Jayne Addison - About That Kiss

“I was thirsty.” Nick held out his glass of soda. “What brought you downstairs?”

“Thirsty…very thirsty.” She wasn’t making any move to do anything about it. The muscles of his chest and forearms had her mesmerized.

“Must have been the pizza.” Nick grinned.

“Uh-huh.” Uh-huh, she thought… uh-huh? Is that all you can think to say? Uh-huh! You’re a writer! You’re supposed to be good with words.

“How about some cola?” Nick asked.

“Okay,” Joy answered.

Nick put his glass on the counter and poured her drink. He held out the glass, and Joy felt as if she were walking in a dream as she came up to him. The coldness of the glass in her hand came as something of a shock. She wasn’t conscious of having even accepted it.

“Love your pajamas.” He gave her a full-wattage grin as she held the glass to her lips.

Joy gulped and sputtered. She looked down at herself after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She would hardly have picked to wear what she was wearing if she was conjuring this up as a dream.

“They were a present.” Joy ran the tip of her tongue across her lips.

Nick dragged his eyes off her mouth and studied the array of small iridescent red hearts against the background of cream-colored flannel. “Did some guy give them to you?”

He knew she wasn’t seriously involved with anyone. He knew because he’d asked Kevin. Indirectly, of course.

Joy shook her head. “A friend from work ga?? them to me for my birthday.”

He liked that answer. “And when was your birthday?”

“February fourteenth, Valentine’s Day.”

“Cupid’s baby, huh?” Nick grinned.

Joy nodded. Looking at his bare chest was causing her heart to flutter.

His eyes moved over her face. “Your chin looks a little sticky.”

“Cola,” Joy said.

Nick took hold of the hand she started to raise and kept it down at her side. He brought his free hand up and touched the damp spot on her chin.

Joy’s lips parted. She was breathing haltingly through her mouth as his hand lifted her chin higher.

And then the kitchen door swung open.

“What are the two of you doing?” Diana asked, clothed in one of her seductive nightgowns. The thin, pink silk just missed being see-through.

“Drinking,” Nick muttered, bringing his hand back down.

“We were both thirsty,” Joy added. “And I had cola on my chin.”

Diana proceeded to the refrigerator for the platter of cold chicken. “It isn’t any wonder that you’d be thirsty. How the two of you can eat the food you eat is beyond me. Don’t either of you have any concern for your bodies?”

Nick groaned to himself. He had a very definite interest in one of the bodies in the room. It wasn’t his. Nor was it Diana’s.

“Well,” Joy said awkwardly. “I guess I’ve had enough. See you both in the morning.”

“I’ve had enough, too,” Nick said. “I’ll walk up with you.”

She looked over at him just once, as they walked toward the stairs. Had he been about to kiss her when Diana had walked in on them? No, Joy answered herself. So what had he been doing?

“Are you tired?” Nick asked as they reached Joy’s bedroom door.

“Uh-huh,” Joy answered, then moaned under her breath. “Aren’t you?”

“Not really. But I guess since you’re tired I won’t try to persuade you to stay up with me a little longer.”

Joy took a deep breath. Persuade! She was like putty in his hands.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” Nick said with a smile.

“Tomorrow is a workday for me.” Joy made herself open her bedroom door. “I leave early.”

“I’m a pretty early riser myself.”

“Even without much sleep?”

“Even without much sleep.”

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night,” he answered.

Joy took a resolute step into her bedroom. Not looking back, she closed the door.

Nick stood in the hallway a second longer, wondering again what position she slept in.

Her mother was flipping pancakes as Joy came into the kitchen the next morning. After noting that no one else was in the room, Joy marched straight for the coffee that was already brewed.

Emily slipped a pancake onto a plate. “How many will you have? Two or three?”

“I don’t have time for more than a swallow of coffee,” Joy said to her mother. “I’ve overslept as it is.” She hadn’t fallen asleep until the wee hours of the morning. “Put them in the oven for Diana and Nick.”

“If Diana eats half a pancake that will be a lot, and Nick has already eaten and left.”

Joy put down the cup of coffee that she hadn’t yet taken a swallow from. “Nick ate and left already? Where did he go?”

“He didn’t say, dear.” Emily looked at her youngest child thoughtfully. “I must say he didn’t appear any less tired than you do this morning.”

“I guess we were both attacked by pepperoni pizza.” Joy gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, then hurried off.

* * *

The newsroom of the Greenport News was buzzing when Joy arrived. It was never a quiet place to begin with, but this morning there was an unusually high-pitched quality to the chatter.

Joy hung up her green reefer coat and glanced around. Even Arthur Dailey was in animated conversation with Bill Kellman. That was unusual. The two pressmen, both gray-haired, though Arthur had more on his pate than Bill, hardly ever spoke to each other. There was something about one having slighted the other sometime back. Way back. Joy suspected that neither man recalled the exact slight, nor which one of them had delivered it, or even exactly when it had happened.

“What’s going on?” Joy asked, catching the ear of Pamela Cousins, a breezy forty-year-old blonde with an ample shape and a Ms. Congeniality personality. She manned the phone for the classifieds. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t like Pamela. Nor was there anyone who Pamela didn’t like back.

“You know. The big news,” Pamela said, turning from Cal Peterson who reported weekly on the activities of the Greenport wharf.

“What big news?” Joy asked.

“Oh,” Pamela said. “I thought that was the reason you dressed up today. You know…to make an impression on him. “

“‘Him’?” The only him she’d wanted to make an impression on in her short, slim, gray wool skirt; clingy, white, ribbed-jersey turtleneck; high-heeled black pumps; and black panty hose had left before she’d come down to the kitchen. “What ‘him’?”

“Our new boss. The man Earl sold the paper to.”

“Earl sold the paper?” Joy was amazed.

“The new owner is in his office right now. Earl said he’ll be introducing us all once you’d arrived. They’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’ll go tell Earl you’re here,” Cal said, breaking away.

“Have you seen the new owner?” Joy inquired of Pamela.

Pamela expressed her response to Joy’s question with a big smile before she said, “God, I wish I was ten years younger and not married. The man is a S-T-U-D.”

Earl Lansing came out of his office and into the main section of the news area with Cal Peterson and the man Pamela had just labeled a stud. Joy’s mouth fell open. The stud at Earl Lansing’s side was Nick Tremain.

Earl Lansing’s eyes singled out Joy. “I assume you know by now?”

Joy got her mouth closed in time to nod her head. Her eyes flashed to Nick. He gave her a fast wink, then a very slow perusal. When his eyes did cruise back up to hers, there was sexy masculine approval in his gaze.

Joy felt her face get warm.

Nick grinned.

By then everyone in the office had gathered around.

“I am not going to give a speech,” Earl began, looking delighted. “I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing me complain about still working at my age—”