Always and Forever (14 page)

“So, you and Kal, huh?”

I glanced to my left where Kara Lambert had sat for the last ten minutes, quietly sipping her beer. My head started to move into a nod, but I stopped myself. It was no secret—well, to everyone but Kal that is—that Kara was obsessed with my best friend, had been since we were kids. Too bad, Kal didn't see it for himself, I thought darkly. Then, he wouldn't be wasting his time, his energy, and his heart on someone who couldn't fully appreciate it.

I blew out a loud, mournful sounding breath and settled on a shrug.

She pursed her lips, looking like she wanted to push the issue, but not quite sure as to how to go about it without appearing obvious, or desperate, or both.

Instead of encouraging her into further conversation, I turned away, letting my gaze travel around the group that had gathered at the old train depot. It was still early yet, but nearly half the school was already here, huddled around the campfire, clustered in small groups just at the edge of darkness, cast in shadows that should have been sinister but were oddly inviting. Others lounged on the wide, crumbling platform next to the rusty, seldom used tracks.

“My girl not talking to you tonight?” Adam asked as he squeezed in next to me. At my look, he nodded in commiseration. “Me neither, but hey, we all know Ricki. She'll be over it—whatever
it
is—by tomorrow, and we'll all be friends again.”

“Yeah, I guess.” But did I really want that to happen? This thing with Ricki tonight was kind of a break for me. If we just stopped talking, I didn't have to worry about leaving her behind. This way, I'd be out of her life long before I was out of mine. I wouldn't need to worry about the pain she'd be in when I was gone. It was a win-win situation.

“You don't sound like you believe that.” Adam chuckled under his breath, and bumped his shoulder into mine. “You know she loves you. Just like you do her. So, when she's in a better mood, you guys can just laugh it all off. Be besties again.”

“Besties?” I echoed, almost choking on a laugh. “Adam, that just sounds weird when you say it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

In answer, I shoved at him, playfully. Not hard or anything, but just enough to unbalance him. He wobbled, the contents of the red plastic cup in his hand sloshing over the sides.

His nostrils flared, eyes sparkling in the low light of the campfire. “Oh no, you didn't. Now, it's on.” He reached out for me, fingers twisting in the material of my coat.

I shrieked out a bright burst of giggles and tried to jump away, but I wasn't quick enough. His hold on my coat unbreakable, he yanked me toward him and toppled me off my perch and onto the ground. We rolled, cups and bottles scattering, our combined laughter soaring high up into the night air.

Adam's fingers found my sides under the coat and scratched lightly, which elicited more giggles from me. “Stop,” I gasped. “Stop!”

“Not until you admit defeat.” He pitched his voice in a perfect imitation of a villainous cartoon character, complete with evil plan laugh.

“Never,” I choked out on another strangled laugh.

“Is there a reason you're rolling around on the ground with my girlfriend?”

Adam snatched his hands away from my sides and scooted away from me. “Uh…we were just…uh…” He leaped to his feet, shook his head as he scrounged for the words to get the murderous look off Kal's face.

“Just what?” Any other time, I might have been intrigued at this side of Kal I'd never seen before. Kal was not one to get angry over nothing. Now, he looked about ready to skin Adam alive. And over what? Messing around with me, like he'd done countless times in the past?

“Kal—” I started, intending to rail at him for being a jealous idiot, but some small voice stopped me.
Let him be angry
, it whispered.
Let him play the possessive boyfriend. That way you have an excuse for letting him go, for breaking his heart
. My own chest ripped at that thought, my heart cracking in half at just the thought of how our breakup would go.

“You okay?” he asked as he reached down to help me up. Kal shifted his glare back to Adam's retreating form. He'd wisely decided to use my interruption as means of escape. Smart boy.

“Yeah, fine.” I absently scanned the area for my drink, but it was gone, fallen victim of the epic tickle fight with Adam.

“Need another?” His softly spoken words flitted over my skin and warmed me better than the thickest coat. He held a new bottle out to me.

“Thanks,” I murmured, as I took my place back on the bench.

He slid down beside me. His arms hooked around my waist and pulled me up against him so he could nuzzle my neck. He pressed his lips to the soft spot behind my ear, which sent shivers dancing their way up and down my spine.

A soft grunt of irritation—or maybe it was jealousy?—and the bench shifted slightly which told me that Kara had left, clearly not wanting to witness the guy she was obsessed with fawning over someone else. I almost felt bad for her, but not really. She was, after all, whole and healthy. She had the rest of her life to catch Kal's eye.

And, she would. Eventually. She'd be there for him when his whole world came crashing down. She'd be the one to hold him up, supporting him when his foundation crumbled beneath him, whereas I would not, could not be. I was going to be the one to break him. She'd be the one to rebuild him.

Poetic justice.

“What are you thinking about, right now?”

“N-Nothing,” I stammered out, panicked that he could see right through me and read my thoughts.

His low chuckle eased my fright the tiniest bit, and when he nipped at my earlobe, I relaxed even more. But then, his next words made me stiffen, my whole body poised and ready to bolt. “I know exactly what you're thinking about,” he whispered between nibbles.

“You do?” I squeaked out.
How could he know?

“Course, I do.” He shifted slightly. His lips left my ear to cut a hot path along my jaw. “You're thinking that since this is our first official New Year's kiss—”

“We've kissed on New Year's before,” I reminded him with a loud snort.

“Not the way I'm going to kiss you tonight,” he replied easily. His words brought the hottest blush to my cheeks that I'd ever experienced before while my insides went all gooey and tingly with anticipation. “Now, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted.”

“S-Sorry about that,” I apologized on a breathy whisper. Really, the way his lips, his arms, and his words tag-teamed me, I was surprised I could still form coherent—okay
semi
-coherent—thoughts. As it was, every single bone in my body had liquefied in his heated embrace, and I melted into him.

“It's okay,” he murmured. “I know how you can make it up to me.” He leaned back just enough to trap me in his smoldering gaze. “That is, if you want to make it up to me.”

Why'd he stop? Why'd he stop?
As soon as he pulled away, my nerve-endings all cried out at once. They fairly screamed—in fact, begged—for his lips back on my suddenly over-heated skin. Before I knew what happened, my head nodded, he grinned, and we were on our feet drifting away from the crowd, well past the outer fringes of the party.

We climbed into the backseat of the Colonel, and I shrugged out of my coat, as the car was already toasty-warm. “Already had this planned, did you?” I asked, not at all irritated that he'd assumed he could entice me away from the party for a make out session.

His answering grin wasn't apologetic in the least. “That's why you call me the boy scout, beautiful. I'm always prepared. For anything.” He shed his own jacket and then reeled me in, cradled me against his chest so that the steady thump of his heartbeat drowned out the softly playing music.

“I just want to freeze this moment,” I whispered into his sweater while my fingers drummed lightly against his heart. “Stay right here forever and ever.”

His arms tightened around me, and the thump beneath my fingers jumped ahead, became a frantic gallop instead of a steady canter. “Sounds good to me,” he replied.

I pushed up away from his chest so I could recline in his arms and tangle our legs together. “So you brought me out here to practice for the big midnight kiss?”

“That was the plan.” He slid up my arms to rest on my shoulders for all of a second before he dragged me up against him; his mouth hovered just above mine. “And, it worked quite well, I might add.”

“Well, it did. All except for one thing.”

His brow furrowed into a deep line of concentration, and he pulled back an inch. “What one thing?”

I hooked my arms around his neck and brought him back down to me. “We really don't need any practice,” I told him in what I hoped was a seductive whisper just before I pressed my lips to his.

“We are pretty damned close to perfect, aren't we?” he gasped out when we surfaced for air a few moments later. I could only nod in response, still a little breathless from his kisses. Smiling, he brushed his lips lightly against mine. “But I want it to be truly perfect.”

So, did I. And then, I'd end it. Yeah. After midnight. Once the New Year was under way, I'd find a way to stop this insanity. Because really, what better way to end things than on a perfect kiss?

And, it would be perfect. Because it was with Kal.

*   *   *

“Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”

Around me, people laughed and yelled. Some set off bottle rockets. But I paid attention to none of them. Only Kal. As soon as everyone shouted
“One!”
he'd pulled me into his arms for our perfect kiss, and we didn't surface until long after the shouts and noise died down from the level of nuclear explosion to a dull roar.

It really was a perfect kiss, too.

“Happy New Year, my Mia,” he said, grinning down at me. “I love you so much.”

His words were like a perfectly aimed shot to my heart. The bullet punched through the soft tissue to lodge painfully in the center of it all. I forced a brilliant smile up to my own lips took so much more strength than I ever thought I was capable of, but I managed it. Just barely. “Happy New Year,” I replied, my voice calm and steady even though my insides were in complete and utter chaos.

He lifted his beer up to take a pull and then nodded toward the cup in my hand. “You need another pop?” Because I was driving tonight, I'd long since switched to non-alcoholic beverages. At my nod, he looped off toward the keg to refill his own beer and fish out a can of Dr. Pepper for me.

While I waited, I glanced around, nodded, and smiled at anyone whose gaze I happened to meet. When my eyes met Ricki's, she quickly looked away and laughed loudly at whatever Andrea Lake was saying. Yep, she was still mad at me. I shrugged off the slice of pain that knifed through me. It was better this way. Really, it was.

After waiting on Kal for nearly ten minutes, I wandered over to the keg. He'd probably gotten pulled into some stupid, drunken conversation with one of the other guys. Of course, I was right. I found him with Adam, Dave, Brad, and a few guys from the football team. All of them gulped their beers and gestured wildly toward the train tracks.

“I'm telling you guys,” Adam fairly screamed, drunkenly. “Every night at 12:23, exactly.”

I glanced down at my watch. 12:21.

The guys just shook their heads and laughed. I sidled up to Kal, who automatically slid an arm around my waist. The kisses might be perfect, but I'd miss this most of all. This closeness that we'd always
shared, even before we'd started with the kissing. Not for the first time, I was struck with just how lonely life was going to be without Kal in it. My heart ached with this knowledge. So much so, that I once again teetered on the verge of backing out of letting him go.

Just a few more minutes. Just a few more hours. Hell, why not do it tomorrow…or next week…or…

I shook my head, gave myself a mental head slap. I could spend the rest of my life—what little there was of it left—making excuses as to why I should wait to break things off with him, but that's all they were. Excuses. And, it just wasn't fair to keep stringing him along like this. It wasn't fair to me, and it definitely wasn't fair to him.

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked, breaking up their laugh riot. “What happens at 12:23?” Another glance at my watch. 12:22

Brad snorted. “Goober here,” he nodded toward Adam. “Says the train comes through every night at that time. Dave and I've been out here plenty, and we've never seen it.”

Adam glared at Brad. “Just changed the schedule. I'm telling you. It'll be here any minute.” He turned to me with an exasperated sigh. “These guys are just too scared to play chicken with me.”

“It's stupid,” Dave cut in. “People don't do that shit anymore.”

“Because you're scared,” Adam griped.

“Doesn't matter anyway,” Kal said, tapping his watch. “Don't think your train's coming tonight, Adam.”

We all looked down at our wrists. 12:23

“Well, shit,” Adam muttered under his breath. “I could've sworn—” His head jerked up, his eyes round as saucers as a shrill whistle plowed through the night.

The train was coming.

“Who's with me?” he asked excitedly. His eyes shimmered with anticipation of cheating death. “Kal? Brad?” All the guys shook their heads and scoffed about how
this was so last decade
, and
why would anyone want to do something that stupid
?

The whistle blew louder, still way into the distance, but not so far off now.

“I'll do it,” I blurted out.

All eyes swung to me. Adam had already nodded and grabbed my hand, but Kal's arms tightened around me. It created a weird kind of tug-of-war between the two guys.

“Dude, let go,” Adam whined. “The train waits for no one.”

“Mia,” Kal growled, not budging an inch. “What are you thinking?”

The truth was that I hadn't been thinking. At all. One moment, I had stood next to Kal, soaked up his body heat, and only half-listened to the conversation going on around me while I still rationalized putting off the inevitable. The next moment, I had volunteered to dance with a train. But that wasn't going to stop me from doing it.

There was no way I'd survive a fist fight with fast-moving iron and steel. No possible way. This was just so much better than the stairs. A sure thing if there ever was one.