First Real Kiss

Chapter 7

Sheridan

“Like I said, our Jackson is single again.” Mrs. Matheson waggled her eyebrows at me, and I pulled a tight smile in return.

I had zero interest in her four-times-divorced nephew. “It’s like a cycle for him, isn’t it? I think I might have a life-coaching friend who could help him break that. What’s his number? I’ll pass it along.”

Suddenly Mrs. Matheson, her eye-gleam, and waggling brows discovered something very interesting over at the wet bar.

Where were Mom and Dad? I carried my half-empty flute of ginger ale through the maze of hallways of their Craftsman-style house, past the baby pictures of me, the family vacation photos to Catalina Island, the wedding photo of Case and me in the backyard.

What if Case were here tonight instead of wherever he is now?

“Case would have hated this party.” Dad walked up and stood next to me, as if he’d been reading my thoughts. “He would have insisted on celebrating outside, right on the ridge in the yard.”

The ridge where you could see the ocean. “He did always like a view.” It had been his undoing. View junkies. I shuddered. “If Case and I had made it to forty years together, he would have insisted we skydive to celebrate it.”

“Fitting.” Dad squeezed my shoulders.

Mom walked up beside him, and she reached around him and patted my back. “You’re missing him.”

I wasn’t. I hadn’t been, anyway. “This would have been almost our tenth. We were thirty years behind you, minus a month or so.”

“And you might have had four kids by now, like your friend Jane.” Mom sounded wistful.

My abdomen clenched. “Speaking of Jane, has she arrived yet?”

“Just now.” She perked up. “That’s why I came to find you.” Mom’s voice trilled. “And she brought someone who looks very special.”

“Is it Huey, Dewey, or Louie?” When she looked confused, I simplified the names for Mom, who could never keep Jane’s kids’ names straight. “Small, medium, or large?”

“Oh, he’s large, all right. Like six-foot-three, a tall glass of sun-kissed wow. She said he was for you.”

Oh, please say she hadn’t done it. My shoulders slumped. “I told her no. No setups.” Not with her colleagues from the firm, not with anyone.

“But this one, Sher. I think he’s at least worth checking out.” Mom bit her lower lip. “You’ve been alone for eight years, sweetie.”

“Not alone. I’ve had the two of you.”

They hugged me, and I relented and headed into the living room to meet Mr. Tall Lawyerpants, only because it would be rude to run screaming out the back door crying, Save me, save me!

It didn’t take long to spot him. His head and shoulders protruded above everyone else’s in the front room, like he was an elementary school teacher in a classroom, and all the other guests were the students, age six. Mom should’ve said seven-foot-three.

I shot Jane my best die now look, and then I plastered on a smile and extended a hand to meet Goliath-with-Surfer-Hair.

“Hi. I’m Dusty Dawsonside.” Surfer name, check. He grinned, and his teeth were as white as bleached shells on the sand. He even sported a surfer accent, dude. “Like, Jane has told me all about you. And she did not exaggerate.”

The crust from my look at Jane could have surrounded ten extra-large pizzas. “I’m at a disadvantage then,” I said to Dusty Dawsonside, who could’ve starred in Dawson’s Creek, or one of those teen soaps, he was that good-looking, but not in a real-human kind of way. “You’ll have to catch me up.”

“Totally glad to do that. I’m great at talking about myself.” He took my arm and steered me toward the buffet table. “Just kidding. I want to know about you. Hey, is that seafood? I’m way into shrimp lately. I’m on a food jag of shrimp.”

I shot a glance from Jane over my shoulder. She beamed like I was her own child going on a first date to the prom. I may or may not have drawn a line across my throat with an index finger and then pointed at her.

“Oh, shucky-darn.” I saw my escape! “All the shrimp is gone. I’ll have to go tell the caterer to refill the platter.”

“Nah, that’s okay. I can make do with the other crudités.” He loaded his plate with cheese and crackers, a pile of caprése salad, and took one of the two-prong forks from the pile. “Isn’t it great how well we’re hitting it off already?” He stuffed his mouth with a fresh-mozzarella ball and winked at me.

Winked.