I walk away from Prescott with my thermos and mugs but as soon as I’m around the corner and sure he can’t see me, I run. The sidewalk is icy and there’s a good chance I might fall and break both my arms, not to mention the two precious midcentury ladybug mugs I’m carrying in the tote, but I don’t care. I need to get as far away from him as I can. I run all the way back to my apartment and up the stairs straight to Lizard’s room. I open the door. The lights are off and she is clearly sound asleep. I sit down next to her snoring face.
“Lizard, are you awake?” I ask shoving her with my hand. She doesn’t move. “Lizard,” I say a little louder but my shove is more like a strong poke.
“Get your finger out of my belly button,” she grumbles through clenched teeth, eyes still closed.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” I say turning on the lamp next to her and crawling into her bed.
“Danny, what are you doing? I gotta work a double tomorrow.” She puts her pillow over her head and turns the lamp off.
“He kissed me,” I announce.
“Oh, crap,” I hear from under the pillow.
“I know, right?” I say in agreement.
“Not you,” she says, removing the pillow and sitting up like a jack-in-the-box that has just been released. She turns the lamp on. “Oh crap, me. I owe Vince twenty bucks. He had tonight. I had next Tuesday. It was the only square left by the time it got to me.”
“Please don’t tell me what I think you are telling me. There isn’t a pool about me and Prescott kissing. Tell me there isn’t.”
“Okay, there isn’t,” she says in a tone that tells me there absolutely is. “But, can you lend me twenty bucks?”
“This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I don’t need this pressure. I don’t want to be with anyone right now, you know that.”
“Then why did you kiss him?”
“That’s not exactly how it happened.” I sigh, lying down next to her in bed and staring up at the ceiling. I thought maybe once I broke the spell of the moonlight I would be able to stop thinking about how his lips felt on mine, but it’s all I can think of.
“How exactly did it happen?”
“He kissed me,” I say. “He kissed me.” It’s so hard for me to believe that I have to say it out loud twice. “Can you believe it, Lizard?”
“What are you talking about? Of course I can believe it. It’s so obvious he has a thing for you. I saw how he was looking at you at the meeting. At one point I thought Serilda was going to put on Luther Vandross, light some candles and make us all leave so the two of you could get it on.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” I say waving her away.
I close my eyes. I have to struggle to push the image of Prescott’s face so close to mine out my brain. I don’t want to be the center of town gossip. “This is bad. So bad.”
“Why? He kissed you. That’s great. How was it?”
“Wonderful,” I say immediately. The word races out of my mouth before my brain can stop it. The truth is it was wonderful. I felt connected to him, and the kiss was such a natural progression. “It couldn’t have been more perfect except for the small fact that it never should have happened.”
“Why? Because you work together? So what? It’s not like you’re his boss or he’s yours.”
Certainly working together is an issue. Not an issue of a power imbalance but still it’s a bit of an issue. The bigger issue is more complicated.
I sit on the bed and hold my legs. Lizard does the same and grabs my hands. “Danny, what’s going on? Just tell me.”
I’m intentionally silent for a few moments.
“Is it Paul?”
My throat and the muscles in my back tighten.
“I’m sorry he hurt you that way,” she says putting her hand on my chest and rubbing gently. “That guy is such a...”
“I know. He is. I mean, he was. I’m not hung up on Paul. I’m not. It’s just that...” I can barely finish the sentence. Finding Paul in our bed with another man was so painful. My mind flashes to walking in on them naked and entwined. Waiting in the kitchen as the personal trainer that I paid for each week got dressed. Discovering he had maxed out three of my credit cards. I trusted him and thought he loved me. But I was so wrapped up in pleasing him that I couldn’t see the truth. That’s more painful than anything else. When Paul said he was stressed I immediately booked a trip to Costa Brava. When he was bored with his workout I hired an exclusive personal trainer for him. Not my greatest idea.
“Lizard,” I say and swallow hard. “The problem is when I fall for a guy I completely lose myself and ruin the entire thing. Paul turned out to be a colossal jerk, but if I hadn’t jumped in so hard and fast I would have seen the signs. I don’t want to do that again. I want to focus on my business not someone else right now. I can’t.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Lizard says brushing her hand on my arm for comfort. Her care makes me feel a bit more confident in my decision,
“Signing the lease for the shop wasn’t just about starting a new business. It’s about starting a new chapter in my life. Leaving my family’s shadow to start something on my own, supporting myself with my own income. Standing on my own two feet. With Paul I was throwing money around to the point that I didn’t even know who I was or why I was doing it. I do it all the time with guys and I don’t want to do that again.”
“Danny, if you really have feelings for this guy you won’t act like you did with Paul. And you aren’t the kind of person who can hold back their emotions. That isn’t you. You always follow your heart even when it leads you down some rough roads.”
“Well, not tonight. For the first time ever I found the emergency brake. I could feel things heating up and before it could go any further I jumped up and pushed him away.”
“Huh? I don’t get it. What did you do?” she asks yawning but engaged.
“Oh, Lizard, it was awful. I’m so embarrassed.” I cringe thinking about how mean it was but it was a fight or flight moment and I chose both. “I started taking pictures, which was the pretense for being out there in the first place. I just got up midkiss... I was enjoying it too much. I knew deep down that if it went on even a second longer it would be too late. I knew I’d be hooked on him. But I’m not sure I got away in time.”
“So now he thinks it was just a what? A lip slip?”
“Yes, that’s it. A lip slip. One that will never happen again.”
I smile at her, hoping she will believe me. Pulling away from Prescott was painful and immature. I know it. I felt like a kid who gets his tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole on a dare. I loved having our tongues entwined and waiting to see what would happen next but I had to stop it. I had to shut it down because the fact is I could very easily fall for Prescott and once I start falling I’m all in and start trusting guys I shouldn’t and doing things I shouldn’t. It’s better to stop it before it gets out of control again, right?
“Hey, Lizard?” I ask softly. “Is it okay if I just sleep in here with you tonight?” I ask. Her bed is huge and we’ve done this before when one of us had a stressful day or disaster date. It just feels good to sleep and know that there is someone near you sometimes.
“Of course.” She turns off the lamp and rolls over to the other side of the bed and starts snoring.
I stare up at the ceiling. The Snow Moon creates shadows so crisp that the branches from the tree outside the window appear like shadow puppets across the room. I notice one branch intertwined with another that creates a cluster of dark shapes that combine to create one continuous figure. It might as well be a silhouette of Prescott and me on the bench in the snow kissing. I close my eyes and try to sleep holding on to that beautiful image, but I know that once the sun rises, the shadows will have disappeared.