He shakes his head. “I don’t like you for your food, Tate. You’re not that good of a cook.”
I laugh, and it feels good to laugh. Things have just felt so intense for the past two days.
“How was Thanksgiving?” he asks. “Did the boy have a good time?”
I look at him and tilt my head in confusion. “The boy?”
He nods. “Mr. Archer. Didn’t he spend the holiday with you and your brother?”
I nod, understanding his question now. “Yes,” I say. I want to add that I’m pretty sure Mr. Archer just had the best Thanksgiving he’s had in more than six years, but I don’t. “Mr. Archer had a great time, I think.”
“And what’s the smile for?”
I immediately wipe away the grin I didn’t realize was plastered on my face. I scrunch up my nose. “What smile?”
Cap laughs. “Oh, hell,” he says. “You and the boy? Are you fallin’ in love, Tate?”
I shake my head. “No,” I say immediately. “It’s not like that.”
“How so, then?”
I quickly look away as soon as I feel the blush creep up my neck. Cap laughs when he sees my cheeks turn as red as the chairs we’re seated on.
“I may be old, but that don’t mean I can’t read body language,” he says. “Does this mean you and the boy are . . . what’s the term they use now? Hookin’ up? Bumpin’ uglies?”
I lean forward and bury my face in my hands. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with an eighty-year-old man.
I quickly shake my head. “I’m not answering that.”
“I see,” Cap says with a nod. We’re both quiet for a moment while we process what I more or less just told him. “Well, good,” he says. “Maybe that boy will actually smile every now and then.”
I nod in complete agreement. I could definitely use more of his smile. “Can we change the subject now?”
Cap slowly turns his head toward me and arches his bushy gray eyebrow. “I ever tell you about the time I found a dead body on the third floor?”
I shake my head, relieved that he changed the subject but confused that the subject of a dead body has somehow helped me find relief.
I’m just as morbid as Cap.
chapter fourteen
MILES
Six years earlier
“Do you think the fact that we shouldn’t be doing this is why we like doing it so much?” Rachel asks.
She’s referring to kissing me.
We kiss a lot.
Every chance we get and even chances we don’t get.
“When you say shouldn’t, do you mean because our parents are together?”
She says yes. Her voice is breathless, because I’m currently kissing my way up her neck.
I like that I take her breath away.
“Remember the first time I saw you, Rachel?”
She moans a sound that means yes.
“And do you remember me walking you to Mr. Clayton’s class?”
She gives me another wordless yes.
“I wanted to kiss you that day.” I work my way back up to her mouth and look her in the eyes. “Did you want to kiss me?”
She says yes, and I can see in her eyes that she’s thinking
back to that day.
To the day she
Became
My
Everything.
“We didn’t know about our parents that day,” I explain. “Yet we still wanted to be doing this. So no, I don’t think that’s why we like it now.”
She smiles.
“See?” I whisper, brushing my lips softly across hers to show her how good it feels.
She lifts off her pillow and holds herself up on her elbow.
“What if we just like kissing in general?” she asks. “What if it has nothing to do with me or you in particular?”
She always does this. I tell her she should be a lawyer, because she likes playing devil’s advocate so much. But I love it when she does it, so I always go along with it.
“Good point,” I tell her. “I do like kissing. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t like it. But there’s a difference between this and simply liking to kiss.”
She looks at me curiously. “What’s the difference?”
I lower my mouth to hers once more. “You,” I whisper. “I like kissing you.”
That answers her question, because she shuts up and brings her mouth back to mine.
I like that Rachel questions everything.
It makes me look at things in a different way.
I have always enjoyed kissing the girls I’ve kissed in the past but only because I was attracted to them. It didn’t really have anything to do with them in particular.
When I kissed all the other girls, I felt pleasure. That’s why people enjoy kissing, because it feels good.