Kiss This (2 page)

The second year wasn’t any easier, just
different. The heartache was still there, but acceptance had
started to settle in but it was almost just as bad as the despair.
It was the loneliness that crept in and took over her heart. It
built a blockade so nothing could affect her. There had been a few
that tried, but there wasn’t enough there to even chip away a
corner
of the brick wall she put up.

Her mind wasn’t held captive in any way. She
wanted to move on. She
needed
to feel something again. Her
head told her yes, it was time to progress; her heart constantly
riddled her with guilt and fear.

Head and heart needed to get on the same
damn team…

Chapter Two

Teague inhaled a slow drag of nicotine and
let it out even slower. He flicked the ashes into a tray next to
him and leaned over the railing, assessing the ocean with his dark
blue-green eyes. Olivia Beach was sure boring as hell, especially
in December. The day was partially sunny, so there were a few
people out on the sand, but every day he thought about his former
life and wondered what he’d be doing instead of just biding his
time in Oregon.

But it didn’t matter. This was the tempo he
needed. A slower pace, honest and friendly people, and a simple job
he felt at ease with. It wasn’t fixing anything, but it was all he
could do for now.

A figure caught his attention down below. He
narrowed his eyes with curiosity as he took another drag from his
cigarette. Pink, long-sleeved top nicely fitted to her body, and
black skintight running pants. She was wearing a gray beanie over
blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders.

Teague had nothing else to do, so he crushed
his cigarette in the ashtray and wandered to the stairs that snaked
down the embankment for the beach. Entranced, he barely realized
where he was headed; where he hadn’t gone the entire ten months
he’d been living here. He watched her his entire trek down, even
though she was already far-gone. He figured she’d eventually turn
back around and head his way again.

Unless she already
was
headed back
from the way she came… Nah, he’d been on the deck for over an hour
and noticed every man, woman, child, and fucking dog that passed
below him. He didn’t remember any tight-bodied chicks going for a
run.

He hesitated when he hit the last step on
the stairs and stared at the sand below. Ten damn months and he
hadn’t even touched it. Taking a deep breath, he convinced himself
that his hiatus could be over. He shrugged, trying to feel
apathetic, as he sat on the bottom step with his bare feet on the
sand. Then he glanced down the beach to his right. He could see the
dot of her bright pink top in the distance, but just barely. He
pulled the carton out of his chest pocket, tapped another cigarette
out, and lit it. He took several drags from it before he looked
down the beach again, realizing that the girl was heading back his
direction.

“Let’s see how your hot chick radar is
functioning today, Teague,” he smirked to himself.

He waited patiently as her black pants
carried her closer and closer to him. She was running near the
shoreline, which was thirty yards away. This beach didn’t have much
of a beach at times, but today the tide was in-between.

He had plenty of time to debate whether or
not he would act on his findings. If she was hot, hell yeah he
wanted to talk to her. If not, no loss. The trip down and up the
steps would be good for his lazy ass today. Then again, he’d most
likely hit the weights later anyway.

Taking another drag, he noticed she’d be
passing by in the next ten seconds. He could already tell she had a
nice body, and the long hair was a turn on, but other than that,
she could be a total dog.

“Or a beautiful piece of ass.” He almost
choked from his cigarette as he stared at her passing by. He didn’t
even move and just watched her run, eyes forward, pressing on like
nothing could distract her. He tried to tell himself to get up, to
holler something at her, anything… But he just sat there like a
dumbass.

Her figure disappeared to the left of him,
and he watched as she hung a left for the public stairs and
disappeared.

***

Panting and out of breath, Camryn climbed
the two flights to her mother’s monstrous house. If it wasn’t the
cold Northwest air, it was going to be all these damn stairs that
would kill her. Her ass and calves were on fire.

She pulled out a house key that was zipped
in the waistband of her running pants and slipped it into the lock.
The second she opened the door she heard her mom’s weepy voice call
out, “Cami, is that you, sweetie?”

She could hardly sigh with the heaving
breaths she was taking, so Camryn just nodded to herself. “Yeah,
I’m back,” she replied loudly. “Where are you?”

Lord, this house was ridiculous. It was
three levels but it was anything but simple. It sounded like her
mom was upstairs, but Camryn was surprised when she came around the
corner right in front of her.

“Just in the bedroom.” Serena sniffled and
wiped at her eyes with a tissue. “Did you have a nice run?”

Camryn nodded as she pulled off her hat and
gloves, and slipped off her shoes at the same time. “Yeah, it was
nice. Cold, but the scenery was different.”

“Did you find the public beach access easy
enough?”

“You mean the nine stupid flights of
stairs?” she scoffed. “Yeah, I made them my bitch.”

Serena frowned at her. “I see being around
your Uncle Tim hasn’t changed much.”

Camryn only shrugged as she scooted her
shoes under the bench by the entry, and her mom returned to her
bedroom.

This was Camryn’s second day at her mom’s
and she was already going crazy. Dealing with emotional breakdowns,
phone calls from relatives, and doing her best to cook meals the
“right” way was going to undo her. Finally she had to get out of
the house. Running was Camryn’s only choice, although she wished
she could run and not come back. But she coached herself into
taking it one day at a time, at least knowing she’d be returning to
California in a couple of weeks. She didn’t like spending Christmas
and New Year’s in Oregon, but this year she decided to make an
exception for a mom she’d never been close to.

The choice was laced with resentment and
bitterness, so she hoped it had been the right thing to do…

Every day was the same for the rest of the
week. Camryn would wake her mom up around ten in the morning,
encourage her to eat some whole wheat toast and drink a cup of
herbal tea, and then listen to her sob and tell stories about Lyle
for an hour. When Serena would cry herself to sleep again, Camryn
would do her best to take care of some housework, sticking with
basics like sweeping all the hardwood floors, washing the few
dishes that got dirtied, and an occasional basket of laundry.

Most of it was needless busy work to help
pass the time.

The afternoon was similar. Serena would wake
up, watch a little bit of TV with sporadic bouts of crying, eat
something small for lunch, and then feel sleepy enough to go back
to bed. This was when Camryn would throw on her running clothes and
leave as fast as she could. Her mom knew that four o’clock meant
she was out of the house.

She left the house on Friday for her regular
run, especially grateful for the chance to leave that day. Her
mom’s breakdowns had been intense from the second she woke up, and
Camryn couldn’t wait to get away. She broke into a run the second
she hit pavement, weaving through the streets until she hit the
beachfront street of Anchor Avenue. Once there, she hung a right to
the public beach access.

“Well hello, bitch,” she greeted the nine
flights of stairs that zigzagged all the way down to the beach.
When she hit sand, she took off again, digging her shoes into the
softness to give her the push she needed until she hit firmer
ground.

Then it was a piece of cake.

But after a few minutes, she noticed that
the tide looked like it was coming in. Depending on how quick it
changed she’d either have to shorten her run, or just run
harder.

Camryn chose the latter. Being a slacker
wasn’t in her repertoire.

But on the way back, she noticed that same
guy sitting on the bottom step of a long set of private stairs. It
was the third time she noticed him in the three days she’d been at
Olivia Beach, and he always appeared on her way back—
after
she passed that particular house the first time.

This time she was already willing to slow
her run down a little. She’d pushed herself pretty hard to beat the
tide and her lungs were burning, right along with her legs. She
knew she was slowing before she saw him, but picking up her speed
just to get past him wasn’t an option. She was dragging ass for
real and she knew it.

He was puffing on a cigarette, like he was
every time she saw him. She only glanced at him from the corner of
her eye, noting that he was watching her every second she passed
by. He seemed fairly tall, even in a sitting position. He had broad
shoulders and dark hair that was short on the sides but stood in
messy peaks at the top. He was in a gray henley and a pair of jeans
with holes in the knees. His feet were bare on the sand and Camryn
thought that to be odd. It was freaking winter on the Oregon Coast,
and had she not been running, she’d be freezing her ass off.

Speaking of asses… Once she couldn’t see the
guy anymore, she had the undeniable feeling that he was staring at
hers
. This made her self-conscious, just like the other
times she’d assumed the same thing. But no way was she going to
glance back to find out.

When she honestly couldn’t run anymore,
Camryn slowed until she was eventually walking. The tide was in
even further but she didn’t care. Between getting a little wet and
dropping dead, she’d choose wet shoes. There was nothing left of
her lungs anymore.

A large chunk of driftwood supported her
weight as she leaned against it, trying to take steady breaths to
manage the fire in her chest and throat. The air was cold and she
would keep running as long as she had to be in this town, but she
didn’t think the Northwest was something she was going to get used
to anytime soon.

Camryn happened to glance down the beach to
her right. That guy was now standing up, propped against the stair
post, watching her!

“What a stalker,” she muttered, even though
his bold yet casual presence intrigued her. Her body faced the
ocean again, but not so she couldn’t see him where he was fifty
yards away. He was still standing there, smoking a cigarette.

“Gross,” she scowled, trying to convince
herself of a reason to loathe him. She was torn between flipping
him off and just staring right back at him to see what he’d do, but
eventually she took off in another run to head back to her
mom’s.

***

Teague climbed the steps to his house,
continuing to glance down the beach after her. She’d seen him this
time and did something she hadn’t done before. She stopped running.
What did that mean? She was definitely interested. He was
positive.

As he marched up the last few steps, Jay
came bursting through the back door. “There you are! Where the fuck
you been?”

“Where does it look like I’ve been?” Teague
replied dryly. When he reached the deck furniture, he propped his
cigarette on the ashtray and dropped down into a chair.

“It’s cold as a fucking freezer outside. Why
do you sit out here like this?” Jay plopped into a chair anyways.
He pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt to cover his arms and
flipped the hood over his short black hair.

“It feels nice,” Teague shrugged.

Jay eyed him suspiciously. “You
never
go down on the beach. What’s the occasion?”

“A girl,” he answered with a crooked
smile.

Jay lifted a pierced eyebrow. “Yeah? What
kind of girl?”

“A hot one. Nice ass, nice body—”

“Nice tits?”

“Don’t be crude.”

Jay laughed, his head tipping back at the
same time. “Crude. You’re such a fucker. You talk about asses all
the time.”

“Not the same thing.”

“Tits are in the same category, bro.”

“Not even close. ‘Ass’ is in the Bible.”

Jay laughed out loud again. “Yeah, in the
form of an animal.”

Teague smiled with a shrug. “Whatever. I
feel okay talking about a girl’s ass but not her chest, okay?”

His cousin rolled his eyes dramatically.
“You’ve always been the weirdo in the family, so whatever.”

“Noted,” Teague smiled. “So you get the bike
fixed?”

“Nah, man. I’ll do it tomorrow. Wanna help?”
Jay didn’t get an eager answer out of Teague so he asked, “You have
the day off, right?”

“Yeah, I do. Sure, I’ll help. What’s the
matter, no father figure in your life?”

It was a longstanding joke between them and
Jay smiled. He pointed to himself and said, “Self-taught in almost
everything I do. I’m a fucking genius.”

“Join the club.”

“I know it. We come from the same shitload
of siblings. There should be a McCallan family reunion with plenty
of shrinks on standby.”

“Probably a little late for that.”

“True.”

They were both quiet for a minute until Jay
asked, “So tell me about the girl.” He shivered and rubbed his arms
with his hands. Teague knew Jay was willing to risk frostbite to
finally hear him converse about a chick. Progress was progress.

“Didn’t talk to her,” Teague shrugged.
“Thought about it, but didn’t. She runs by here every so often,
around the same time.”

“So you wait for her?” Jay snorted. “She
sees you doing that shit she’s gonna call the cops.”

Teague was amused. “Maybe they’ll drop by
soon. She saw me today.”