I Kissed The Boy Next Door (9 page)

“What are we doing?” she asked.

The early evening sky had turned a thous
and shades of pink, each coating every available space of earth and atmosphere, eventually melting into the placid waters of the lake. The distant lights of the city made round globes of light in the air, like stars hung out of place.

“Dancing,” he said. He took her hands and raised them in his on either side. Swaying to the beat, he swung her in a circle.
Her hair flew out behind her, rumpled from the day’s swim.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” she said.

He smiled and turned her in a loop. “You can’t know everything about me in only four days.”

“But …”

“Texas,” he said. “It’s one of the few things I learned in Texas.”

He placed a hand in the small of her back
and tucked her head beneath his neck.

“Where in Texas?” she
asked, her breath blowing warm on his skin.

“San Antonio.”

“Is … is that where your mom stayed behind?”

He
nodded, suddenly unable to speak for the feel of her against him.

“I … was thinking,” she said. “You know, about what I said of love, how you can’
t control the heart. Your mom and dad must have fallen in love in the first place, when they met, I mean.”

He
inhaled the scent of her hair: chlorine, and a faint scene of fruit-scented shampoo. “They did. She was twenty-three, and he was twenty-eight. She thought the world of him.”

Strange, but it hurt less talking to Lucy about them.

“And so they got married and had you and your sister. But what if … what if once you are in love you still have to foster it?”

“Foster it?”
he asked.

She sighed, and the warmth of her breath blew
up his neck.

“Yeah, like keep it alive. My dad used to take my mom out to dinner, buy her flowers. Stuff like that. But he
also said silly things to her, and he kissed her when he thought we weren’t watching. If your parents didn’t do that, then maybe that’s why she did what she did. Maybe he didn’t feed her heart.”

Jackson stilled and moved her to arm’s length. Was that what happened? Did his dad not give his mother what she needed to love him?

They’d argued. More the last couple years. His dad would say they had nothing in common. Snapping at her. And he’d stay at work late, leaving her to take them places, to school functions and such.

It
had been more her idea for him to go to camp than his, and they’d sent his sister to Grandma. Why?
Time together.
The thought shot down his spine. His mom wanted time for her and his dad to be together. Were there problems even then? Was the move to Texas supposed to be the ultimate fix?

“What are you thinking?” Lucy asked.

He brought her back toward his face and nudged her chin upward with his hand. “I’m thinking I’m the luckiest guy in the whole world to have you.”

The sunset washed
fuschia, lavender, and violet. He lowered his head toward her mouth.

“You almost kissed me yesterday,” she said.

He smiled. “Yes.” And he would have if not for Travis.

The tip of her tongue slipped over her lips.
“Are you almost kissing me again?”

Almost kissing.
Will be kissing. Had to kiss.

“Do you want me to kiss you?
” he asked. “I’m only the boy next door.”

Her lips beckoned him, plump and
entreating. He moved still closer.

“I’ve kissed the boy next door before,” she said.

“True.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “But not like this.”

And capturing her mouth, he plunged heart first into a swirling sphere of flavor and sensation, fueling a longing to
o big to restrain.

CHAPTER 13

I handed Jackson his breakfast plate, and Travis
just
had
to speak. He’d been staring at the both of us the entire morning, and justifiably so because I kept looking at Jackson thinking about how he kissed me.

And that’s exactly what Travis brought up.
“He kissed you. Didn’t he?”

“Tray, honestly, that’s person
al. Don’t you think?”

That only made him affirm
it. “He did!” he said, and he looked at Jackson. “You did.”

Jackson shoved a bite of food in his mouth and chewed really slow.

“You kissed my sister.”

I placed a hand on my hip. “Well, what if he did? I’m not allowed to be kissed? We
are
dating.”

“Some strange boy moves in next door, and next thing you know you’re kissing him.”

“He’s not strange. He’s Jackson, and I’ve known him a long time. Besides, I kissed him the first day, and you were there.”

I spun around on my heel and stomped to the s
ink. I turned the water on to drown out his voice, but he spoke louder.

“That was different. That was you kissing him on one of your dares.
Him kissing you had meaning.”

I revolved in place. “How would you know? You’ve never been serious about anyone.”

Travis frowned, giving me his I’m-your-older-brother look.

I whirled back around. I didn’t need lectures from some twenty-two year old
redneck wannabe.

“So how serious are you?” Travis asked.

That he was looking at Jackson when he said it, I didn’t need to turn around to see.

“Serious enough.”

I stuck my hands deep in the soapy water. Travis would have to get it out of his system. He got like that sometime. He’d have something in his noggin and he couldn’t shake it loose until he’d examined it from all angles.

“You know if you hurt her I’ll kill you.”

I blew out a loud breath, letting him know I was still listening.

“Why would I hurt her if I love her?”

My chest compressed, and it was like no air could get in or out. I gulped once, twice, and gripped the sides of the sink.

“Sis?
You all right?”

No, I wasn’t all right. I was hyperventilating because Jackson Phillips said he loved me right there with me in the room. I sank to my knees on the cold tile.

Jackson and Travis both rushed to my side, but Jackson won, lifting me up.

It was a number of minutes before feeling came back in my limbs and my breath returned to normal. By that time, I was seated in Jackson’s lap with my head on his neck.

I pulled myself upright and focused on his face. “Did you … did you say what I heard you say or was I imagining it?”

He was grinning. “What did you hear me say?”

“Well, it sounded like ‘I love her’ to me.”

He shifted me in his lap. “Yes, I believe I did say that.”

“Did you … did you mean it? I mean, you wanted to kiss me, and I wanted you to kiss me. And so you did. And I enjoyed it. But was it … was it … because …”

“Because I love you?”

“Uh huh.”

He ran his fingers up and down my arm, something that made me all tingly. “Let’s see. You said, ‘I look at him and my heart turns to mush.’ That sounds like love to me.”

“I think I’m turning to mush,” Travis said.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You’re just jealous.”

“Of you? Hardly. I don’t want to kiss Jackson.”

This made Jackson laugh and before too long, I was laughing too. What a stupid thing for my brother to say. He excused himself from the table. “I think I’ll go catch up on some emails and bypass all this mushy stuff, then you two can get on with your kissing and declarations of love.”

Travis left the room, and I turned around in Jackson’s lap. I was facing him then with my back to the counter.

“So … is that what you said?”

He wasn’t getting out of this. I’d heard him say it to Tray. The least he could do was repeat it to me. He had this sparkle in his eye, which told me a bunch.

He cleared his throat. “Okay. I’ll say it, but then you have to say it too.”

Well, saying it for me was easy because I’d been in love with him since summer camp three years ago, so I nodded. “I’ll go first,” I said.

I rubbed my throat as if I needed to get worked up for it, and open
ed and closed my mouth. He was smirking now.

“I, Lucy McKinsey, am in love with my neighbor, Jackson Phillips.”

He chuckled, wagging his head back and forth. “You crack me up,” he said.

“Well, you
are
my neighbor, and I
am
in love with you. Okay, so now your turn.”

He squirmed in his seat and pulled at his collar, funning with me about it being hard to say. Then he took a swig of water.

But when he went to speak, he leaned over and grasping the back of my head, tilted my neck way back. He then kissed me right on the throat.

Heavens.
That was almost as good as being kissed on the mouth.

And he raised himself up even with my eyes. “I love you, Lucy McKinsey. Will you marry me?”

My eyes bugged out, and I gasped for air. Then I saw he was laughing again. I pounded him in the arm. “That’s not funny, and I believed you for a second. You shouldn’t tease a girl like that. We plan these things our entire lives. Why I pictured my wedding when I was five.”

“Five? Who were you going to marry at age five?” he asked.

“Billy Felton.” I stated this absolutely because I could remember it plain as day. Billy Felton and I were going to move into the garage together. Of course, in my five-year-old brain, my mother was still there; she was just in the place of his.

“And who was this lucky Billy Felton who you were going to marry at age five?”

I flicked my hair behind my neck. “You ought to know.”

This made him look at me funny, his mouth half smiling. “I’ve never heard of Billy Felton,” he said.

“No, probably not, but like you, he was the boy next door.”

And Jackson lost it.

***

“San Antonio,” I said. “She’s in San Antonio.”

Tray typed it into a search engine and scrolled through the results. “No. No. Not that one.” He was talking to himself like he did when he was thinking. “Here, maybe this.” He clicked on a link and the picture of a hospital flashed onto the screen. “You’ll have to call to see if it’s the one.”

I knew that, and I’d been practicing what to say. My best bet, I figured was to be related. I wanted to say I was
Jackson’s sister, but that seemed wrong.

Tray wrote the hospital’s number on a sticky note. “If that’s not the one, you’ll have to try another.” He handed me the note. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I was sure. Jackson wanted to know the truth; he deserved to know the truth, and I was the only one able to find out what that was.

“Don’t dissolve,” I said as I left the room. I went into the living room, thinking if Jackson saw me enter my bedroom, he’d call or text, and
dialed the number.

I was put through an operator
to a desk clerk. “Maternity,” I said. There was this very peaceful, sleepy on-hold music playing in my ear until a voice answered the phone.

“Hello,” I said, “
I’m looking for my older sister. She had a baby, a little boy. Her last name is Phillips.”

I didn’t know her first name to include it and saying “Missus”
would clue them in to my deception.

“Phillips … yes, that’s what I said. You … you don’t have anyone with the last name Phillips? Well, let me ask you, she might have been released recent. We don’t talk much, you know how that is, with distance and stuff.”

There was some clicking and clacking on the other end. The voice returned saying, “No, no one by that last name.”

“Well, let me ask it this way. She was Caucasian, middle-aged, but her baby was black.”

Nothing.
Discouraged, I hung up and went back into Tray’s room.

“
Failure. Or they’re not telling me.”

“Well, did you think they would?” he said. He called up the screen. “Maybe you’re going about this all wrong. Maybe you should look for his mother.”

“But what if she’s not going by her married name now? And San Antonio is a big city. There’s probably lots of Phillips.”

He flipped over on his bed. “You’re simply going to have to have more information.”

More information. Information I couldn’t ask for. I mean, maybe I could find out his mother’s first name, but I could never ask her maiden name or what hospital the baby was at.

Then an idea lit in my head. It was crazy stupid. It was like the biggest dare ever, one of those that will get you in a load of trouble if you do it. Thinking about it my heart began to race and my fingers sweat.