“Heath!” Lauren chides as they dance up to us. “That was rude.”
Heath leans in when they get close enough and he stares straight at me with a conspiratorial smirk. “Nothing to worry about, huh?” and then they dance away, Lauren still berating him. He doesn’t seem to care that she’s not happy with him, nor does he seem to care that calling me out has embarrassed Kiersten and I both.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I look at the floor, not sure what to say besides, “I’m sorry. I almost crossed a line.”
When I finally glance up, I can see the hurt in Kiersten’s eyes. Even with a smile affixed to her face, I know I’ve upset her.
“It’s my fault,” she says. “I got a little carried away with my gratitude, I guess.”
We both know that’s a lie, but if it helps smooth over this awkward moment, I won’t call her out.
“Of course.” I nod my head and my lips try to quirk up. They fail miserably. “We both just…” A sigh comes from deep within me because there’s nothing left to say. “Yeah.”
We stare at each other awkwardly, not quite sure of the best way to proceed. Finally, Frankie breaks the discomfort for us.
Reaching out his hand, he bows low and with a lot of exaggeration. “May I have this dance, milady?”
Kiersten’s normal smile is back, the one that makes the customers light up and has me practically melting into a damn puddle. “I thought you’d never ask,” she says dramatically with her hand over her heart, batting her eyelashes.
As I quickly leave the dance floor, so I don’t get run over by the not-so-great dancers, I accidentally catch Tammy’s eye. She winks at me.
That is exactly why I’ve tried to stay away from Kiersten. I only have one other employee at this point and the last thing we need is her either trying to play matchmaker or sticking her nose in the middle of a non-existent relationship.
Well shit.
SIXTEEN
Kiersten
“Paw Patwo! Paw Patwo! Wheneva yaw in twouba!” Carson sings from in front of the television. Actually, singing isn’t the right word. Screaming is more like it. The walls in this place are thin so I have no idea how Nicole is sleeping through it. Carson must have run her ragged yesterday, which is saying a lot since I was the one doing the heavy lifting. Yet I was still the first one up this morning.
Then again, it wasn’t like my thoughts would shut off overnight. I was too busy thinking about Paul and the stolen touches while we were painting. The laughter as we worked. The easy banter we fall into every time we’re together.
And that almost kiss that had me wishing we could be more. But we can’t be. Paul made it very clear that as the boss, he won’t cross that line. And I have boundaries of my own—if someone doesn’t want to put forth the effort to be with me and only me, it’s not a relationship I’ll pursue.
Instead, I’ll just pine over him as I make breakfast, I suppose. The part-singing-part-yelling has stopped so I glance up from the skillet where I’m making my son’s favorite chocolate chip pancakes. He’s now standing stock-still in front of the boob tube, mouth wide open, as he watches his favorite rescue workers learn how to share or something equally as preschool.
I laugh at how cute he is. If someone had told me five years ago that the love of my life would come in a pint-sized package that sleeps with this foot in my face and loves picking up garbage, well, I wouldn’t have believed them. But there he is in all his footie pajama glory.
Still, it would be nice to be loved by a grown man, too, not just a little one.
And just like that my thoughts go right back to Paul, no matter how hard I try to push him out of my mind. But he’s nice. And stable. And honorable. He’s also really easy on the eyes. Even better, I hear how he talks to his customers and he treats his employees with such genuine respect and care. Even when it’s his “off day,” which means catching up on paperwork in the back, he doesn’t want to hang out in his office. He wants to be behind the bar, serving people. Making them happy. I recognize how rare those qualities are and they make him all the more attractive to me. No matter how hard I pretend they don’t.
Flipping the pancake over one more time to make sure it’s fully cooked, I see Nicole come out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.
“Good morning.” Her voice is groggy with sleep and I point to the old school coffee maker which has a fresh pot already made.
We’re silent with the exception of the sounds of cartoons until she has a few sips of her first cup of joe. Nicole has never been a morning person. Neither have I, but my body clock is irrelevant these days.
She sits at the small table in silence until she’s finally awake enough to hold a conversation. “Why are you only making one pancake at a time?”
Flipping it onto the growing stack, I pour batter into the skillet again before grabbing Carson’s plate and cutting up his breakfast into bite sized chunks.
“Because I don’t have a griddle. The skillet works fine, it just takes longer.”
She grunts her response, taking another sip. “Why are you up early?”
“Unlike us, Carson is a morning person. He got me up bright and early.”
Another grunt. “I don’t believe you.”
I look up at her, confused.
“I’ve known you my whole life, Kiersten. I can tell when something kept you up most of the night. And I suspect it has nothing to do with my nephew.”
I gape at her and how much more astute she is than I gave her credit for.
“That’s what I thought.” She leans back on her chair, keeping a tight grip on her mug.
“For someone who is just waking up, you are awfully chatty this morning.”
“No deflecting. What gives, Kiersten?”
I sigh and pour some syrup on the pancakes, walking the plate to the table before heading back to the stove. “I … sort of had a moment with my boss yesterday. I just can’t get it off my mind.”
“Explain what you mean by a moment.”
I flip the pancake and bite my lip. It’s one thing to be thinking about what happened. It’s another to tell someone about it. As if verbalizing the moment makes it more real.
“Kiersten…”
I flip the stove off, dumping the final pancake onto the stack. “We almost kissed.”
Her eyes go wide and she starts to choke on her coffee. Maybe I should have waited until she was done swallowing before blurting that part out.
Nicole pats her chest and coughs for a few more seconds before squeaking out, “Almost?”
I begin dishing out food, mostly to keep my hands busy while I tell her everything that has happened up until this point—the easy conversation at the barbecue, the smiles when no one is looking, the kiss that almost was until Heath interrupted. Nicole sits in rapt attention as I finally get all the details off my chest for the first time.
“Kiersten,” she finally says when I’m done. “You’re in love with him.”
“What? I am not.” Turning to the living room I yell for my son. “Carson, baby, breakfast. We have pancakes.”
He comes shrieking into the room, chattering about some puppy that got stuck in a tree as he climbs onto his chair. I’m grateful for the reprieve but it only lasts a few seconds before he shoves so much food in his mouth he can’t talk anymore.