Feel Like Making Love Read online

  Joel sighed. "Yesterday, after we'd...kissed...all of sudden she didn't want anything to do with me. Said it would be a bad idea for me to be around her daughter since we'd...kissed."

  Morty laughed his raspy chuckle. "Sounds to me like she's got it as bad for you as you got it for her, sonny."

  Joel frowned. "Yeah, right. Turns out she thinks I'm some sort of charming flirt who was safe to...kiss...because I go through women like...like..."

  "Like shit through a goose?" Morty guffawed. "Reputation bit you on your ass, did it?"

  It sure had. Joel shrugged, still stung. "Let's just forget it, Morty, okay? I thought she felt the same way about me, but she doesn't. I just made an idiot of myself, that's all."

  "Well, sonny, I'm sure it wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last."

  Joel had to laugh at that. "Yeah, man, you're probably right on that one."

  "Listen, sonny, if you really like that girl, if you really got your heart set on her, then you got to go after her. Don't take no for an answer."

  "And if she really doesn't want a relationship with me? If she really did only want it to be once? What then?"

  "You don't have a very high opinion of yourself, if you think she could settle for only once," said Morty with a wink and a grin, and wheeled himself out of the conservatory, leaving Joel alone among the Boston ferns.

  * * * *

  "All right, class. Time's up." Professor Beadle got up from her desk in front of the auditorium. "Pass your test booklets to the front, please."

  Audrey closed her booklet with a sigh and passed it down the row. Her last final, and an entire summer off to look forward to. Days by the pool with Lauren, sleeping in late, catching fireflies.

  And no Joel.

  Her eyes searched the class for him, but no familiar grin, no flashing dark eyes leaped into her gaze. Had he skipped it? Missed the final? Was he sick?

  "Ms. Winsom? Everything all right?" The professor had paused at the end of her row, and Audrey looked up, startled.

  "Oh, yes, professor, fine. Sorry."

  "Relieved to be finished?" The older woman smiled. "I'm sure you did very well. You're one of the best students in the class, Ms. Windom. You and Mr. Goldman."

  Audrey nodded at Joel's name. "Thanks, professor. I enjoyed the class very much."

  "See you in September," said Professor Beadle and kept moving up the stairs toward the doors at the back of the auditorium.

  Outside in the bright May sunshine, Audrey took the time to stop next to one of the large metal trashcans to clean out her backpack of the months' worth of scraps, chewed pencils and other garbage.

  She saw him in the distance, recognizing him even from the back. He'd stopped to read one of the message boards. The breeze lifted his hair, and she all too clearly remembered how it felt against her fingers and against her face. Her feet were moving before she knew it.

  "Joel!"

  He turned, his easy expression going tight when he saw her, and that nearly broke her heart. "Hi."

  "That was some final, huh? I didn't see you inside." She smiled at him, but he didn't return it.

  "I was in the back."

  He met her eyes for a moment, then looked away, and fresh shame filled her at how callously she'd treated his feelings. The feelings she'd been too afraid to believe were real.

  "Any big plans for the summer?"

  "Working full time at Country Breezes. They've guaranteed me extra hours. I'll be able to afford school again in the fall anyway."

  "Good." She nodded. Awkward silence fell between them. "What about...the other?"

  "The other job?" He looked up. "Quit."

  "You did? Why?" She took a step toward him.

  Joel looked at her. "Because the money was good, but it wasn't the right job for me. Gives people the wrong impression."

  "Joel, I'm sorry." She was too. "The past couple weeks...have been..."

  "What?" he asked her.

  "Lauren's been asking about you."

  "Has she?" A smile hinted at brightening his face before fading. "Tell her I said hi."

  "You could tell her, if you wanted."

  He said nothing at first. "I thought you said that wouldn't be a good idea."

  Audrey reached for his hand, certain he'd pull away and relieved when he didn't. "Joel, I was wrong to judge you."

  He looked down at their hands. His fingers tightened on hers. He met her gaze.

  "I don't blame you. It's my own fault for not discouraging the rumors. But, hey, what guy can resist being thought of as a secret agent, right?"

  She squeezed his hand in return. "I just didn't want to risk our friendship, and what happened? I ruined it anyway. I'm sorry."

  Joel tugged her hand a little bit and she moved toward him. "Audrey, I would never lie to you. Do you believe that?"

  She did. Completely. "Yes, I do."

  He smiled, finally, like the sun returning from behind the clouds. He slung his arm around her shoulder pulling her close. "So I heard a rumor you were going to make me dinner."

  "Oh? Funny, because I thought I heard it was you who was going to make me some dinner." She looked up at him.

  He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Then he kissed her, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him back. It was a sweet kiss, full of promise and anticipation. When Joel pulled away, Audrey's heart had started thump-thumping.

  "Audrey," he said, "I want to do this right this time. I want to take you out. On real dates. And spend time with you, and Lauren...but if you'd rather not have me around Lauren, that's cool too. I understand. I just don't want to let this ruin our friendship, but I also don't want our friendship to ruin...this. I just need to know if you trust me."

  He kissed her again, a little harder this time, and she slid her arms up around his neck to hold his mouth to hers.

  "I do," she told him.

  "Can I take you home?" he asked her when he stopped kissing her.

  "Yeah," Audrey said. "I'd like that."

  This time he lifted her as he kissed her, and they laughed together in the bright May sunshine, two good friends who'd finally decided to take the chance at something more. Joel had his arms around her and hers were around him as he twirled her on the sidewalk, but Audrey had no fear he'd drop her. After all, in his arms she had found a perfect fit.

  RIGHT TO REMAIN

  The radio was loud, and the car fast. The night wind rushing in the open window tangled her long hair, but Lina didn't care. She was thinking about Gavin.

  It seemed like she was always thinking about him; that every song on the radio this summer had words which made her remember his smile; that every day had her burning inside with a heat which had nothing to do with the fierceness of the summer sun. She hadn't seen him in an entire year.

  Their affair had ended badly. She'd walked out on him after he'd refused to kiss her in front of his friends at a party. It had been summer then, too, with hot days and cool nights, and she'd shivered so hard the keys had chattered in the lock when she'd tried to open her car door.

  He'd followed her. She could give him credit for that, at least. The sounds of the party had spilled out the open door along with a golden rectangle of light. He'd jumped down the porch steps, taken the keys from her hand and slipped them into the lock for her, but when she'd tried to open the car door his hand had pushed it closed.

  "What's up?" The scent of beer and cigarettes surrounded him, along with the faint undertone of spicy cologne.

  Lina's voice had been cold. "I'm done."

  "With what?"

  She gave a glare as fierce as she could manage with tears burning in her eyes. "With us. With this. With all of it."

  He'd had the gall to chuckle at her and try to brush her hair from her face. She'd knocked his hand away. He took a step back, his own eyes narrowed. "You're serious."

  "Let me ask you something," Lina had said in a low, dangerous voice she barely recognized as her own. "Are you ever going to kiss me when y