Kissing Fire by A.M. Hargrove Read Free Book Online

you doing here?” That was the most
unwelcoming welcome I’d ever heard.
    “Uh, I, ah, er,” my mouth had gone suddenly bone
dry. He just kept staring at me with that awful look on his
face.
    Caroline came to my rescue and she said, “Justin,
your sister’s taken a new job in Seattle. Isn’t that
wonderful?”
    Justin’s face just went from awful to ghastly. Then
I knew it was time for me to leave.
    In a voice that wasn’t my own, I said, “Yeah, I, uh,
I’ve taken a job with SoftwarePlus. I’ll be living out here. But I
won’t be a bother to you. I just wanted to stop by to say hey. So,
‘Hey.’” I held my hand up in the air and did a little Queen
Elizabeth wave.
    I turned around to leave but I
didn’t know how to get the hell out of there. I just walked. I went
down one hall. I followed it to a room and it was a dead end. I
turned around and went down another hall where it did the same. I
finally ended up at an exterior door and walked out to their back
yard that had the most magnificent view of the water.
    Shiz, I can’t even make a decent exit.
    I wandered around the yard, thinking that maybe it
would lead me to the front, but it was walled off. I turned around
and slammed right into Justin’s chest. Then I immediately broke
down and cried. What the hell was wrong with me?
    He didn’t say anything until my tears turned into
the sniffles and I was making those awful gurfing noises.
    “You better now?” he asked as he patted my back.
    “How can someone that sounds like this be
better?”
    “That’s what Caroline always says. Why the
tears?”
    “I was humiliated. You looked at me like I’d grown
an extra head. I know I’ve grown an extra stomach, but I still only
have one head.”
    “I was surprised is all Ava. You were the last
person I thought I’d see today. And there you stood. I was
processing. You haven’t been around me in such a long time. You’re
not used to my goofy assed looks you know. They’re usually
disguised by a surgical mask too. I’m gonna have to make a note of
that.”
    “You’re not mad that I’m here?”
    “You thought I was mad at you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Of course I’m not mad.”
    “Not even for all of our past crap?”
    “Oh hell, Ava, that shit is so old already. It’s
been long gone for me.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. So Seattle, huh?”
    “Yeah. You should’ve seen Mom when I told her.”
    He pulled back and looked me in the eye. “You did it
yourself, with no one running interference?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, I’ll be damned. My baby sister is all grown
up.”
     
    ********
     
    We walked back in the house, arm in arm.
    “Dayam, Justin, this is some kind of a house you’ve
got here.”
    “So I’ve been told,” he laughed.
    He walked me back to where Caroline and that other
guy were. They were sitting and talking, with some kind of baseball
game in the background on TV. When we entered, the guy stood up and
Caroline said, “Avery, I’d like you to meet my br...” but at that
point, the hot guy interrupted and said, “Friend.”
    The three of them looked at each other and I was
sort of lost in the shuffle. I jumped in and said, “Hi, I’m
Avery.”
    Caroline said, “Avery, that’s Pres...”
    And hot guy interrupted again and said, “Miles.”
    “Nice to meet you Presmiles.”
    He laughed and said, “No, it’s just Miles. Miles
Patterson.”
    I nodded and said, “Okay Just Miles. You’ve got
it.”
    Boy oh boy, was Just Miles hot. Make that boiling.
Scorching. Molten lava kind of hot. Messy dark brown, slightly wavy
hair that was not long but not short either. And, oh what a mouth
he had. It made me want to jump on board and ride that train for
life. His lips were the perfect kind of full and every so often,
he’d run his tongue across them and I’d automatically squirm. His
face was pure angular perfection...high cheekbones with those
slight hollows beneath them, that were the perfect shape to
accommodate my lips. But those