results. The outcome was satisfying, and I could just zone out. Well, normally I could.
This morning my brain was zoning in on Sasha and that kiss. It had come out of nowhere and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her soft, pillow lips. Her vodka and sherbet flavored tongue. The soft, needy sounds she’d made. And the way her body melted into mine.
I’d probably kissed close to a hundred women in my life. But none had made me feel what that kiss had. That kiss was something more. It was more than just a kiss. That kiss felt like love. That was crazy to say, but it was the only way I could describe it. If love was a kiss, that’s what this kiss would’ve been.
I wondered if she felt it too. How could she not? How could the person that I’d shared that moment with not have felt the gravity of it?
She’s an actress.
I kept reminding myself of that fact. To her, it was probably just a performance. She’d been hurt by her boyfriend and wanted a little revenge. I understood.
After what Rachel had done, I couldn’t hop in bed with someone fast enough. I’d wanted to erase all memories of what she’d felt like. What she’d kissed like. What she’d smelled like from my brain.
It hadn’t worked. At least not right away. And when the pain of those memories finally did dull, it had nothing to do with the women that had come after her, it had just taken time. I wasn’t even sure when it had happened. But one day, not any special day, just a day, I woke up and it didn’t feel like someone had just sucker-punched me. Sometime over the past ten years, I’d gotten over the pain.
At least I had until I’d seen her yesterday.
So I figured, the kiss was either Sasha’s way of trying to speed up the healing process or it had been a publicity stunt. Maybe she was trying to make a public statement that she was over her ex?
It couldn’t be anything else. Especially since she’d vanished afterwards. I heard later that Mr. Rogers had taken her and Mrs. Nelson home right after the kiss. But that just backed up my theory that the kiss hadn’t meant anything to her.
The strange part was, it felt like it had meant something. I wish I would’ve had the chance to ask her but when the kiss ended, I’d been so dazed that I just stood there and watched her walk off the dance floor. I looked away for just a second and she was gone.
All night, I’d tossed and turned thinking about that damn kiss. Thankfully, none of the other guys at the station had been at the wedding, so they hadn’t asked me about it. Technically, I’d had time to try and clear my head. But unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to do that.
I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around what had happened.
The water pressure dropped and within a few seconds, there was only a trickle coming out of the hose. I looked on the ground to see if something had blocked the line. My eyes followed the hose back to the faucet and that’s where I saw a pair of long, tanned legs.
My eyes lifted and I found myself, for the second time in so many days, wanting to be anywhere but where I was, staring into Rachel’s large, blue eyes.
“Sorry.” She motioned down to the handle, she’d obviously turned to shut off the water. “They said it would be okay because I needed to talk to you.”
I looked past her at Stanley, Greg, and Linc waving like idiots from the window up in the bunk room. Stanley with his pot belly proudly on display was holding a soda, Greg who had on his Astros hat, held binoculars up to his face, and standing in the center was Linc, who was built like a tank and held a bag of popcorn. Smartasses.
Ignoring the Three Stooges, I returned my attention to Rachel. Everything in me was screaming for me to tell her to kick rocks. But I knew if I did that, chances were, she’d just show up unannounced tomorrow, then the next day, and the day after that. The girl had always been persistent. The only damn thing that would possibly motivate me to speak to her now was the promise of not having to do it again.
“What do you want, Rachel?” I could’ve been nicer, but I