His right hand slides up my back, and I gasp because I feel his touch surge through me like a current. This guy is touching my face now, running his fingers down my cheekbone, and then his fingertips across my lips. He’s staring at me like he’s trying to figure out where he knows me from.
Maybe that’s just my paranoia at work.
“Who are you?” he whispers.
I already told him, but I repeat my middle name anyway. “Nicole.”
He smiles but then loses the smile and says, “I know your name. But where’d you come from? Why have we never met before tonight?”
I don’t want his questions. I have no honest answers. I move a little closer to his mouth. “Who are you?”
“Ledger,” he says, right before he rips open my past, pulls out what’s left of my heart, drops it on the floor, and then kisses me.
People say you fall in love, but fall is such a sad word when you think about it. Falls are never good. You fall on the ground, you fall behind, you fall to your death.
Whoever was the first person to say they fell in love must have already fallen out of it. Otherwise, they’d have called it something much better.
Scotty told me he loved me halfway into our relationship. It was the night I was supposed to meet his best friend for the first time. I had already met his parents, and he was excited for that, but not nearly as excited as he was to introduce me to the guy he considered a brother.
That meeting never happened. I can’t remember why; it’s been a long time. But his friend had to cancel, and Scotty was sad, so I baked him cookies and we smoked a joint and then I gave him head. Best girlfriend ever.
Until I killed him.
But this was three months before he would die, and on that particular night, even though he was sad, he was very much alive. He had a beating heart and a rapid pulse and a heaving chest and tears in his eyes when he said, “I fucking love you, Kenna. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I miss you all the time, even when we’re together.”
That stuck with me. “I miss you all the time, even when we’re together.”
And I thought that was the only thing that stuck with me that night, but I was wrong. Something else stuck with me. A name. Ledger.
The best friend who never showed. The best friend I never got to meet.
The best friend who just put his tongue in my mouth and his hand up my shirt and his name in my chest.
CHAPTER SIX
LEDGER
I don’t understand attraction.
What is it that draws people to each other? How can dozens of women walk through the doors to this bar every week and I don’t feel the urge to give any of them a second glance? But then this girl waltzes in, and I can’t take my fucking eyes off her.
Now I can’t take my mouth off her.
I don’t know why I’m breaking my self-imposed rule: “no pursuing customers.” But there’s something about her that indicates I’ll only have one chance. I get the feeling she’s either passing through town or doesn’t plan on coming back in here. Tonight seems like an exception to whatever her normal routine may be, and I feel like skipping an opportunity to be with her will be that one regret in life I’ll still think back on when I’m an old man.
She seems like a quiet person, but not the shy kind of quiet. She’s quiet in a fierce way—a storm that sneaks up on you, and you don’t know it’s there until you feel the thunder rattle your bones.
She’s quiet, but she’s said just enough to make me want the rest of her words. She tastes like apples, even though she had coffee earlier, and apples are my favorite fruit. They’re probably my favorite food period, now.
We kiss for several seconds, and even though she made the first move, she still seemed surprised when I pulled her to my mouth.
Maybe she expected me to wait a little longer before tasting her, or maybe she wasn’t expecting it to feel like this—I hope it feels like this for her—but whatever caused that tiny gasp right before my mouth met hers, it wasn’t because she didn’t want the kiss.
She pulls away, briefly indecisive, but then she seems to make up her mind because she leans in and kisses me again with even more conviction.
That conviction disappears, though. Too fast. She pulls away for a second time, and this time her eyes are full of regret. She shakes her head quickly and places her palms on my chest. I cover her hands with mine right when she says, “I’m sorry.”
She slides off me, the inside of her thigh rubbing across my zipper, making me even harder, as she scoots out of the booth. I reach for her hand, but her fingers trickle out of mine as she backs away from the table. “I shouldn’t have come back.”