Never Been Kissed (34 page)

“I am,” Simone said and then did a very cool double take. “Are you who I think you are?”

“Harrison Montgomery,” Harrison said. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Simone pulled another stool toward her. “Have a drink, Harrison. I saw your speech at the Democratic National Convention. You have a lot of interesting ideas about schools.”

It was as if Simone opened the dam and people flooded in after her. The room filled quickly. Brody couldn’t be sure if it was the promise of free food and drink or curiosity about the expanded bar or even just the community coming out for a party, but it didn’t seem to matter.

There were a lot of smiles. A lot of laughter. The crowd spilled into the garage, where Sean and Brody had set up extra chairs and tables. Jim’s wife, Missy, and her sister did some table service, getting drinks.

Brody worked the keg and answered questions.

“Where’s the food?” Bill Turner asked, having been ousted from his usual seat at the bar by Simone. Who was deeply immune to his sideways glares.

“Sean’s putting his finishing touches on it.”

“Poison, you mean.”

Brody shook his head. “Cora’s supervising. I think it’s going to be good.”

Ashley poked her head in the front door, her eyes bright, her hair a wild beautiful mess of curls down her back.

Christ, she’s pretty.
She was more than pretty. Captivating, that’s what she was. Each look at her invited another look, revealed another facet of her beauty, another piece of her untarnished spirit.

There were times, looking at her, Brody was aware of how dirty his hands were. Figuratively and in reality. She’d be wiser to find someone else. Harrison didn’t have to tell him that, he knew it better than anyone.

But she loved him, and he was done pushing that away. He was done pretending that he didn’t want her in his life so badly he was sick with it.

“Can you give me a hand?” she asked.

He stepped out the door to help her unload a minivan full of Ed’s friends.

They were all so grateful, their smiles wide. The women
had put on jewelry and bright lipstick. All of them walked with a special bounce in their step.

A bunch of people who hadn’t been to a party in a long time, going to a party.

There was plenty to smile at.

Mostly he just stood there to give them a hand, to pull the folded-up walkers and a few odd canes from the back. They all got inside without a broken hip and Ashley blew out a long breath.

“How is it going in there?” she asked.

“Good. Full.”

“Harrison here?”

“Simone has him cornered.”

Her eyes opened wide as she laughed.

“Poor guy. What about the food?”

“Not out yet.”

She nodded and then turned to press a big fat kiss on his cheek. Her happiness was like champagne bubbles, sweet and plentiful, catching light and turning to gold.

“It worked, huh?” he asked, stroking her arms.

“Like a charm. Sign up at Cora’s or call the parks and rec department. I got seven people in the van and it took me about twenty-five minutes to grab them all. It worked!”

The kiss on the cheek wasn’t enough. She deserved more. She deserved everything, so he wrapped his arms around her, nice and tight.

It’s like you’re an envelope,
she’d said the other day when he’d hugged her like this.

“You did good, honey,” he told her. “You’re building something really important here.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Her voice was muffled by his chest, but he still heard her.

“That’s not true—”

She pulled back, her brow furrowed. “Stop. Stop right there. For weeks your brother and I have been leaning
on you hard. None of this would have happened without you and I think you should take some credit for it.”

“Ash—”

“Don’t shake your head at me, Brody. Don’t you dare minimize what you’ve done. None of this would have happened without you. You are as much a part of my senior shuttle project and Sean’s menu reveal as we are.”

He knew it. Of course he did. Mom had said a long time ago that there were people who were flowers and there were people who were watering cans. Sean was a flower. Ashley was a flower.

It was a privilege to help them.

It was a privilege to be in their lives.

“I’ll be here,” he said, her hair against his lips like little live wires.

“What?”

“When you come back from Atlanta.” As the words came out, her face became brighter. Her eyes wider and, he could see it, her heart bigger. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Are you honestly just going to sit there?” Sean asked. He was sweating. He was sweating like the pig before it was shot, cut up, and made into the ribs he was slicing on the giant table they’d moved to the alley behind the bar.

“I am.” Cora sat on the metal staircase leading up to the apartment. She was relaxed, her legs crossed, a glass of white wine dangling from her fingertips.

Sean was losing his mind. “I could use your help,” he snapped. He piled the ribs onto the big metal tray that was going to be put on the buffet in the garage.

He had the coleslaw, ribs, and cornbread ready to go. Bottles of his sauce were waiting. Stacks of napkins a
mile high sat on the long planks of wood over sawhorses he’d set up.

Now he just had to slice the brisket.

But while he sliced, the ribs would get cold. The cornbread already was.

“Should I put the cornbread on the grill to heat up?”

“You could.”

“Jesus, Cora! Tell me what to do!” He threw his hands up in the air and barbecue sauce splattered into his eye. Swearing, he grabbed one of the seven thousand towels he had lying around and tried to get it out.

“Look at yourself, Sean,” she said, watching him through the railings. “Look at what you’ve done. You don’t need my help—”

“You’re insane. I don’t know how to work this grill. Half the meat is overcooked—”

“It’s still delicious, and you’ll learn. No one in there expects competition-quality food.”

“No, they expect me to poison them.”

“And you won’t do that, so you’re ahead of expectations.”

“Is that why you won’t help?” he asked, sounding like a whiny, petulant kid even to his own ears. “Because you know it sucks?”

“No, baby,” she said and his whole body reacted to the endearment.
I will be your baby,
he wanted to say.
I want to be your sweetheart and lover. I want to be those things and more.

He was freaking out. Really. Losing it altogether.

“I’m not helping you because this is your party. Your menu.”

“You’re just abandoning me in my hour of need?” He was cutting the brisket too thick, there would never be enough for the mob inside the building. Good God, what made him think free beer was a good idea? What made him think any of this was a good idea?

I just wanted to have a place where people would come to celebrate. Have a good time and some drinks. Maybe play cards once in a while.

“This is your hour of triumph,” she said. “You’ve done it. You.”

“And you and my brother and Ashley—”

“You, Sean. You. We helped, as friends do, as people invested in your success do. But you did this. I think you’ve got yourself tied up into a knot over Brody, convinced yourself that you need him so badly, you can’t see what you’ve done. You’re not blind, Sean, and I know you’ve got a healthy ego in there. Look. Look at what you’ve done. It’s amazing.”

She took a sip of Chardonnay, her eyes saying
You know I’m right
over her glass.

And she was. She was right. And she was smart and cool and amazing and talented and brave. She’d made every single first step in the last few weeks.

It was time for him to deserve her.

Quickly, he put the cornbread on the grill, away from the smoldering coals so that it could warm up a bit but not burn. He sliced the rest of the brisket, poured some more of his barbecue sauce over it, and then he wiped his hands and walked around the table to the bottom of the steps.

She leaned back, bracing her elbows on the stairs. The sexiest thing he’d ever seen, that’s what she was. And it wasn’t just her body in those clothes, or the feminine knowledge in her eyes, it was the calluses on her hands, the brain in her head. The kink in her spine from being on her feet all day. It was her standards and her drive.

It was the bravery with which she tried, every damn day, to beat her personal best.

It was the way she held his hand and challenged his idea of who he was and right now … a party inside, his future
on the line, he felt compelled to match all of her courage with an act so harebrained, so doomed to failure, but so gut-level right.

“I love you,” he said.

Her wineglass shattered on the asphalt under the stairs.

“I think it happened the day you started making fritters,” he told her astonished face. “You came out of your kitchen with that basket and you were like a conquering hero. You were so proud of yourself. I didn’t know it then, but I think I’m beginning to figure it out, you must have spent days getting those things just right. You must have burned your hand on the oil a thousand times, and redone that recipe a hundred. You probably worked all night a few nights, but you wouldn’t stop until you got it right.”

“You said Dunkin’ Donuts’ were better.” Oh, that she remembered his casual cruelty, that it bothered her, just killed him. He’d thought her so far above him she’d never feel his lame little arrows.

“And I’m so sorry I tried to diminish your victory. Because they were amazing, Cora, and I was a jealous child.”

“You did eat five.”

“And stole a sixth.”

“That was two years ago, Sean.”

“I never in my wildest dreams imagined you would look at a guy like me.”

“Oh, I looked.” His heart tripped, faltered, fell on its knees with gratitude, but he wouldn’t take obligation or pity or even sexual chemistry as any kind of substitute. He wanted love. Hers. The full bright power of it.

“You don’t have to say that—”

“I know I don’t. Would you like to know when I fell in love with you?”

Oh God, he wasn’t going to survive.

“When I kicked that guy out of your café?”

“No.”

He blinked. “When I drank from your body as if you were a chalice?”

“That was a perk, but not the deciding factor.”

“Then I have no clue.”

“When you put that cornbread on the grill. You don’t need your brother. You don’t need me. You are your own man.”

“I want you,” he said, leaning forward to sip at her lips.

“Likewise,” she said, kissing him back.

“Are you kidding me?” Brody yelled and they turned to see him halfway out the back door. “I’m working my ass off inside and you’re making out?”

“Sorry, Brody.” He gave Cora one last kiss and they both jumped off the stairs. “We’re ready to take the food in.”

“I’m going to sneak inside,” Cora said, giving him a squeeze. “This is your moment.”

“I can’t carry all the food by myself,” he said.

Brody grabbed the big silver tray of coleslaw. “I’ve got your back, Sean. Lead the way.”

With towels, Sean grabbed the cornbread from the grill and then picked up the brisket, balancing one on each hand. Brody followed suit with the beans.

The ribs would be on the second trip.

Sean took a deep breath at the doorway and then stepped into the bar.

“Hey!” Bill called. “That smells good, Sean.”

“Yeah,” Matt, sitting next to him, yelled. “It’s a cruel trick, Bill. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“That’s it, Matt. You don’t get any,” Sean called out.

People made space for him. Cora, beaming, started to clap and it caught on and gathered steam around the
room. Ashley, her brother—who wasn’t all that bad—Simone, they all clapped and cheered.

His brother was at his back, his girl was setting up the buffet table. His dad was the first person in line.

I did it,
he thought. And he’d never been happier.

By the time the place finally cleared out around one
A.M.
, Brody was done. He was done smiling. He was done making small talk. He was done with barbecue sauce.

There was a good chance he would be smelling barbecue sauce for the next week.

Ashley and Harrison took the seniors home in shifts as some of them started to nod off in their seats.

Cora had left hours ago, because she had to be up early to work at the café. Sean had kept the party going, however, until the keg went dry.

“Good party, brother,” Brody said as he stacked chairs so Sean could sweep.

Sean nodded, still beaming. “I need to figure out the grill a little better, and that coleslaw was disgusting, but yeah, I feel pretty good about it.”

“This from the guy who used to love cold hot dogs.”

“You ate beans from the can, so you don’t have a lot of room to talk.”

They stacked more chairs, swept the floors, working side by side in a way that filled Brody to the top with satisfaction.
Why did I deny this for so long?
he wondered.

“Cora’s mom was nice,” he said, just to make conversation.

“Very nice, and her boyfriend seems like a good guy. Cora was worried.”

“You know,” Brody said, feeling so good for his brother, so happy for him, for this life he’d created, “if the bartender and the breakfast café owner are going to live happily every after, they’re going to need to work on their schedules.”

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Sean asked.

There was nothing to do but agree.

Brody’s back pocket buzzed and he fished out his phone. Ashley might be lost taking home the Daniels, who were apparently seventy-year-old party animals.

But it wasn’t a text from Ashley. It was from Clint.

911 CNN.

Brody’s body went cold, his heart slowed to nothing. He stacked the chairs and stepped into the bar. The TV had been shut off in favor of music and Brody pulled the plug on the old juke box and found the remote behind the bar.

Brody had gotten used to having the news on as he worked, so immediately when the screen flickered it was tuned to CNN.