In His Kiss

For the first part of the evening, Josh and I spent time together. We moved around the various different ‘groups’ that were scattered throughout the yard, saying hello to everyone and engaging in small talk for a few minutes. I thought that we would finish with everyone and then have nothing to do until supper was ready but it was strange, even though we didn’t spend too much time talking to one particular ‘group’, time flew by so fast.

Supper was awesome. I love BBQs, there’s just something about food that’s been prepared outside over a grill that just gets my taste buds hopping. I made a pig of myself! By the time they were cleaning up the dishes to bring out desert, I was ready to roll myself off into a corner.

“I ate way too much,” I whispered to Josh when he handed me a plate with the cheesecake. “I don’t think I can eat that.”

Josh leaned closer to me, “Want me to get you a smaller piece?” He asked in hushed tones. “Grandma gets a little offended when people don’t have a piece.” He was nervously biting his lower lip as he told me this, it was probably one of the first times I’ve seen him do that.

Moving my chair closer to his, I smiled up at him, my fingers brushing over the back of his hand. “Do you think we could share this piece?” I batted my eyelashes at him. “It would intimate and it shouldn’t often your grandma.”

“Mmm,” Josh grinned as he slipped his arm around the back of my chair. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Josh moved the plate closer to us, picked up his fork and sunk its prongs into the blueberry top, down through the creamy center to the graham cracker crust; my mouth was watering just watching him.

When he lifted his fork from the plate, he came towards my mouth, not his. Arching a brow in surprise, my eyes slide to his as my lips parted slightly. “That’s right,” he said softly. “Open your mouth for me.”

I knew what he meant but for some reason his words took on a whole other meaning as his fork neared my lips. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. I hesitated for a second. “Please?” I did as he asked.

I felt a little silly as I sat there with my eyes closed and my mouth opened, I wondered if he would even give me the piece of cheesecake or if he would eat it himself and tell me to get y own and while I really didn’t think he would play a joke, the though crossed my mind for a brief moment.

The longer I sat there with my eyes closed, the more ‘lost’ in the moment I became. All the sounds of dinner with his family, all their voices kind of disappeared and all I was aware off was the sound of my heart beating, the gentle breeze on my face and him – his scent, his closeness, everything about him.

Josh’s arm slipped out from around my chair, I almost opened my eyes but before I could, his fingers were on my face, softly caressing my cheek. I turned my head in the direction of his hand, my lips brushed against his palm; I smiled when he took a deep breath. A smile that was soon replaced, momentarily, by a frown when his fingers fell away from my face; the smile was back again when I felt him brush a strand of hair back from my face.

The tip of the prongs of the fork touched my bottom lip; I opened my mouth to receive the mouth watering morsel of pure delight that he offered me. When my lips closed around the fork, I opened my eyes to gaze at the man before me; his eyes were focused on my lips which gave me the time to study his handsome features. I knew I loved him. Every time I looked at him, my heart would jump a little in my chest, it would be like this first moment we met all over again – the nervous excitement, the pure attraction, the desire to know everything I could about him – and it ever got old.

He tugged softly on the fork, drawing it back until the prongs were free of my lips. That’s when he finally raised his eyes to mine. “Hey,” just that one little word sounded oh-so-sexy in his husky tone. “You opened your eyes.” I nodded, flashing him a smile. “So?” He glanced away for a second to drag another piece of cheesecake away from the plate. “Is it as good as you hoped?”

Closing my eyes, I savored the flavor that had engulfed my taste buds for longer than really necessary. When the cheesecake was gone, I opened my eyes. “It was the best cheesecake I’ve ever had.”

Josh grinned and slipped the piece he had waiting on his fork, into his mouth.

“The way you were enjoying it, I say you think it was better than sex!”

The entire world came back into focus, I was now aware of Josh’s family and where we were. And most of all I was very aware of the amused look on Robbie’s face as he moved back into his seat after interrupting our moment. He didn’t say it all that loud, no one seemed to hear but Josh and I, but still I felt my cheeks start to burn as they grew red with embarrassment. Josh ignored what Robbie said, he lifted his fork to my lips with another piece on it – I took it but it wasn’t the same, it wasn’t as ‘hot’.

Dinner ended, Josh excused himself to head into the house to help his brothers and sisters with clean up so I was left to my own devices. While most everyone else went back to what they were doing before dinner, Jesse decided that he wanted to get up with me instead of run around with his cousins. “Let’s go over there,” I pointed to one of the handmade lawn chairs that were empty a little to the right of the house; I didn’t notice until I got closer that they were very similar to the ones at Mark’s, Josh would tell me later that they were all made by his father a couple years ago.

Jesse and I were sitting in the lawn chair; he was on sideways my lap with his head resting against my chest while he watched his cousins playing. “Are you sure you don’t want to go play?”

“Jesse otay Ama.”

“Ok,” I smiled, kissed the top of his head and relaxed against the chair.

I’m not sure if I fell asleep or if I was just off in my own little world, all I know is that I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me; I didn’t notice when Josh came over to us and asked if he could sit with us. It would take a couple times and him squatting down next to me before I responded, according to him.

When I moved to let Josh sit with us, Jess decided that he wanted to go play so Josh helped him down before joining me. “He’s having so much fun,” I said after Josh got comfortable and I snuggled up next to him. “It’s hard to believe that he didn’t want to come here!”

Josh chuckled, “Jesse just wanted to play.”

“I know,” I glanced up at him. “I don’t know how you managed to stay calm.”

“I guess it’s what I’m used too,” he shrugged. “My parents only yelled at us as a last resort.”

“Oh,” I turned my attention back to Jess, not saying anything else.

“What are you thinking?” Josh asked after a couple minutes of silence. “Do you think I handled Jess wrong?”

“No,” I looked up at him. “I just…”

“You just what?”

“It’s silly,” I told him.

“I don’t care,” he replied.

Taking a deep breath, I let it out before I spoke again. “It’s just that I don’t think I could do that, be as calm as you were.” Josh asked why and I chuckled, “You know as well as I do that I tend to overreact.”

Josh laughed, “Really? I never noticed.” I poked him in the ribs and he laughed harder. “Honey I know you react strongly to a lot of stuff but I know that by the end of the day, you’ll calm down and we can talk about what happened…”

When he trailed off, I realized that he was about to bring up the kiss with Carol. “Do you really want to talk about that right now?” He nodded; I looked around his parents’ backyard. Even though I was ‘cool’ about it earlier, I was still a little worried what he would tell me but he was right, we did need to talk about it. “Ok,” I turned my attention to him. “Let’s talk about it.”

I listened, I mean really listened as he spoke. I didn’t cut in, I didn’t let my attention wander, I stayed focused on him. He told me Friday after school he drove to Carol’s to pick up Jesse because it was easier for him to do that than to have Carol get both boys ready, drive the half hour to his place to drop Jess off and then drive all the way back.

“If it wasn’t around the time that Niles would normally be down for a nap, it wouldn’t be a big deal, she would drop Jess off but...” he glanced down at me. “I guess I kind of felt bad that she would have to disrupt his sleeping when I could easily pick Jess up.”

“When I got to Carol’s house, I knocked a couple times and rang the door bell but there wasn’t any answer,” Josh went on to say. “I tried the door; it was unlocked so I went in.” He paused, as if he was expecting me to say something but I didn’t. “Umm, so I went in and I couldn’t believe what I saw. The place was a mess; there was toys and stuff thrown everywhere! I’ve never seen Carol’s place that messy before, she was always such a clean freak. I called out, there was no answer but I did hear Jesse running around and talking and I heard Niles crying, it sounded like it was upstairs, so I headed up there.”

He hesitated, frowned and then continued. “As I walked upstairs, I heard Carol asking Jess to be quiet because she was trying to get Niles back to sleep but Jesse kept running and talking loudly, asking her when I was going to get there because he wanted to go.”

“Carol told him that I would be arriving soon and suggested that they go downstairs and wait since it didn’t look like Niles was going to sleep again.” Josh stopped and sighed, “Will you please say something?”

“I’m trying to get all the facts before I say anything,” I told him. “I don’t want to misunderstand anything.”

Josh gazed down at me for a moment. “Ok,” he sighed. “I’m just used to you asking questions when I tell you something.”

I smiled which made him smile a little. “Ok,” he rubbed his temple and continued. “Jesse started acting like he did this morning, he didn’t want to go downstairs, he wanted Carol to carry him, he hated the baby, mommy was mean, and mommy didn’t love him. Carol sounded like she was losing her patience with him, she had told him that she loved him but she couldn’t carry him and Niles at the same time but Jess continued, adding ‘daddy love Jesse, Ama love Jesse. Ama marry daddy. Ama be Jesse mommy’.”

That was the one time I spoke, I gasped, “Oh no!”

“Yeah,” Josh groaned. “I pushed open the bedroom door to try to get a handle on the situation before it got out of hand but it was too late. Jesse was telling Carol that you would be a better mommy than her because you weren’t mean and you loved him. Carol lost it, she just started to bawl with made Niles cry even harder and Jesse, having spotted me, ran over and asked me if we could go because he wanted to see you.”

“I told him he had to apologize to Carol for what he said and tell her that he really didn’t mean it but he kept saying ‘no’ and Carol was telling me it was fine, to take Jess and have a good time.”

Josh shifted in the chair, “I couldn’t do it Anna. I couldn’t leave her like that. I felt bad. She was a mess, the house was a mess, Jesse wasn’t being nice and Niles was crying. I wanted to help her because I felt bad for her.”

“I went over to where she was, I didn’t know what to do, I remember thinking that if I calmed Jess and Niles down, it would be ok. Once I went over to Carol, Jesse went too telling her he was sorry. When I picked Niles up out of her arms, Jesse climbed up and was talking to her but I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, I was staring down at Niles, who wasn’t crying so hard now. I was staring down at him and I started to think, ‘one day this could be you’.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“I know,” he said. “It sounds stupid but as I held Niles, I couldn’t help but think that one day I’ll come home to find you in the same position, maybe not the same reason, but crying from sheer frustration when Jesse is a handful and our baby is crying his head off.”

“I know,” he repeated. “That’s such a long way off, we aren’t having a baby yet but when we do, one day that could be you.”

Ok, I lied, I spoke once again. “What does this have to do with the kiss Josh? Did you think Carol was me? Is that what you are going to tell me?”

“No,” Josh shook his head. “There is no way in hell I could ever get the two of you mixed up! You are nothing like her! I was just telling you what I was thinking at the time. I didn’t think she was you but she did something that you would do, she came over to stand by me, and said something like, you are good at that, or you are a good dad. Then she started to cry again and told me that she didn’t think she could do this anymore. She confessed that she wasn’t eating or sleeping anymore and that she was feeling more and more depressed every single day. She told me that she didn’t think she could handle being a mom to Niles without Phil around to help her like he did when Jess was a baby; she told me that she missed him so much.” Josh looked down at me. “In all the time that I’ve known Carol, she’s never been that vulnerable and I just wanted to cheer her up.”

And I spoke again. “So you kissed her?”

“No, I hugged her and told her it would be alright, she was stronger than she thought.”

“And then you kissed her?”

Josh nodded, “I kissed her.” I started to push away from him but he held me tight. “I didn’t kiss her on the lips Anna. I gave her a kiss on the cheek. I don’t ever want to kiss her like I kiss you.”

I stared up at Josh; I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know why but even him kissing her on the cheek kind of upset me.

“Anna, honey, please say something.”

It upset me but when I thought about the morning I really kissed Jordan, I knew there was no way the way I felt was anywhere near as hurt as Josh felt that day.

I still didn’t know what to say.

“Anna, honey?”

I said the only thing I could think of.

“Does she know that?”