Crossing the Bridge by Michael Baron Read Free Book Online Page B

ten years before but, like that look, it suggested that she had experienced our moment differently than I had. And I didn’t know what to make of it. After all, she had reached for me. But in the end, something about kissing me, something about an act that had sent my imagination whirling, had caused her to retreat into herself.

    It felt a little strange to me that while I had been kissing Iris this time, I hadn’t thought about Chase at all. In fact, I hadn’t thought about Chase until I was back in the bar with a double espresso. I’d played a medley of guilt and frustration before settling into the slow jam of confusion that I was still working on while I stood in the store.
    As Amber High let out, the place got a little busier, allowing me to move on to other things, at least occasionally. Tab’s shift ended and a high school senior named Merry came on. Merry didn’t seem to take the store any more seriously than Tab had, but she was at least willing to make the effort to ring up a greeting card or show a customer where the all-occasion wrapping paper was.
    Merry had been in the store about fifteen minutes when Iris walked in. I went over to her as soon as I saw her and then pulled up short when I got within five feet, suddenly remembering that her personal space was decidedly not mine.
    “Do you have a couple of minutes?” she asked. I nodded and we started walking down the street.
    “I’m getting ready to head back home,” she said, and then added, pointing back in the other direction, “the dog’s already in the car.”
    “I’m glad you stopped by. It was really good seeing you the last few days.”
    “Yeah, it was great seeing you.” She looked over at me quickly and then looked back ahead. “I didn’t want to leave without talking to you a little about what happened last night.”
    I assumed that anything I said at that point would
either be inappropriate or make me feel foolish, so I simply kept listening.
    “I was a little surprised when that happened,” she said. “I mean, I know it was me who started it, but I was just a little surprised that I did it. It had just been so good talking to you and it was kind of fun seeing you after all this time. And it just brought up a lot of stuff – good stuff. You said that thing about missing me and I just got . . . inspired, I guess. Then when we kissed, it was a lot more intense than I was expecting it to be.”
    “I felt that, too,” I said, still not entirely sure where this was going and hoping that letting her know that I shared the experience might help.
    She pursed her lips and didn’t make eye contact. “That’s why it would be a really big mistake to do anything with it.”
    Even though only a few minutes before I hadn’t been sure that I was ever going to see her again and was positive that if I did she would say something like this, I felt deflated. “What do you mean?”
    “You know, with everything that’s between us and all.” I could see out of the corner of my eye that she glanced over at me. “You aren’t going to tell me that it wouldn’t feel very weird if we actually went after this, are you?”
    “I’m not sure what I’m thinking about it, to tell you the truth.”
    “Yeah, well, there’s a major difference between the two of us. I’ve been thinking about it constantly since last night.”
    I could have – in fact should have – clarified
myself, but there didn’t seem to be much point to it. By the time I was out of college, I had decided that no relationship was worth pursuing if the pursuit required convincing the other party. The fact that Iris had come to the store – with the dog waiting to go home – with the express purpose of clearing up any romantic misinterpretations I might have had was enough to make me just wish the entire encounter was over. I simply laughed, turned, and took a couple of steps in the direction of her car.
    “Can I meet your dog?” I said.
    Iris’ expression relaxed. She