The Kiss | Part 4

Mercury Retrograde is in effect this month. And officially kicking my cheeks.

Forgive me for posting Part 4 two days later than the blog series’ regular Wednesday.

(I spent half of the 4th of July holiday in the ER and the other half passed out fully clothed in a friend’s bed. A longgg story)

I’m hoping this chapter of The Kiss will make up for the tardiness…In fact, I know it will 😉 )

This week, we’re reading Part 4 from THE KISS, if you think you can take it.

If you haven’t read the first three parts of this friends to lovers romance, catch up now before reading this week’s chapter.

THE KISS BLOG NOVEL SERIES:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

And if you’re already caught up then you passed the unspoken test. YOU MAY PROCEED.

Today’s (uncorrected) Part 4 from this friends to lovers story picks up after Sophia invites an unsuspecting Kayla to a private party, thrown by the last person on earth she wants to see: Deacon.

KEEP READING to find out what happens when you mix:

✔️ Lots of tequila

✔️ A molotov cocktail

✔️ Enough sexual tension to cut with a fork

__________

DEACON

“Kev, do you think you can keep your kilt from dipping into the customers’ beers as they sit? Thanks.” I turn. “Nance?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Are we running out of ice? Didn’t we just order a bazillion fucking more bags?” I check the inventory sheet, leaning back on the edge of my desk. The numbers blur in front of my eyes.

The noise from Sevin Smith’s party creates a chaotic cacophony less than fifty feet outside of my office doorway. The sounds of laughter and drinking glasses tinkling from tonight’s event is just what the doctor ordered.

But like any doctor visit, nerves are high, expectations are low, and you expect to end up naked on a table before it’s all said and done.

I’m still hoping I can make it out of this night with a little dignity and most of my clothes. But I have my doubts.

“We’ve got enough ice for the cocktails,” my main bartender Nancy responds, her small chin bobbing. “But we might run out of cocktails if we’re not careful. Seems we missed a shipment or two of liquor. Our best whiskeys have magically disappeared or they’re still stuck in a warehouse somewhere, practically sautéing in all this summer heat?”

“Speaking of heat,” I glance up at Kevin, who pulls self-consciously at the end of his kilt. “What’s up with the A/C? It’s acting as if it’s going in and out. Can’t have patrons sweating buckets into their Patrón now, can we?”

“Who knows?” Kev answers, his meaty shoulders shrugging as he leans against my office wall. “Maybe it could be a new cocktail. ‘Ball-Sweat Brew’?”

He laughs until I drill him with an unblinking stare. He backpedals to the door of the office, a sheepish grin on his face.

“I’ll go double-check that now, Deke.”

“Triple-check.” I nod. “Ball-Sweat Brew won’t be the new cocktail on the menu, if we can help it.”

But I wonder if I can.

My office is uncomfortably hot, making the nerves-filled air hum with moisture and madness.

From the corner of my eye, I can see my profile in the silver plaque on the wall—the one that reads “Best Beer on the Block” by NYC Magazine.  The reflection can show my gray eyes, my dark hair, a peek of my tattoos…But nothing else.

It can’t show the heartbeat that gallops like a fucking race horse beneath my white collared shirt. Or the worry digging a hole in the middle of my chest.

It’s no use counting the seconds as I had when I was a child, but I do it anyway. Ticking down numbers in my head from ten, I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing I look nuts—knowing I would give my left testicle (or right) for tonight to go as perfectly as I planned. 

For the nerves to stop. For the need to run as far away and as fast as my Tom Ford-covered feet can carry me to disappear in the wind along with this damned attention disorder that’s been wreaking havoc on my life since I was nine.

But so far, so good. 

My feet manage to stay planted as I open my eyes again, and I remind myself to feel proud that we haven’t served too many Ball-Sweat Brews yet. But the night is still young.

My gaze lifts back up to Nancy, whose patience seems infinite for my next order, the worry I just felt now visible in her own green eyes. I shake my head, hopefully knocking out the last traces of doubt in my glare. I narrow my stare.

“How’s everything going out there with the party? Seriously, Nance?”

“Apart from the minor alcohol shortage…” Her lips start to widen into a smile. “Everything’s fantastic. Sevin hasn’t arrived yet, but when he does, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Awesome. You’re free to go.” She turns. “But before you go, just want you to know that you’re doing a great job out there, Nance. You all are. I really mean it.”

Her eyes are glistening when she glances back over her shoulder. “It’s been this way since you came to take over the bar… And I do mean that.” And then she leaves.

The air goes out of the room with her.

I sigh, letting my head hang, wondering just how the hell I’m going to make it through the night. Hell, I wonder how I’m going to make it through the next however many years to come.

At least, until I can sell the bar.

Truth is…I never wanted to own a business. I never wanted to own anything.

And I didn’t…until the day a high-priced lawyer called me to New York to settle my dying stepfather’s affairs as the only heir to his small fortune. A fortune I never wanted in the first place.

Especially when it was tied to a man I hated so much I couldn’t see straight.

I sigh, sinking against the corner of my office desk, thinking maybe seeing straight is exactly the problem.

I round the desk, reaching for the bottom drawer. Pulling out a bottle of Patron tequila and a small glass, I pour myself a shot of the clear liquid, knocking it back. Grimacing as the fiery drink slips down my throat, I squeeze the bottle back into the drawer, shutting it with a small slam.

With only ten steps to reach the door, I march out of my office and towards the back door to the bar. I exit, feeling the small effects of the liquor when my manager Kevin finds me on the edge of the room, my mouth agape, my eyesight expanding to take in every inch of the space now filled in with people.

Drinking. Laughing. Enjoying the liquor that my employees have served them.

The Alchemist is packed. Wall to wall. 

The knot that had settled in my throat loosens by just a bit as Kevin claps a hand on my shoulder. That is, until my eyes accidentally scan across a head full of brown curls, and awareness—sharp and painful—shoves its way into my system, knocking the breath from my lungs.

I take a deep breath that feels full of liquid. I still can’t breathe.

“Boss?” Kev’s face scrunches as he scrutinizes mine. “Are you alright?”

I nod, squeezing his shoulder. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.” I glance over at him, eyes sweeping to his kilt. “As long as you’re wearing underwear.”

Kev nods. “I am.”

“Good. That’ll stave off my heart attack for another, oh…sixty seconds.” My gaze goes back to the brown curls at the other end of the room. My heart squeezes and slams. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a second… I think I may have just seen a fucking ghost.” I head into the thick of the crowd, tossing over my shoulder. “If I don’t make it back, do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Burn that kilt in my memory.” My eyes pan down. “I just got a glimpse of something beneath it that no man should ever see.”

Kev gives me a thumbs up high over his head. “Will do.”

And I take off, my pulse playing the congas beneath my skin.

The tequila worked; I can barely see straight as I navigate towards the center of The Alchemist’s floor, my senses on high. The sight of this dark-haired woman walking across the floor has my body tighter than a drum, nostalgia slamming into me like a oncoming wave.

The thought of who that lush coffee-colored hair might belong to pushes at every ounce of sanity I have in me, and through the thick sea of people partying, drinking, dancing to a heart-thumping Lost Frequencies beat, the sound of my own footsteps are lost in the shuffle of the immutable music. A bass beats beneath my skin.

My dark hair, now slick with moisture, curls around the edge of my ears as I push, prod, plunge myself into the middle of the celebrating madness, the throngs of people lined body to body making me hotter aside from the heated summer air already doing a number on the heat under my collar.

Inhaling is a chore. The bar suffocates in the improperly air-conditioned room, and I suffocate with it, faces blurring before my eyes as the rich brown hair disappears around the corner.

I lose the dark-haired woman in the midst of the writhing, hip-wriggling crowd, and it is all I can do not to growl in silent frustration, not to lose what little control I have left.

What the hell am I thinking?

She can’t be Kayla.

My brain—what bits of it are left—whispers to its dumb, dick-driven owner that it can’t be her. Not in a millennium. Not in my wildest dreams.

Guilt  knocks on the door to consciousness, reminding me of the last six lonely months. Six months. Without a word from Kayla. Without a whisper of a care.

Relentlessly, my thoughts tap dance on my impatience, hissing in my ears.

You haven’t seen her in six months.

She never visits New York.

And if she did…your arms would be the last place on Earth she’d run into…

Especially since the last time she was in my arms, coming was exactly what I’d so badly wanted her to do.

I blink, rationality reining me back in as I slow to a stop in the middle of the floor. I give up the chase.

Shoulders slumped, my skin slickening with beads of sweats, I turn back towards the bar, my thoughts drifting back to that tequila in my desk drawer when a flash of quick movement in the corner catches my eye.

Some flicker of light—a camera flash, maybe?—blinks just outside one of the front window, and I stumble closer, curiosity pulling me to the spot. 

What is that?

My brain—stubborn and still-stuck-on-the-brunette bastard that he is—tries to process the suddenly bright light, but not before my body feels the inexplicable heat.

A rush of furnace-like warmth hits my face and as I step towards the space where the glow burst before my eyes, my thoughts finally catch up to the rest of my senses, recognition slamming into my pelvis like a cannon ball.

But I can’t scream. Can’t speak. Can’t get even get the words out before the brightly-lit bottle comes hurtling towards the window, moving in slow motion, its glass surface spiraling in the air as it sails nearer.

I wave my hands. But nobody sees me. 

Or maybe they can’t tell what the flailing means. A sort of panicked signal that signifies two very dangerous words…

Molotov. Cocktail.

__________

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And make sure you don’t miss what happens NEXT WEDNESDAY in Part 4 Deacon and Kayla’s night of partying becomes something much more…

While you’re at it, grab all your romance reading buddies, and tune in for more THE KISS next week.