21 Stolen Kisses Page 19

  I lower my hand to his, and guide him where I want him.

  “You can be greedy with me, anytime, K,” he says, and he unbuttons my pants. His fingertips brush against my skin. My heart stutters and my body aches to be closer. To be felt. To be caressed into that liquid, heated, dreamy state.

  He’s still tentative with me, like I’m fragile. But I’m not delicate and I never was. He just needs my permission every step of the way as we venture down this new path. So I cover his hand with mine, and slide his fingers inside my panties, between my legs. That’s all he needs – the complete confirmation that I’m not just okay with this, but that I must have it.

  He gives me what I need.

  Him. His hands. His touch. His devotion to me, heart, mind and now body.

  I suppose I should feel vulnerable or strange backed up against his wall, my hands speared into his hair, my neck arched, my moans echoing across his apartment, as he touches me. But there’s no space in me for anything else but this intensity, this tenderness, this blissful abandon to him. I am floating, I am flying, I am in heaven.

  Only better, because I’m here on earth loving every second of being alive.

  *

  But those stolen evening hours with Noah don’t have the effect I want in the morning. The temporary bliss wears off, and I’m left still hurting. My friends matter too much to me.

  The next day after school, I text Lane to ask if he’s home. When he says yes, I call the pizza place, order a half-pepperoni, half-cheese pie. After I pick it up, I march straight to Lane’s nearby building. Because hell if I’m going to let this new friendship face the same fate as old ones.

  When he answers the door to his apartment, his eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “Kennedy,” he says, stumbling on my name.

  I hold up a hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied to you. I don’t have an excuse and I’m not going to give you one, except it was natural, and it’s what I’m used to. But that doesn’t make it right or okay that I did it to you.” I place my hands together, imploring him. “And I’m not above begging for forgiveness because your friendship means too much to me. I can’t and I won’t lose it.” I dig my heels in, straightening my spine, standing up tall. “I simply refuse to. I refuse to let you stop being my friend.”

  That cracks him up, and he shakes his head. “Refuse, huh? How exactly will this refusal manifest?”

  “I’ll camp on your doorstep till you take me back,” I say, feeling the slightest bit lighter now that his lips are curved up in a grin. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Because you mean too much to me. I messed up, and I hope you accept my apology and know that it comes from me just trying to figure out how to be a real friend and tell the truth about myself. Will you forgive me? I brought a peace offering. Or really, a pizza offering,” I say, thrusting the cardboard at him.

  He eyes it suspiciously. “Is it yesterday’s?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. A whole new one.”

  He takes it, drapes an arm over my shoulder and pulls me inside. “I’ll take it. Because I have a confession to make too. I really was hungry yesterday, and I still am now.”

  I elbow him playfully as we walk into his apartment. It’s empty. His mom must still be at work. “You lied too,” I tease.

  He shrugs and flashes me his trademark grin as we park ourselves at his kitchen table. He folds up a slice and dives in. I grab one for myself.

  In between bites, we talk. He asks me to tell him about Noah and how we got back together. I share it all—my mom, Amanda’s dad, Jay and the lawsuit, and the Botanic Garden. I tell him all these things, and when it’s all on the table, when we’re holding slices of cheese pizza up to our mouths and taking bites, we have moved on past what he said yesterday, beyond my own false words. We are back to where we were a few days ago. We are friends, and he hasn’t left. I started over and I told him the truth, and he’s still here, and we’re still here.

  He hasn’t abandoned me.

  This is better than scoring a goal in lacrosse. This is better than a kiss. This is the best.

  When we finish and it’s time for me to go, he puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me square in the eyes.

  “K,” he says, then laughs. “Can I still call you that?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have a million thoughts and feelings and opinions, and I’ll admit too that I’m annoyed that that guy, because I can’t say his name, and I still can’t believe his name is Noah, and it’s not fair he gets to have like the ultimate good guy name, has got you again, but you need to tell your parents what’s going on. Please, please, please do that.”

  I shake my head quickly. Adamantly. “I can’t tell my mom.”

  “You have two parents. Tell your dad,” he says gently.

  My skin prickles with worry. “He would freak.”

  “Let him.”

  “I mean really freak. Like freak out and forbid me from seeing him.”

  Lane looks at his phone, pretending to check a calendar on it. “If memory serves, you’re nearly eighteen and off to college in three months. Tell him.”

  I nod.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s not a no.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kennedy

  That night, the next day, and into the next night as I ride the subway downtown to my dad’s house, I weigh the idea of coming clean about Noah. I consider it, turn it over, mull it, all the while trying to figure out who left the letter at my mom’s house the other morning. I’m not any closer to knowing, nor am I any closer to a yes when I walk up the five flights of stairs to my dad’s house in the Village and unlock the door.

  My dad is sitting at the dining room table, his laptop open, typing away. He has a steely look in his eyes, a look I have seen before, a look he reserves only when talking about my mom.

  “Hi, Dad.” I feel nerves everywhere, in my throat, inside my mouth, deep in my belly.

  “Hello, Kennedy.” His voice is ice. He is talking to me like I’m my mom, and it makes me feel awful.

  He swivels his laptop around and points to a picture on the screen.

  Noah and me this weekend. At the Botanic Garden.

  He clicks to the next one.

  Noah and me getting into a cab. Then the next.

  Me walking into his building the other night.

  Then the last one. Me leaving the next morning, the green awning behind me.

  “I received these from Jay Fierstein’s lawyer. I think he assumes they’ll be useful in his lawsuit. I’m not sure I agree, but frankly I don’t give a damn about the lawsuit right now. I’d like to know more about the double life you’re leading. Because I assume your mother,” he says, and that last word comes out like spit, “doesn’t know about this.”

  I shake my head. I can’t deny. I can’t speak. I can’t form words. The earth is splitting open and blood pounds in my head. Mercilessly. I grab hold of the doorway as the ground starts to sway beneath me, threatening to swallow my traitorous heart whole.

  He drops his forehead into his palm. “I expected more from you,” he says to the table, and the words aren’t stalactites anymore. They’re wind, sad and lonely, they’re the spoken sound of disappointment. My chest caves, and my heart literally aches with shame.

  I try to say I’m sorry, I try to say It’s not what you think. But there’s no point, because it is what he thinks—it is his daughter lying to him. That’s what these pictures say.

  My legs become sandbags. I sink down into the chair because if I stand I might collapse. My dad’s head is still in his hands, so I’m looking at the top of his skull, at his ever-expanding bald spot. Minutes pass by. There’s no ticking clock in this room, but in my head I can hear the hands moving second by second.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He looks up. His face is the map of a defeated man, a man who has lost, a man whose wife wore him down, whose daughter is following her lead.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again
because what else can I say?

  He looks at me. At least he looks at me. There’s only sadness in his eyes. There’s no disgust. I cling to the possibility that he doesn’t hate me. I cling to this so tightly it becomes my only hope.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” Then I start to cry.

  He looks at my tears, at the silent streams running down my face, and he switches sides, pulling me close, my face to his chest. I cry more. He does not comfort me with words, he does not say It’s okay, like he would if I were still a little girl. But this—the warmth of his arms, the familiar spot on his shirt where my tears have made their mark over the years—tells me he is still my dad. He still knows how to be a father. He knows how this works.

  When my eyes are dried, I look up, and he speaks.

  “How long have you been involved with Noah Hayes?”

  I twitch for a second; it’s weird hearing anyone call him Noah, even Noah Hayes.

  But perhaps it’s because of this, because my dad uses the same name I use, or maybe it’s because my dad is a parent, and I’m not his enabler, I’m not his confidante, I’m not his partner in crime, that I tell him everything. Like I did that night in the kitchen three years ago.

  “The letter I wrote, the letter you found earlier this year, wasn’t to Jay,” I say. “It was to Noah. I wrote him a letter about all the kisses we had, and all the kisses I wanted to have. I was involved with him all last summer and fall. Until you found the letter.”

  “Why did you say it was to Jay then?” my dad asks quietly, carefully.

  I look away, the tears build up in my chest, in my throat again. How many ways can I hurt him? How many varieties of embarrassment can I inflict upon him? The pain is a fist in my gut, pushing up through my chest. I force out the words, like stones in my mouth, “Because Mom was involved with Jay.”

  My dad swallows hard, grits his teeth. I wonder if it’s a subconscious move, a muscle memory from the way he works his jaw over and over in the night, if it’s his body’s response to stress or shock.

  “And by saying it was Jay I had a crush on, I figured I could protect Noah, and throw Jay under the bus,” I add, explaining myself.

  My dad laughs for a second when I say that—throw Jay under the bus.

  “That’s where he belongs,” my dad says.

  “I know. I hate him. And I knew even by saying we kissed for three seconds that it would be enough for you to hate him too. And I love Noah, so I wanted the guy who was actually being a scum to be the one you hated.”

  He rolls his eyes, something he has never done before with me.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “You can’t love Noah,” he says dismissively.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re too young. He’s too old.”

  “He’s not that old! He turned twenty-six a few weeks ago. I’m going to be eighteen next week. We’re only eight years apart.”

  “You think that makes a difference?”

  “Yes, and nothing has happened.” I feel my face flush. I can’t believe I’m discussing my sex life with my father.

  He points to the computer screen again. “You spent the night at his place, Kennedy. Try telling me that again.”

  My eyes bug out. “Oh my god, you’re assuming because I slept there that I slept with him? I haven’t had sex with him.”

  He cringes. “You honestly expect me to believe that?”

  “Actually, I do, Dad. I do expect you to believe it,” I say, taking some small solace in the truth of this statement.

  “I have a hard time believing you, Kennedy, considering how you manipulated all the facts before.”

  “I had reasons!”

  “So? I’m sure your mother had her reasons for spinning tall tales too.”

  A plume of anger streaks through me. “Don’t compare me to her.”

  “How is this different? Tell me.”

  “Because I lied about Jay and Noah for good reasons. For the right reasons.”

  “There are no right reasons to lie,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me in the first place you liked Noah?”

  “Oh, gee. I don’t know. Maybe because he’s Mom’s agent and friend and because he’s older than I am.”

  “And as you can see, those would be all the reasons why you shouldn’t be involved with him. Not to mention that it’s creepy and weird that he wants to go out with a younger girl.”

  “I think it’s unfair and judgmental that you don’t believe I’m capable of making a mature decision about who to date,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Is it really mature to tell lies? To deceive your parents? To go out with him for half a year and then start it again and lie and blame someone else?”

  “It’s not as if you and Mom have made it so easy to tell the truth,” I say, my chest tightening, like I’ve been backed into a corner.

  He huffs out a heavy sigh. “Kennedy, please. It’s wrong.”

  “I’m not cheating on anyone.” My voice rises with desperation as I fight to convince him. “Don’t make me pay for Mom’s mistakes.”

  “But you lied to me too,” he says in a fierce low voice. Then a whisper. “Just like her.”

  I move my chair closer to him, and now it’s my turn to reach for his hand. “I’m not her. I haven’t done the things she’s done. You can be mad at me all you want for not telling you sooner. And you can say I never would have told you if you hadn’t found out. But guess what? Now you know. And now I’m telling you everything. It started last June and I pursued him and he resisted for the longest time, but I was the one who kept visiting his office and asking him out, and eventually he went out with me. And I get that you think that is wrong or gross or inappropriate or whatever, but ask yourself if it’s truly so unreasonable that a smart, funny, thoughtful, sensitive guy who’s eight years older could fall in love with your daughter? I’m your daughter. I’m me. You’re supposed to think I’m amazing. You’re supposed to think I’m incredible. Is it so unreasonable that someone else could think those things too?”

  My father looks hard at me, but I can tell the edges of his anger are muting. He softens as he says, “I’m also supposed to think no man is ever good enough for my daughter.”

  “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, Kennedy.”

  “He is good enough for me.”

  “No one is. Not him. Not anyone.”

  I sense an opening. “Aren’t you glad it wasn’t Jay Fierstein after all?”

  The corners of his lips curl up. “I can’t believe he has the gall to sue me after this,” my dad says, shaking his head, as he stares at a framed print on the wall, an image of a silver goblet fallen on its side, of a lemon half peeled. I think back to the time Jay and my dad traveled to Amsterdam, to help a big museum in New York put together an exhibit of Dutch still lifes, like those by Heda. How do you do turn around and stab your business partner in the back by canoodling with his ex-wife?

  “I can’t believe your mother … ,” he starts, but doesn’t finish. He won’t bash her in front of me. He reaches a hand out to mine. “Let’s go pay her a visit.”

  My eyes bug out. “What do you mean?”

  “I think it’s time she knows that I know what’s going on.”

  I shake my head. “No. I can’t do that.”

  He nods firmly. “You can and we are going to.”

  I shake my head more.

  “You have nothing to be afraid of,” he says, like a coach encouraging me to get back on the field after a fall.

  This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, the scene I have been trying to engineer for years. I dance around the truth, I toy with it, I taunt my mom with the bits and pieces I know, daring her to admit all, goading her to tell the truth. But now it’s going to happen, and I am terrified. Fear lodges inside me as we hail a cab and head uptown.

  I knock on her door.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kennedy

  My mom answers, and she doesn’t let my f
ather’s presence deter her from plastering a welcoming smile across her face, and holding out her arm grandly to invite us in.

  Her entourage is here—the usual LGO suspects, and even Bailey and Sean, so I guess my mom convinced Bailey that nothing ever happened. Noah sits on the couch, and for the first time ever I don’t want to see him. His face is blank, but I suspect it’s deliberate, like he’s trying to hide his surprise. I know because I’m doing the same.

  “Good evening, Jewel,” my father says.

  “My darling Eric.” She leans in and gives him an air-kiss on one cheek, then the other, like they’re French or something. I wish I were in France right now, I wish I were in Brooklyn, I wish I were at Dr. Insomnia’s. Anywhere but here.

  “Hello,” he says, waving to the guests. “Everyone having a good evening?”

  The guests nod, but they’re not stupid. They know the ex-husband doesn’t come by often, or at all. They’re all shifting, reaching for bags, grabbing for phones.

  “Oh, don’t leave on my account. This could be the best part of the party.”

  With that, Noah steps in. “I think we’re all going to get out of here right now,” he says, and that’s all the others need to hear. Within ten seconds, my mom’s entourage is at the door, saying good-bye.

  My dad grab’s Noah’s arm. “You can stay.”

  Noah glances quickly at me, worry flashing across his eyes. I nod to the door, urging him with my eyes to leave.

  “No, really. I insist,” my dad adds.

  I look at my dad. “Don’t do this,” I plead softly. “Not this. Not here.”

  He breathes hard through his nostrils. He opens the door wider and lets Noah go.

  It’s just the three of us now—mother, father, daughter—the remains of a family.

  “You sure do know how to clear a room, Eric,” my mother says, then reaches for the bottle of white wine on the coffee table. “Wine? It’s from Spain. Your favorite.” She holds out the bottle and an empty wineglass.