THE KISS (Manhattan Nights #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

DEACON

Deacon’s birthdayNine years old

They say loving someone—truly loving someone—means losing a part of yourself.

If that’s the case… I was lost the second I laid eyes on her.

Everything about her painted a picture my memories refused to forget.

Those long brown curls. Blue eyes the color of a Bahamian sea.

Those eyes were wide right at that moment I noticed her—glassy as they glanced slowly over the length of my childhood living room, and I think back to how even at nine, I could tell—just knew with every inch of my bony body—that Kayla Rachel Jackson would be my undoing, the loss of everything I had ever known.

I guess that’s why I just stood there, perched on the edge of that tattered sofa, listening to the soft whimper of several neighbors’ tears, sweating bullets as I stared at her pretty face.

That face was the only thing I could focus on that day—the only part of that blue, thinly-carpeted living room floor that kept my birdlike chest from caving in.

From collapsing around the big gaping hole that bore itself through my lungs every time I took a breath. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time I remembered…that she was gone.

I only had to be here one more hour. Just sixty more minutes.

Only one more hour left of pretending not to care on my grandmother’s flower-patterned couch.

But the black suit Grandmama borrowed from the store was stifling, the wool hot to the touch. The clip-on tie was too tight, and the white collar scorched beneath the cotton, the window-seated air units doing nothing to cool down these ugly green walls slick with sweat.

I missed my Superman shirt. I wish I could have worn it.

Grandmama told me that nobody wears Superman t-shirts to funerals. But then again, this was the first funeral I’d ever been to.

I silently promised myself that it would be the last.

I blew out a breath, chest burning, just as the blue-eyed girl’s gaze met mine again. I planted my feet to run away from its clear, glistening stare, but the sound of my neighbor Mr. Decker’s voice stopped me, reminding me why I was here. Reminding me just why I couldn’t leave.

I listened to him take his usual sip of scotch, words slurred as always. He sighed, his voice as granular as gravel as he spoke.

“Jesus H. Christ. It’s hot out her’,” he huffed, his Kansas accent thicker than oatmeal. “Hottest damned day on record.” He took another sip of his liquor, his sentences drawing as he spoke to another neighbor, the liquor in his glass sloshing. I heard it hit the cheapened floor.

“Makes sense…” I heard him whisper…or at least attempt to. His voice was clear as a bell as he hissed, “Samuel always said that woman was the gah’damned devil. Wha’ kinda mother leaves her own husband and boy to run off after some strange man?”

“Shhhh,” the joining neighbor hushed Mr. Decker. To no avail. “Might want to keep it down, Allen…”

“Why?” He responded. The liquor slipped some more. Slosh. Slosh. “Everybody in here knows that Barbara left both Samuel and his boy Deke once she married money. Took straight off to New Yahrk. Heard she even had another kid with that new guy, Stan.” Mr. Decker grunted. “Hell, the only thing saving this damned funeral is the pie. Grandmama Cross sure know how t’make an apple strudel better than a summabitch.”

He laughed out loud at his own joke, his chuckle thicker than his waist was, the sound squeezing what little breath was left in my undernourished body.

I saw red. Or maybe that was just the color of the room. Hotter than hell. Filled with the August Kansas sun and the silent hate of noisy neighbors who didn’t give two shits that it was my ninth birthday…and my mother was dead.

The hole in my chest dug even further. And still I stayed quiet.

“At least Barbara’s friends aren’t bad to look at.” Allen Decker laughed, a slur to his words as he elbowed the man beside him. “Every last…both of them. Not even Sam actually showed up to his own ex-wife’s freakin’ funeral.”

The new neighbor tsked, sucking his teeth. “Old fella wasn’t much for funerals, I’m guessing?”

“Or family, for that matter. Barely hangs around enough to see his own boy these days, so I heard it. Always taking off in that old Corvette of his. Who knows when he’ll be back this time?”

The last sentence was like the last anvil on my chest, sinking even further. The gape in the center of my heart hit max density, and I struggled to inhale, the sunlight before my eyes starting to blur as my consciousness faded in and out, the black hole in my head threatening to suck me down with it.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

I squeezed my eyelids tight, counting down the seconds until the hour is up, each one slower than the last. But it didn’t help.

I shot to my feet, nearly knocking my grandmama’s couch over, hearing the tiny legs against the carpet scratch. The small crowd in the living room looked over.

I avoided every single eye swinging towards me. Especially the blue ones coming from the corner.

Ripping the dark clip-on tie from my neck, I placed one foot in front of the other until I hit the first spit of asphalt outside, listening to the front screen door slam as I swung the partition behind me.

The garden outside my grandmama’s house was thick with weeds as I stared, the ground swimming beneath my feet. Didn’t matter. On shaky legs, I hopped through it, my feet slapping against the concrete as I reached the street, tears streaming.

The hollow in my heart filled with the tears I promised I wouldn’t shed, but I let them flow anyway, feeling myself drown. I paused for a breath, pulse pounding in the middle of the tumbleweeded street, head hurting.

At least my feet still worked. That much, I knew.

I picked up my foot again, grateful to at least have those, when I felt something cool wrap itself around my wrist. Something strange. Something unexpected.

Glancing down, I found a hand on mine, the skin cool to the touch—almost cold.

The blue-eyed girl from the living room had clasped a hand around my skinny arm, squeezing lightly.

And I remember doing nothing—feeling nothing, saying nothing—my feet on temporary pause, my head muddled as I stared at this strange girl.

This wide-eyed girl. A girl with pretty clothes on. With shoes too nice to know anything about holes.

Big, gaping, heart-eating holes like mine.

But I let her touch me. Let her tiny fingers drop my wrist back to my side. Let her lick her lips before speaking, her words slow, her little sighs even slower as she clashed her stare with mine, her small shoulders straightened as she held her head high and said, “Heard it was your birthday.”

I shocked myself by nodding. She blinked.

“It’s my birthday, too. Just wanted to tell you ‘Happy Birthday’ before you left.”

And, to my surprise, she pecked me, pressed her lips to mine for the briefest of seconds.

A kiss.

And that cave inside my chest, the one filled with tears…

Well, in that moment, it shrunk just a little bit, stopped growing the second she blinked those aqua blue eyes in front of me, exhaled a bit…and smiled.

I couldn’t swear to it…but I may have smiled back.