Forgotten First Kiss

“You’re an amazing seamstress, Tennille. You could have a sewing business.”

“If I lived in a bigger city I could teach jiu-jitsu full time.”

“You’d be amazing.”

“I’d rather work with adults.” She wrinkled her nose. “Kids all day? Not really my thing.”

“That’s so hard for me to relate to. I’d rather spend all day with kids.”

“You should have some of your own, and then see how you feel about it.” She rolled her eyes. “Other people’s kids are a lot less appealing once you’ve been mom-mom-mom-mom-mom nonstop for years.” She frowned. “Sorry. I know you want to be a mom more than anything. That was insensitive of me.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“How about Jeremy? Is he an option?”

“For what?” I knew what she was getting at. But she had no idea how hurt he’d looked the few times I’d interacted with him lately. And yet how stoic he’d been. Confident but hurt—was that a thing? I quit faking ignorance of her meaning. “I don’t think Jeremy Hotston is an option.”

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “He sent you flowers. Looks like he paid your legal fees. And that’s just the stuff you can remember.”

If Tennille had had any inkling of those texts, she would have been shrieking over the possibilities of me and Jeremy. “He’s not the guy he used to be.”

“He was never the guy you thought he was, you know. He didn’t pull a prank at Angelica’s wedding on purpose. In fact, it wasn’t a prank at all. Plus, from what I heard around town, he thinks Angelica was born with a bum leg. He’s got no idea her injury was caused by someone thinking they were funny.”

“Who told you that?” The memory of the wedding always turned me bristly. How would Tennille know what Jeremy’s intentions that night had been? “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours.”

Liam honked. Tennille hugged me and left.

I looked around Constant Energy. The assistant coaches were all in teaching mode. The energy was good—constant, actually. I had grown to love it here, despite its starting out as a way to live out Mom and Dad’s dreams for Angelica. But Tennille might be right. Staying in one place might keep a person from growth.

Jeremy had left—and he’d obviously grown. He wasn’t the insufferable goof I’d known as a kid. In fact, he might not have ever been a prankster, from the look on his face last night, and from what he’d said about knowing I’d always hated pranks. He knew a lot about me. It turned out, there were a lot of things I needed to know about Jeremy and his past—and not just about during the period of time I couldn’t remember.

Besides, I owed him an apology, and a huge debt of thanks.

I sent him a text.

Are you in town? Would you like to have dinner with me?