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“What if I’m a bad kisser and that’s why he said it was a mistake?” I blurted the fear that had been bouncing around in my head.
“You’re a good kisser,” Karen said without pause. “Don’t be stupid.”
“We’re not allowed to say stupid, you know that,” I scolded her like I would Nathan when he used that word, which wasn’t often.
I’d outlawed it like I had a curse word because I didn’t like it on principle and because my parents had routinely called me that all my life. I didn’t like the way it made people feel. I didn’t want my son to make people feel that way. Nor did I want him to ever feel that way. Obviously Karen was not a kid and could say whatever she wanted but I tended to get into mom robot mode.
“Plus, you haven’t kissed me, so you don’t know whether I’m a good kisser or not,” I added.
Karen didn’t say anything, she merely put her glass on the coffee table, leaned forward, snatched the back of my neck and kissed me.
I was so shocked that I didn’t even try to fight her.
“You’re not a bad kisser,” she said after she detached, grabbed her wine and leaned back on the couch. “And that comes from someone who’s kissed a lot of chicks.”
I blinked rapidly at her, trying to figure out what the heck just happened. Then I took a sip of wine, leaned back in my chair and thought on it. “Well, if I’m not a bad kisser then why did he walk away and act like nothing happened?”
She shrugged. “Lesbian.” She pointed to her chest. “One of the reasons I became one, other than I was born one, was so I didn’t have to deal with men’s bullshit games.”
My brows furrowed. “You think he’s playing games?”
She thought about it. Properly, because Karen was a good friend and she wasn’t just sitting here sharing empty placations with me. She was Frenching me to make sure I knew I was a good kisser and thinking hard about what the heck was going on in my previously empty love life.
“No,” she decided. “Granted, this is coming from a woman with little to no experience dating men, and I barely know the man in question. But I feel like I’m pretty good at reading people. Not as well as you do of course, with all of your auras.”
She rolled her eyes. It was safe to say that Karen did not believe in auras, star signs, tarot, or the healing power of crystals.
“I’m a reasonable judge of character. He’s damaged, that’s obvious enough. He’s hot as balls. That’s even more obvious. He’s dangerous.” She tilted her head in thought. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. How he is with Nathan. It’s different. I can definitely get a better read on the men around him because they speak in actual sentences and do things like smile and converse. They’re good men. The kind of men that would not let someone who played games spend so much time with a single mother and her kid. I think he’s just really fucked up. He wants you, but he’s also probably got it in his head that you don’t need a damaged and complicated man in your life right now.”
She sipped her wine. “I don’t blame him for thinking that. Because I don’t have to be heterosexual in order to tell that man is a world of trouble. That man is going to turn your entire fucking mind upside down. He’s going to wreak havoc on your vagina, in a good way.”
She winked. And my stomach dipped at the thought of what he would do to me, if two kisses had me feeling like this.
“But he’s also going to bring a different kind of ruin to your emotions,” she said quieter, more serious. “And honey, you’ve already had a man rip through your life and take over your brain, your body. Lance would never do it in a way that Robert did, with malice. I think he has the ability to hurt you more than Robert ever did. I see the way you look at him too. I know you’ve been on exactly two dates since I’ve known you, and that you’ve never let either of them passed first base. This one has made it to home with only a kiss. He’s under your skin. And I want all of the best things for you. We both know I’m the romantic in my relationship.”
That was the total truth. As much as it seemed like it would be the other way around, Eliza had a lot of demons in her past, trust issues that stemmed from parents who didn’t support who she was.
“I had to work hard to get Eliza to trust me,” Karen said, sipping her wine and making a face.
