Only One Kiss (Only One 1)

“Great,” I say and then see that Ari is getting really fussy now. I walk to the kitchen and prepare her bottle.

“What kind of charity do you want to work with?” she asks as she bounces Ari up and down to make her stop whining.

“Definitely underprivileged children,” I say. And then without even thinking, I add, “I was bounced from foster home to foster home, and the only thing that saved me was hockey.” She looks at me. “It’s not something that I talk about,” I say, avoiding looking at her. “My mother had me at seventeen. She couldn’t handle a newborn with the need to party every single day, so my grandparents took me in. When I was seven, we were in a car accident, and I was the only one who survived.” I make the bottle, trying not to think about the sound of metal clinking together as the firefighters fought to get me out from under the rubble. “They tried to find my mother, but she never did leave a forwarding address, so I was sent into foster care.”

“That must have been hard for you,” she says while she holds Ari lying down in her arms.

“It was tough not knowing where you were going to go next. All my clothes were in a brown paper bag.” I have never told anyone this story—never shared this part with anyone—and I don’t know why I’m doing it now. “Lucky for me, I was good at hockey, so I got a scholarship for high school and didn’t really need anyone except for in the summertime.” When I walk over to her with the bottle in my hand, I see her blink away tears, trying not to let me see. “It’s why I’ll never leave Ari or have someone do something for her. She is never going to feel unloved.” I look at my baby girl as she looks at me but stays with Candace. I hold up the bottle. “She is never going to feel like that.” I hand Candace the bottle, and she grabs it, but our hands touch, and I just hold it there. “It’s also why I’ll never give my heart to anyone.” I don’t say it’s because I never gave Cassie my heart, which is why it hurts so much. “She owns my heart.”Chapter 11CandaceIf my heart could shatter in my chest, it would be now as he looks at his daughter with all the love that he has. Telling me that she is the only one who will have his heart, I want to drop the bottle and hold his face in my hand and finally release the tears started when he told me about Cassie dying and then about his childhood. He avoided looking at me, and I was glad he did because he didn’t see the tears rolling down my face that I had to quickly wipe away. The only one to see them was Ari as she looked at me with her big blue eyes, and at that moment, I fell more in love with her.

“Do you want to feed her?” I ask as we both hold the bottle. “She is pretty comfy.” I look down, seeing her resting against my breast. “But I can hand her over.”

“No,” he says and drops his hand. I walk to the couch and look down at her. She opens her mouth the minute she sees the bottle. Her hand holds my finger as she drinks. “So do you think I’d be able to start a foundation?” I look at him as his eyes light up. “Not going to lie, it would be pretty cool if I could help people.”

“I think you can,” I say. “I think anyone who wants to help kids should be able to. I think that if you are comfortable with telling your side of the story, it might get even more notice,” I say as I watch his eyes. “But you don’t have to. You can just leave it at wanting to share.”

“Justin had a great summer hockey one where all the underprivileged kids spend the whole summer. It’s where he met Caroline.”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking of their fairy-tale love story. “I heard. I can also ask Allison how Max started his, and we can go from there.”

“You would help me with this?” he asks, and I start to say no. My head tells me that it’s not a good idea. My heart tells me to run away, but my mouth, it’s not wired with the other parts of me.

“As much as I could,” I say before I can actually tell him no. I look down at Ariella, and she smiles while she drinks, and some of the milk spills out at the same time she lets off the biggest fart. I just laugh as I hear the explosion happen. “Well, then,” I say to her and then look up when I see Ralph shoot out of his chair and rush over to me. “What’s wrong?”