Steph had tripped her into.
“Remember the time we were supposed to go to Rayvon’s for dinner for Boston’s birthday?” Halle asked.
“Yeah?” Danielle prodded.
“Remember how we ended up going to that little truck stop dive instead?” Halle continued. “It’s because I was in charge of planning it, and I gave Steph the assignment of making the reservations. She claimed Rayvon’s wasn’t taking any more reservations for that night. But I found out later…they had plenty of tables available.”
“Sounds like your ex-roommate spewed a little more vinegar than it appeared,” Vance said to Boston.
“Why didn’t you guys tell me this stuff?” Boston asked. Her eyes were still brimming with tears. To think she’d caused her friends to have to endure such atrocious treatment! She was heartbroken.
“She was your roommate, Bost,” Danielle said. “We didn’t want to make your situation any more miserable than it already was.”
“I am too nice,” Boston mumbled, shaking her head.
“There’s no such thing,” Vance said. “You just need to be a better self-advocate…that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t so caring and nice to people, Boston,” Halle said, putting a comforting arm of friendship around Boston’s shoulders.
“Logan West wouldn’t be hot after you if you weren’t the Boston we all know and love,” Danielle teased.
Boston shook her head, very little comforted.
Vance exclaimed—swore under his breath. “I got stuck with almost four hundred!” He tossed his cards to the middle of the circle. “I’ll never catch up now.” He reached over, taking Boston’s cards from her hand. “Boston only had fifty points! How can you only have fifty points?” He tossed Boston’s cards into the middle of the circle too. “Well, there’s only one thing to be done when I’m losing this bad.”
“And what’s that, Vance?” Danielle asked.
Vance didn’t answer—simply stood up, went to the freezer, and removed a carton of ice cream. Boston looked up and watched Vance count out seven spoons and return to the circle.
Setting the now-open carton of ice cream in the center of the circle, he tossed everyone else a spoon, handing the last one to Boston.
“Ice cream always makes me feel better,” he said. “You?”
Boston took the spoon from him and smiled as Dempsey plunged his spoon into the center of the carton, moaning with satisfaction as he took his first bite.
Boston wiped a tear from her cheek and couldn’t help but giggle at his sweet attempt to cheer her up.
“Man, I got so much to do on Monday,” Dempsey said.
“You’re coming over to help with moving Boston’s stuff though, right?” Danielle asked.
“Of course!” Dempsey said. “We’ll get you all settled in tomorrow, Boston.” He wrinkled his nose, “And then I can worry about Monday.”
“Are you stoked about your house, Vance?” Max asked, scooping some ice cream out of the carton with his spoon. “Danielle says you got a good deal on it.”
“I did,” Vance said, nodding and eating a bite of ice cream. “It’s a fixer-upper…but not too much of a fixer-upper. It’s about a hundred years old. The previous owners did a lot of work on it, so it’s in really great shape. But…I’m sure I’ll find a few surprises.”
Danielle nudged Boston with an elbow. “Dig in,” she said, nodding toward the carton of ice cream. “Apparently it’ll make all your worries go away. Poof!”
Boston smiled, sighed, and plunged her spoon into the carton of ice cream.
“When can we come see it?” Halle asked.
“Oh, maybe a couple of weeks,” Vance said. “Let me get a few of the minor repairs done and stuff, and then we’ll have one of these little…what do you call them?”
“Soirees,” Boston answered.
“Yeah,” Vance chuckled. “Then we’ll have a little soiree at my place. Sound good?”
“Oh, yeah!” Dempsey said. “Meanwhile…don’t nobody make no plans for next Saturday. The fun’s at Dempsey’s! Remember?”
“‘Don’t nobody make no’?” Danielle asked, mimicking Dempsey’s terrible grammar.
“That’s right!” Dempsey chuckled. “This week we liberate Boston. Next week we party at my house!”
Everyone laughed, began talking to one another, and continued to enjoy ice cream. Boston thought how truly perfect Dempsey’s word choice was—
liberate
. She was beginning to feel liberated, to see the hope of her daily existence seeming brighter. In her soul, she still felt sorry for Steph—even after everything. Yet her heart and mind knew she was to the point where she had to stop the poison, had to cut out the gangrenous ulcer and preserve herself. It felt wrong in some regard—selfish. But the longer she was in the company of good, positive individuals—of people who tried to be kind, who didn’t envy and attempt to cause trouble—the longer she was in the company of loyal, true friends, Boston accepted that it was okay to remove herself from a poisonous situation. It was okay to put her own well-being first.
She glanced at Vance—caught him studying her with understanding. She smiled at him, a thankful smile. After all, it had been Vance who had finally managed to make Boston see the path of liberation.
“Rocky road, baby!” he said, winking at her and plunging his spoon back into the fast emptying carton.
“Have you got everything you need?” Danielle asked.
Boston stood in the doorway watching Danielle and Vance strip the sheets and blankets off the bed—off her bed.
“Yeah,” Vance said. “Everything I own is at the house. I’ll just stick this stuff somewhere until I get the washer and dryer hooked up.”
Boston smiled as Vance simply wadded up the sheets and blankets and shoved them in a duffle bag.
“You ready to sleep all comfy and cozy in my old bed?” Vance asked her.
“Thanks, Vance,” Boston said. “Really. I know it probably would’ve been easier for you to—”
“None of that,” he said, lifting the two duffle bags at his feet and swinging them over one shoulder. “It’s late, and we’ve got to be over at your old place to salvage your stuff in the morning.”