Borrowing Kisses

Chapter 2

2

Stephen wandered away from the campfire, three hot dogs and two s’mores settling in his stomach. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets to help stay warm. Even though it was summer, the air had chilled once the sun had set. It seemed that the whole town had gathered together for this event and everyone seemed to know everyone else. Stephen didn’t feel unwelcome, though. A friendly smile greeted him everywhere he turned.

“You must be here for the space flight,” one man said to him in passing. “Say hello to the stars for us.”

“Oh, I’m not—”

The man wandered away to talk to someone else before Stephen had the chance to answer. He looked down at his clothes. Was there something about the way he was dressed that screamed ‘outsider’? Or was it merely the fact that he was a new face, which by default meant that he must be there for Galactic Enterprises’ space tourism flight?

Stephen wandered around the large park. It was certainly big enough for what his company planned to do with it. The play equipment could be moved, as well as the gazebo, so no problems there. He’d have to wait until Monday to talk to the owners of the small shops that blocked the park from Main Street, but that was just as well. He had wanted to spend a couple of days surveying the area anyway. Stephen had already spoken with the mayor on several occasions, and he seemed to be in agreement with the plans.

It was rare that Stephen worked directly with government officials, but it seemed that everything that went on in the small town of Amor went through the mayor’s office first. Normally that would worry Stephen, but this mayor was more than accommodating. He had gone so far as to ensure that his assistant would help Stephen with whatever he needed. The mayor seemed to think that Stephen would be met with some initial resistance—no surprises there—and he’d offered to have his assistant help with introductions as a way to mitigate the risk of others making things…difficult…for the real estate developer.

Stephen finished his loop around the park. Yes, it would be perfect. To his left, he noticed an open telescope and he walked toward it. Might as well enjoy the sights while he was here. Just as he reached it and bent down for a look, someone else bumped into him. He straightened up and found himself nearly standing on top of a woman who took a surprised step back.

“You stepped right in front of me,” she said, placing a hand on her hip.

“My apologies. I didn’t see you,” Stephen said. He looked closer and realized it was the woman from the campfire. The one who had pelted him with a marshmallow.

Her eyes registered recognition at the same time and they lit up. “So, it’s you again.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, grinning. “Were you able to successfully remove all the marshmallows from your shirt?” He noticed that she had since put on a jacket.

“It was only the one marshmallow, no thanks to you,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to do a little stargazing. This is the first telescope that I’ve seen open all night. All the others have lines.”

“So does this one,” Stephen said, stepping in front of the telescope. “But if you want to take a couple steps back, I’ll be done in a moment.” He didn’t know what it was about this woman that riled him up. It couldn’t be her beauty, even though she was very pretty. He had met plenty of beautiful women, though, and none of them had affected him like this. Her long dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, and when she folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, he realized what it was.

It was her eyes. They challenged him, waiting to see what he would do next. And Stephen felt the need to do the unexpected when under her gaze.

Stephen bent over again and looked in the eyepiece, except all he saw was black. He didn’t want to admit to her, though, that he couldn’t see a thing, so he pretended he could.

“Wow, it really is something, isn’t it?” he asked. “They sure don’t make stars like these where I come from.”

He heard a long sigh from the woman. “And where exactly is that? Somewhere they don’t teach manners, obviously,” she said.

Stephen stepped away from the telescope. “You can blame my mother for that. She died when I was five, and my father didn’t have the time to teach me such mundane things as manners.”

His words stunned the woman into silence, and it seemed she was having trouble deciding whether Stephen was joking or not.

It certainly wasn’t a laughing matter, and Stephen wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Every word of it had been true, but it wasn’t like him to throw it out into the open like that.

“Your turn,” he said, nodding to the telescope.

The woman eyed him for another moment before stepping up to the telescope, but after a second, she straightened back up, her lip twitching like she was trying not to smile. “You don’t have stars like these back home, huh?”

“Nope,” he said, shifting under her steady gaze.

“I don’t doubt it. Especially because the safety cap is still on.” Her smile broke through and it lit up her face. It was the most beautiful smile Stephen had ever seen. “The last person to use the telescope always puts it back on if there isn’t a line of people waiting to use it.”

Stephen was grateful for the dark as he felt his cheeks warm with embarrassment. “Yes, that would explain it.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and look again?” she said, nodding toward the telescope. She moved out of the way.

Stephen stayed rooted to the spot. “Are you sure?” She had seemed pretty disgruntled when he had cut her off in his earlier attempt to get at the telescope. Maybe this was a test to see what he would do. Just in case, he said, “I couldn’t. Ladies first and all that.”

“Oh, so now you want to have manners?” she asked with a laugh. “Really, I insist. I’ve been to plenty of stargazing parties, and this is obviously your first one. Go ahead. Tell me what you see.”

Stephen took a tentative step forward. “Okay.” When he looked through the eyepiece, he didn’t see the stars he was expecting. Instead, he saw a large planet. “Jupiter,” he said, awed. “Is this real?” Of course it had to be, but it was a strange feeling to think that he was looking at an actual planet.

“Each telescope is pointed at something different,” the woman said. “You’ll want to make the rounds, because there’s some pretty cool stuff out there. Of course, you’ll be able to see some of it firsthand when you go out to the spaceport in a couple days.”

There it was again. Everyone thought he was there for the space tourism flight. “Thanks for the advice,” he said, bending down to get one last look at Jupiter. After getting his fill of the giant planet, he asked, “By the way, what’s your name?” It only seemed right after their encounters during the evening that he should at least be able to put a name to her face.

But when Stephen straightened up and turned around, she was gone. Instead, another woman stood there, waiting for her turn with the telescope.

“My name is Bev, but you should know, I’m married.”

It took a moment for Stephen to recover and then he muttered, “Yes, of course. Sorry.” He hurried away before Bev could say anything more.

Stephen scanned the park for a sign of the mysterious woman who kept showing up, but it was too dark and too crowded to see much. He considered hanging around for a little while longer and seeing what other interesting planets and constellations he’d be able to see through the telescopes, but random people kept stopping and talking to him about how excited he must be for his flight to space.

Rather than continue to correct them, Stephen’s go-to answer became, “Yes, I am. If you’ll excuse me, I think I see someone I know,” and then he’d hurry away. His desire to see the universe’s miracles disappeared quickly and he set off on foot toward the small path that would take him to Main Street, and then to his hotel.

He was nearly there when, once again, someone stopped him to talk. Did all the future astronauts of the space tourism program have to endure this?

“Leaving so soon?”

“Yes, I am. If you’ll excuse me, I think I see someone I—” Stephen stopped when he glanced up. It was her.

She stood by a tree with the friend from the campfire. “You were saying?”

The woman’s friend watched him with interest, like she was sizing him up, and Stephen didn’t feel like he could banter in the same way he’d been able to when he and the woman were alone by the telescopes.

“It’s getting a little crowded for me,” he finally said.

The friend spoke up. “You could always come over for some hot chocolate and warm up. We’re heading out as well.”

Stephen must have passed some sort of test, because the friend was looking at him without the trace of skepticism she had before. But before he could answer, and he honestly wasn’t sure what he would have said, the woman elbowed her friend. “I don’t think he wants to do that. He has a big flight coming up and he probably wants to rest up before they put him through the torture chamber.”

“It can’t be all that bad,” he said.

“Our other friend did it, and she kept calling Ruby like she thought she was going to die or something,” the woman said.

“Ruby?”

“That’s me,” the friend said, waving her fingers. “And you are—”

Stephen looked straight at the other woman. The one he still didn’t have a name for, but wished he did. “Needing to rest up, just like you said. Maybe I’ll see you around, though. I was thinking of eating breakfast at the diner tomorrow.”

He wasn’t sure why he’d said that last part. He didn’t need the distraction of a woman in his life. He’d been there and done that, and he was up for promotion. This was a project that his boss was very interested in, and Stephen needed to make sure everything went smoothly, with no hiccups.

“Good choice,” she said. “They have delicious food.”

“It’s my only choice. I checked, and you don’t have much variety here.”

The woman laughed and shrugged. “True. But that doesn’t make it a bad choice. It’s been under new management the last year or so and you won’t find a better meal, even where you’re from.”

“I look forward to it,” Stephen said as she and Ruby turned to leave. “If I see you there, what should I call you?”

“Whatever you want,” she said, pausing once to look back and give him a small wave.

Stephen stared after the pair as they walked away. Once he was no longer able to see them, the spell the woman had over him broke, and he found himself hoping that she wouldn’t show up at the diner. He must have sounded so pathetic, going on the way he had, practically begging for her name and giving her a play by play of where he would be. If he had been back home in Florida, it wouldn’t have mattered because he would have known that he’d never see her again. That was the beauty of a big city. Well, maybe ‘big’ was being a bit generous. But it was big enough.

Things were different in this small town, and the sooner he completed this project, the better. He doubted it would take long before the natives got restless and realized what he was there for.