Page 17 of Stolen Kisses
Milburn was a good guy. He had a bowl haircut and thick-lensed glasses. He managed the movie theater in Blushing Bay and he freakishly knew every movie nearly by heart, even the chick flicks.
“She did?” Noah asked, feeling a little let down. Which was crazy. He didn’t want her to want him. He needed Krista to think of him as just her friend. Her best friend. Because otherwise they stood to lose everything. Noah had seen a lot of friends turn into enemies after crossing the line. Case in point: his oldest brother, Sam, and his estranged wife, Abby.
“Gotta go. See you at the dock tomorrow morning.” Noah took long strides toward the door, then turned back. “Would you mind putting a glass of water by her bed? Get her to drink it if you can. Otherwise she’ll have a headache in the morning. She’s a grouch when her head hurts.”
“Which one of us is the big brother?” Joey laughed as he shoveled more noodles into his mouth.
Noah took that as a yes. “Thanks.” He waved and closed the front door behind him. He couldn’t get in his Jeep fast enough. He took deep breaths as he drove back to his houseboat, trying and failing to expel the memory of Krista’s lips. Soft like satin. Moist. She’d breathed a little sigh as they’d kissed.
He slammed his front door and walked directly to his bed. He took a moment to shed his T-shirt, then laid flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling. His body was long past tired, but his mind was whirling like some nocturnal creature after dark. Krista had been drunk. It was drunken Krista who’d kissed him. The drunken Krista who’d once confessed about her fetish for midnight snacking. The entire family had been blaming Joey for all the food that was disappearing at night, but it’d been her all along. Noah smiled to himself at the memory. He’d just forget about tonight’s kiss, the same way he’d forgotten about her midnight snacking. Joey had taken the fall for that. For all Noah knew, Joey might’ve really thought he woke up every night to eat his parents out of house and home.
Noah forced his eyes shut. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face into the pillow, hoping to bury the memory of Krista’s mouth on his, too. She’d been drunk, but he hadn’t been. In a moment of complete insanity, he’d kissed her back, crossed a line between them, and now he somehow needed to uncross it.
—
Krista groaned against her pillow. There was a throb in her head that matched the sound of her alarm beeping on her bedside table. She lifted an arm and swatted at the machine until it stopped, then cracked an eye to notice the glass of water, too. Noah must’ve put it there. She vaguely remembered him driving her home. All of that was fuzzy, though. She groaned again. The last time she’d had too much to drink with him, she’d told him things that he still held over her head to this day. Like how she liked to wake at midnight and raid the fridge. She was still ashamed of that little habit, which had been blamed on Joey.
Sitting up, she dangled her feet above the floor and reached for the water. She downed the whole glass hoping to offset the headache before standing. Then she dragged her feet down the hall and started the coffee. She and Grace had decided to skip going to the BB Café for breakfast this morning. If they hadn’t, Krista would be canceling anyway.
“Headache?” Joey asked, rounding a corner.
“Monster headache,” Krista said, only slightly exaggerating.
“When are you going to learn that you’re a lousy drinker?”
“Did you see Noah when he brought me home last night?”
Joey had an apple in his hand. He nodded and took a large bite, talking as he chewed. No matter how many times she tried, she’d never break her brother of the simultaneous talking and eating. “Yep. Going to see him again right now.”
Krista laughed, which was a mistake. She pressed a hand to her temple to temper the pain. “I can’t get used to you two working together…Did Noah say anything on the way out last night?”
Joey thought for a second. “No. Why? You afraid you spilled some deep dark secret in your lapse of sober judgment?”
Krista tapped her fingers impatiently along the countertop needing her coffee. “No,” she said. Even though that’s exactly what she was worried about.
“Gotta go. Hoping to catch the big one today.”
Krista watched him head to the door. A little jealousy kicked in. Her brother would be spending the day with her best friend out on the sunny waters. And she would be on her feet for an eight-plus hour shift trying her damnedest to prove to Karen that she was the perfect choice to replace her.
“Bye.” Krista grabbed a coffee mug and poured a healthy cup full. Then she proceeded to complete the morning rush.
A few hours later, she finally sat down with Adam’s discharge papers. His lungs were clear and all signs of infection were gone. His white blood cell count was up and he was able to go home and return to being a normal kid again—at least until his next infusion or virus, whichever came first. Krista reviewed the notes, signed her part, and went in search of Dr. Jacobs to sign his. After that, she knocked twice before entering Adam’s hospital room.
“Hey, buddy,” she said.
He was sitting up, clutching a chapter book in both hands. “This book is so awesome. I can’t leave until I finish,” he told her. He’d gotten the book from the library cart that made daily rounds on the floor.
Mandy smiled tiredly. “I will buy you that book, sweetheart.” She looked at Krista. “Because we are definitely leaving today, right?”
Krista smiled. “Definitely.” She turned to the boy. “But you can take that book home and finish. I’ll return it to the hospital library when you’re done.”
His shoulders relaxed a notch on his thin body. “Yayyyyy.” He closed the book. “Then I will concede to leaving this place.”
Krista’s eyes widened. “Big word for such a little guy.”
“Because I spend my time reading instead of doing videogames or playing outside.”
Krista pulled in a sharp breath, remembering now that Noah had agreed last night to take Adam out on his boat. How had she forgotten that? She looked at Mandy. “Do you know the Sawyer Seafood Company?”
