The Kiss | Part 2

Hey there!

It’s Wednesday morning here on the East Coast, and just like I promised, PART 2 of THE KISS is now live right below.

If you haven’t read Part 1 from last week, start right now:

THE KISS BLOG NOVEL SERIES:

Part 1

And if you have read Part 1, then YES. KEEP READING.

Today’s (uncorrected) Part 2 picks up after Deacon’s Prologue, and you’ll like what’s coming next…

✔️ A flash from the past

✔️ A kilt

✔️ A group of bar employees that are strangely becoming sort of a family…

READ PART 2 BELOW to see what I’m talking about. 😉

ENJOY!

__________

DEACON

Nine years old

They say loving someone—truly loving someone—means losing a part of yourself.

If that’s the case….I was lost the second I laid eyes on her.

Everything about her painted a picture my memories refused to forget.

Those long brown curls. Blue eyes the color of a Bahamian sea.

Those eyes were wide right at that moment I noticed her—glassy as they glanced slowly over the length of my childhood living room, and I think back to how even at eight, I could tell—just knew with every inch of my bony body—that Kayla Rachel Jackson would be my undoing, the loss of everything I had ever known.

I guess that’s why I just stood there, perched on the edge of that tattered sofa, listening to the soft whimper of several neighbors’ tears, sweating bullets as I stared at her pretty face. 

That face was the only thing I could focus on that day—the only part of that blue, thinly-carpeted living room floor that kept my birdlike chest from caving in.

From collapsing around the big gaping hole that bore itself through my lungs every time I took a breath. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time I remembered…that she was gone.

I only had to be here one more hour. Just sixty more minutes.

Only more hour left of pretending not to care on my grandmother’s  flower-patterned couch.

But the black suit grandma borrowed from the store was stifling, the wool hot to the touch. The clip-on tie was too tight, and the white collar scorched beneath the cotton, the window-seated air units doing nothing to cool down these ugly green walls slick with sweat.

I missed my Superman shirt. I wish I could have worn it. 

Grandmama told me that nobody wears Superman t-shirts to funerals. But then again, this was the first funeral I’d ever been to. 

I silently promised myself that it would be the last.

I blew out a breath, chest burning, just as the blue-eyed girl’s gaze met mine again. I planted my feet to run away from its clear, glistening stare, but the sound of my neighbor Mr. Decker’s voice stopped me, reminding me why I was here. Reminding me just why I couldn’t leave.

I listened to him take his usual sip of scotch, words slurred as always. He sighed, his voice as granular as gravel as he spoke. 

“Jesus H. Christ. It’s hot out her’,” he huffed, his Kansan accent thicker than oatmeal. “Hottest damned day on record.” He took another sip of his liquor, his sentences drawing as he spoke to another neighbor, the liquor in his glass sloshing. I heard it hit the cheapened floor.

“Makes sense…” I heard him whisper…or at least attempt to. His voice was clear as a bell as he hissed, “Samuel always said that woman was the gah’damned devil. Wha’ kinda mother leaves her own husband and boy to run off after some strange man?”

“Shhhh,” the joining neighbor hushed Mr. Decker. To no avail. “Might want to keep it down, Allen…”

“Why?” He responded. The liquor slipped some more. Slosh. Slosh. “Everybody in here know that Barbara left both Samuel and his boy Deke once she came into her family’s money…. Took straight off to New Yahrk.” Mr. Decker grunted. “Hell, the only thing saving this damned funeral is the pie. Grandmama June sure know how t’make an apple strudel better than a summabitch.” 

He laughed out loud at his own joke, his chuckle thicker than his waist was, the sound squeezing what little breathe was left in my undernourished body. 

I saw red. Or maybe that was just the color of the room. Hotter than hell. Filled with the August Kansan sun and the silent hate of noisy neighbors who didn’t give two shits that it was my ninth birthday…and my mother was dead.

The hole in my chest dug even further. And still I stayed quiet.

“At least, Barbara’s friends aren’t bad to look at.” Allen Decker laughed, a slur to his words as he elbowed the man beside him. “Every last…both of them. Not even Sam actually showed up to his own wife’s freakin’ funeral”

The new neighbor tsk’ed, sucking his teeth. “Old fella wasn’t much for funerals, I’m guessing?”

“Or family, that matter. Barely visits to even see his boy these days, so I heard it.”

The last sentence was like the last anvil on my chest, sinking even further. The gape in the center of my heart hit max density, and I struggled to inhale, the sunlight before my eyes starting to blur as my consciousness faded in and out, the black hole in my head threatening to suck me down with it.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

I squeezed my eyelids tight, counting down the seconds until the hour is up, each one slower than the last. But it didn’t help.

I shot to my feet, nearly knocking my grandma’s couch over, hearing the tiny legs against the carpet scratch. The small crowd in the living room looked over.

I avoided every single eye swinging towards me. Especially the blue ones coming from the corner. 

Ripping the dark clip-on tie from my neck,  I placed one foot in front of the other until I hit the first spit of asphalt outside, listening to the front screen door slam as I swung the partition behind me.

The garden outside my grandma’s house was thick with weeds as I stared, the ground swimming beneath my feet. Didn’t matter. On shaky legs, I hopped through it, my feet slapping against the concrete as I reached the street, tears streaming.

The hollow in my heart filled with the tears I promised I wouldn’t shed, but I let them flow anyway, feeling myself drown. I paused for a breath, pulse pounding in the middle of the tumbleweeded street, head hurting.

At least my feet still worked. That much, I knew.

I picked up my foot again, grateful to at least have those, when I felt something cool wrap itself around my wrist. Something strange. Something unexpected.

Glancing down, I found a hand on mine, the skin cool to the touch—almost cold.

The blue-eyed girl from the living room had clasped a hand around my skinny arm, squeezing lightly.

And I remember doing nothing—feeling nothing, saying nothing—my feet on temporary pause, my head muddled as I stared at this strange girl.

This wide-eyed girl. A girl with pretty clothes on. With shoes to nice to know anything about holes.

Big, gaping, heart-eating holes like mine.

But I let her touch me. Let her tiny fingers drop my wrist back to my side. Let her lick her lips before speaking, her words slow, her little sighs even slower as she clashed her stare with mine, her small shoulders straightened as she held her head high and said, “Heard it was your birthday.”

I shocked myself by nodding. She blinked.

“It’s my birthday, too. Just wanted to tell you ‘Happy Birthday’ before you left.”

And, to my surprise, that cave inside my chest, the one filled with tears…

Well, in that moment, it shrunk just a little bit, stopped growing the second she blinked those aqua blue eyes in front of me, exhaled a bit…and smiled.

I couldn’t swear to it…but I may have smiled back.

They say loving someone—truly loving someone—means losing a part of yourself.

If that’s the case….I was lost the second I laid eyes on her.

Everything about her painted a picture my memories refused to forget.

Those long brown curls. Blue eyes the color of a Bahamian sea.

Those eyes were wide right at that moment I noticed her—glassy as they glanced slowly over the length of my childhood living room, and I think back to how even at eight, I could tell—just knew with every inch of my bony body—that Kayla Rachel Jackson would be my undoing, the loss of everything I had ever known.

I guess that’s why I just stood there, perched on the edge of that tattered sofa, listening to the soft whimper of several neighbors’ tears, sweating bullets as I stared at her pretty face. 

That face was the only thing I could focus on that day—the only part of that blue, thinly-carpeted living room floor that kept my birdlike chest from caving in.

From collapsing around the big gaping hole that bore itself through my lungs every time I took a breath. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time I remembered…that she was gone.

I only had to be here one more hour. Just sixty more minutes.

Only more hour left of pretending not to care on my grandmother’s  flower-patterned couch.

But the black suit grandma borrowed from the store was stifling, the wool hot to the touch. The clip-on tie was too tight, and the white collar scorched beneath the cotton, the window-seated air units doing nothing to cool down these ugly green walls slick with sweat.

I missed my Superman shirt. I wish I could have worn it. 

Grandmama told me that nobody wears Superman t-shirts to funerals. But then again, this was the first funeral I’d ever been to. 

I silently promised myself that it would be the last.

I blew out a breath, chest burning, just as the blue-eyed girl’s gaze met mine again. I planted my feet to run away from its clear, glistening stare, but the sound of my neighbor Mr. Decker’s voice stopped me, reminding me why I was here. Reminding me just why I couldn’t leave.

I listened to him take his usual sip of scotch, words slurred as always. He sighed, his voice as granular as gravel as he spoke. 

“Jesus H. Christ. It’s hot out her’,” he huffed, his Kansan accent thicker than oatmeal. “Hottest damned day on record.” He took another sip of his liquor, his sentences drawing as he spoke to another neighbor, the liquor in his glass sloshing. I heard it hit the cheapened floor.

“Makes sense…” I heard him whisper…or at least attempt to. His voice was clear as a bell as he hissed, “Samuel always said that woman was the gah’damned devil. Wha’ kinda mother leaves her own husband and boy to run off after some strange man?”

“Shhhh,” the joining neighbor hushed Mr. Decker. To no avail. “Might want to keep it down, Allen…”

“Why?” He responded. The liquor slipped some more. Slosh. Slosh. “Everybody in here know that Barbara left both Samuel and his boy Deke once she came into her family’s money…. Took straight off to New Yahrk.” Mr. Decker grunted. “Hell, the only thing saving this damned funeral is the pie. Grandmama June sure know how t’make an apple strudel better than a summabitch.” 

He laughed out loud at his own joke, his chuckle thicker than his waist was, the sound squeezing what little breathe was left in my undernourished body. 

I saw red. Or maybe that was just the color of the room. Hotter than hell. Filled with the August Kansan sun and the silent hate of noisy neighbors who didn’t give two shits that it was my ninth birthday…and my mother was dead.

The hole in my chest dug even further. And still I stayed quiet.

“At least, Barbara’s friends aren’t bad to look at.” Allen Decker laughed, a slur to his words as he elbowed the man beside him. “Every last…both of them. Not even Sam actually showed up to his own wife’s freakin’ funeral”

The new neighbor tsk’ed, sucking his teeth. “Old fella wasn’t much for funerals, I’m guessing?”

“Or family, that matter. Barely visits to even see his boy these days, so I heard it.”

The last sentence was like the last anvil on my chest, sinking even further. The gape in the center of my heart hit max density, and I struggled to inhale, the sunlight before my eyes starting to blur as my consciousness faded in and out, the black hole in my head threatening to suck me down with it.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

I squeezed my eyelids tight, counting down the seconds until the hour is up, each one slower than the last. But it didn’t help.

I shot to my feet, nearly knocking my grandma’s couch over, hearing the tiny legs against the carpet scratch. The small crowd in the living room looked over.

I avoided every single eye swinging towards me. Especially the blue ones coming from the corner. 

Ripping the dark clip-on tie from my neck,  I placed one foot in front of the other until I hit the first spit of asphalt outside, listening to the front screen door slam as I swung the partition behind me.

The garden outside my grandma’s house was thick with weeds as I stared, the ground swimming beneath my feet. Didn’t matter. On shaky legs, I hopped through it, my feet slapping against the concrete as I reached the street, tears streaming.

The hollow in my heart filled with the tears I promised I wouldn’t shed, but I let them flow anyway, feeling myself drown. I paused for a breath, pulse pounding in the middle of the tumbleweeded street, head hurting.

At least my feet still worked. That much, I knew.

I picked up my foot again, grateful to at least have those, when I felt something cool wrap itself around my wrist. Something strange. Something unexpected.

Glancing down, I found a hand on mine, the skin cool to the touch—almost cold.

The blue-eyed girl from the living room had clasped a hand around my skinny arm, squeezing lightly.

And I remember doing nothing—feeling nothing, saying nothing—my feet on temporary pause, my head muddled as I stared at this strange girl.

This wide-eyed girl. A girl with pretty clothes on. With shoes to nice to know anything about holes.

Big, gaping, heart-eating holes like mine.

But I let her touch me. Let her tiny fingers drop my wrist back to my side. Let her lick her lips before speaking, her words slow, her little sighs even slower as she clashed her stare with mine, her small shoulders straightened as she held her head high and said, “Heard it was your birthday.”

I shocked myself by nodding. She blinked.

“It’s my birthday, too. Just wanted to tell you ‘Happy Birthday’ before you left.”

And, to my surprise, that cave inside my chest, the one filled with tears…

Well, in that moment, it shrunk just a little bit, stopped growing the second she blinked those aqua blue eyes in front of me, exhaled a bit…and smiled.

I couldn’t swear to it…but I may have smiled back.

__________

CHAPTER 1

PRESENT DAY

Saturday afternoon

DEACON

“Kevin, tell me you have something on underneath that…thing.” 

I’d point…but I can’t risk the beer in my cup slipping to the floor. It would be the fifth one I’ve dropped today, not counting the sixth I inhaled in the bathroom stall a half an hour ago, and as a new business owner I could only afford to lose but so much money.

I was already digging myself out of hole.

It’s a good thing the taste of beer number six is still on my tongue, making my head swim.

The strong, fragrant aroma of wheat, barley and bad decisions follow me as I pass by the elongated oak bar to my right and under the dim amber lighting of New York City’s best-kept secret of a bar, known to all who love it as The Alchemist, I can feel the hairs on the edge of my skin rise, my own pulse picking up pace.

I can’t believe how much has changed in the last six months.

Rounding the corner with another set of the same beers we’ve arranged for tonight, for the biggest party we’ve ever thrown, it’s almost as if I can also taste the nerves in the room, the tension made even worse when I see what my general manager is wearing.

I stop. 

“Kevin?” I verbally press the round-waisted, bearded man in front of me, standing there…in a kilt—this slip of red and green material shorter than my senior prom date’s dress.

I set the beers aside, pushing them to the edge of a nearby wooden table as he faces me, his normally ruddy cheeks beet-red. He grins, a sheepish look on his face as he glances down, his eyebrows rising high.

“Well, that answer depends, boss,” he finally lets out, his shoulder lifting in a half-shrug.

I stare. “On what exactly?”

“On whether or not you’d like me to lie to you…”

“Jesus.” I rub a hand across my forehead, hoping to erase the crease that’s settling in there. I glance at Nancy—seemingly my only employee I can trust in this nut house. “Nance, did you make sure the shipments of Guiness are in?”

“Sure did.” The red-haired bartender nods behinds the world’s biggest bar, her green eyes bright. “Every single box accounted for.”

I inhale. “Did you double-check?”

“Triple.” She smiles with a wink.

“Fantastic.” I nod towards Andrew, the server. “Nice job on the decorations, Drew. Everything looks great.”

The recent college grad beams, his hairless chin raised. “Has to be, boss.” He slaps a white towel in his hand over his shoulder before clapping a palm on mine, his heavy hand landing just across my back. “Sevin Smith only retires from the Yankees once. And he only has one retirement party from his beloved city of New York.”

I take another deep breath. Damn straight he does.

The confidence of my team is enough to make a new owner proud. Inside the wooden, gray-painted walls of my little Manhattan bar, I should feel like the king of my castle, the proud purveyor of a good time to be had by all.

I’m a lucky bastard. Lucky enough to throw the “unofficial retirement party” for Sevin Smith—old friend, the National Baseball League’s Most Valuable Player and the best thing to ever happen to New York City.

When the New York Yankees decided to trade Sevin just before the league’s summer deadline, the city collectively gasped. Very few things were more traumatic to NYC sports fans than the thought that Sevin—star second-fielder—would go to rival team, the Chicago Cougars.

But here we were… On the eve of watching one of our citywide treasure walk-away.

Baseball enthusiasts, women and sexually-curious men were crying all over the state tonight.

Me? I was trying to stay sane amidst the madness. And all the while missing the one person I knew should be here.

I try to keep my mind from straying to Kayla and a certain call I’ve been waiting to come through when Kevin, again, cuts into my thoughts. 

His dark beard bobs.

“So, uh, Deacon…you think I could get you alone for a minute?” He motions over his shoulder. “In the back of the bar?”

I glance down at his kilt. “Seriously, Kevin?”

He raises his meaty hands in the air. “No funny business, I swear. Just to talk.”

I sigh, swiping wasted-cup-of-beer-number-seven. Taking a sip from its edge, I resist the temptation to swallow the entire drink. Finding an ounce of willpower, I let the lager settle in my system, soothing my frayed senses.

Raising one finger, I yell out. “You’ve got one minute, Kev…But not before you slip on a pair of boxers or briefs…” My stare slants. “That’s a non-negotiable.”

I disappear behind the back of the bar, stepping into my square closet of an office. The air feels tighter in the small dark space, more restricted, but less than two minutes later, Kevin joins, filling the tiny area with his large frame—supposedly with a fresh pair of underwear on.

Not wanting to know where he got the new underwear, I suppress a small shudder, sitting on the edge of my desk as Kev clears his throat, his normally half-hooded eyes wide. He inhales.

I blink. “So what’s this about, Kev? Is there something you need from me? More hours? More money?” I hesitate. “More lotion for those bare knees you insist on showing beneath that skirt?”

He chuckles, a low sound that rumbles lightly in the office. “What makes you think I want something?”

I tilt my head. “You’ve got the look of a man who’s missing out on more than just a pair of clean drawers.”

Kevin shakes his head, a smile forming on his lips as he closes his eyes briefly, his normally jolly demeanor peeking—for just a sec—behind a curtain of his awkward shiftiness. I sit and wait.

“As you know,” he begins, “we’ve been having some trouble with the bar lately…”

I lift my chin. “Only the financial and legal kind.”

“Right. Well, with some unknown making it a point to call the cops on us every weekend for whatever person capacity, fire or city code they think we’ve violated that day, we’ve been having a lot of money go out of the door…”

“Tell me about it…”

“And the stolen shipments of our latest IPAs haven’t helped,” he continues, his face growing a bit redder with every passing minute. He huffs. “With the renovations we took when you took over the bar from your mom, that leaves us with very little leg-room when it comes to financing events.” I watch Kevin swallow heavily, his fleshy chin hanging by just a bit. “Like tonight’s party…”

“Ah, I see,” I say, Kev’s point finally emerging. I straighten to my feet, pushing away from the edge of my desk, my own arms crossing over my chest. I stretch to my full height. “And you just wanted to warn me.”

“Well….yeah.”

My general manager—as big as a bull and much more gentle than a mouse—sighs, the weight of the world seemingly on his shoulders. My chest twists at the sight of the worry on his face.

Worry for me. Worry for the bar.

His concern—as sugary sweet as it is—makes my throat tighten, and though I’ve only officially been the owner of The Alchemist for six whole months, my mouth goes dry at the thought of all that I’ve inherited from my stepfather’s untimely demise.

With his recent passing and the passing of the bar he once owned with my mother shifting to me, I’ve not only taken on his fortune, but his problems as well. 

His bar. His debts. His business. His people.

People that, in just six months, have managed to worm their way into my existence in a way I could have never seen coming.

I want to tell Kevin that we’ll be fine. That the bar will be fine. That the expenses it took to throw tonight’s upcoming party will be offset by the scores of New Yorkers who will flock here to celebrate Sevin.

I want to tell him lies.

But a small twinge of doubt traps the words behind my teeth, numbing my tongue. And just as I open my mouth to speak, that damn cell that I’ve been staring at all evening finally rings, cutting the silence into two.

I glance down at it, reading the one name I’ve been waiting to appear all day. My eyes flicker up to Kevin’s face.

He nods, needing no instructions. “I get it. Feel free to take your time…”

I sigh. “Sorry about this, Kev. I’ve just…been kinda waiting for this call for a while now.”

“Say no more.” The teddy bear of a man turns towards the door. “We’ll talk later.”

I nod at him, and he shuts my office door. I answer the phone in my hand, clearing my throat, my voice a rasp that I can barely hear. 

“Deacon here.”

“Deacon.” My lawyer Emily breathes my name. “I’m glad you picked up. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

I think back to the party, back to Kev briefly, brushing both aside against my will. I lick my lips. “No, not at all.”

“Good, good,” she repeats, her small voice even smaller than I remember. “Are you sitting down?”

“Do I need to be?”

“Well, it might help. Gives you a shorter distance to the ground when you pass out from the news. I wasn’t sitting when I heard so I figured I might warn ya.”

I exhale, my breath leaving my lungs in a rush. I clutch the phone harder. “How bad are the hospital bills?”

“Bad,” she says plainly, no hint of humor in her voice. “Your grandmother’s been through the worst part of her surgery, but there’s a lot more recovery involved. And she has no insurance…”

“The woman never did believe in it much.”

Emily snorts softly. “A dangerous concept in a place like Chicago.”

“At least her belief system doesn’t discriminate. Should have seen how the tooth fairy and Santa Claus took it to heart when she banned them from the house.”

Emily laughs again—this time harder. “Grandmama June sure is tough.”

“The toughest.” I smile. “In a fight against Mike Tyson, you know who my money would be on…”

“I’d take that bet myself.” I can hear Emily grin, but it does nothing to calm the beating of my suddenly galloping heart. “Just send me the bills.”

“Will do,” I hear from Emily’s end of the line. “Oh and Deacon?”

“Yeah?”

“Hang in there.” Her voice is but a sigh. “The hardest part of your grandmother’s health ordeal is almost over…”

I hang up shortly after, not mentioning to Emily that though my grandma’s massive heart attack and recovery is on its way to being over—thank God…mine is not. 

I somehow have to figure out a way to tell my bar employees that we might be on the brink of collapse. Drowning in a sea of hospital bills and New York City code violations might not be the worst way to die…but the guilt sure as hell will be the most agonizing way to go.

__________

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Happy Wednesday!