Forgotten Kisses.

Max carefully pulled into the driveway and I looked up at the house and saw all the lights were off, signaling everyone inside had gone to sleep. All I wanted to do at this point was go to my room, throw myself onto my bed and never wake up.

I reached down, grabbing my purse and I reached for the handle of the door. The night was finally over, and I had survived Hanna’s harsh jabs that had continued on all through the night.

Max placed the car in park and shut off the engine of the car, halting my movements. I turned to face him and he sighed, giving me an apologetic look. “Don’t worry about Hanna too much,” he spoke up after a few seconds. “She wont last long.”

My eyes met his hazel ones and he seemed to be deep in thought. “A girl like that,” he shook his head. “She isn’t the kind of girl for Josh. He’s confused right now, but he’ll come around.”

I nodded my head and kept quiet. I didn’t know what to say. I hoped she wouldn’t last long, seeing her with Josh killed me inside and I kept thinking her harsh words would pull Josh into reality, but he seemed to be under a trance.

“You mean a lot to him, Lia. I know sometimes you might feel like he doesn’t care, but he does.” A small smile peaked onto my lips at his words. “And if it counts, I think youre a lot prettier than Hanna.” Max’s face reddened a bit at his own words.

“Thanks Max. That really means a lot to me.” I reached forward and hugged him tightly, my arms wrapping tightly around his neck, while his rested firmly around my waist. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I know Hanna was being a bitch the whole time, but besides her, did you at least have fun with me?” Max asked, his familiar grin making its appearance as he nervously scratched the back of his head.

“Of course I did, Max. We always have fun together, don’t we?” I responded, my smile matching his as he stared at each other intently.

“Well good, I’m glad I could make your night at least somewhat bearable after that slag went around trying to ruin the night.”

I let out a yawn and I once again glanced up towards my house. My bed was calling and I couldn’t put it off any longer. “I think it’s time for me to go inside, Max. I can barely keep my eyes open any longer.”

Max nodded his head and turned to face my house as well. “Yeah, you’re right, it is a bit late, isn’t it?”

I turned to get out of the car again, but before I could get far, Max had reached out and turned my face towards him, and in a matter of a millisecond, Max’s soft lips were on mine.

To say I was shocked was an understatement. I had no clue Max had any feelings for me at all. And I was pretty sure I only harbored feelings for Josh. But as his lips meshed against mine, I couldn’t help but notice how nice they felt. And soon enough, I was kissing him back with just as much passion as he was.

His hands reached forward and one was placed behind my neck and the other was on the side of my face. I leaned closer to Max and soon enough I was coming across the center console. My own hands had settled into his mess of hair, my fingers knotting themselves in the strands.

I don’t know how long our make out lasted, but once we pulled away from each other, the car seemed to be filled with hot air and I could’ve sworn that the windows were a bit fogged.

“I’m sorry, Lia. I don’t know why I-“ Max began apologizing, but I cut him short.

“Goodnight Max,” I told him, and my smile was present on my face as I gave him one last glance before pulling open the door.

“Night, Lia.” He barely murmured and once I had reached my front door, he had pulled out of my driveway and began on his drive back home. I bit my lip, watching the car disappear. I guess tonight wasn’t a complete disaster.

“I’m so glad you invited me to come with you, Dahlia.” Catherine smiled as she sat beside me in the plush chair as we waited for the wedding planner Alex had hired.

“It’s no problem,” I told her as I set my phone down. “ I needed a girl’s help with all the wedding plans anyways, and I know you loved this kind of stuff.”

The door opened to reveal a tall girl stepping inside, her smile present as she walked towards us. At first, I merely retunred the smile, not really paying the girl much attention, seeing as most of the people Alex worked with were complete assholes, but once she took the seat before me, I felt my jaw loosen a bit.

I took a moment to finally taken in her appearance; her long brown hair, with just a steak of blonde in the side, her flawless skin, her ocean blue eyes to match with Josh’s. There was no way. There was no possible way this was happening.

“Hi there, you must be Dahila.” Her perfectly straight white teeth seemed to be teasing me. “I’m Tasmin and I’ll be working with you to create the perfect wedding for you and Alex.”

I was still in shock. Her appearance was no longer just coincidence. This was her, this was the Tasmin. The one from Josh’s photos he had all over his room.

“Hello again, Ms. Catherine.” Tasmin smiled and Catherine grinned, reaching forward to give the girl a hug.

“Darling,” Catherine turned towards me. “Your wedding is going to be perfect! Tasmin is such a sweet girl and has plenty of talent to match.”

After two hours of looking through venues, sampling trays of food to serve, and choosing the primary colors for the theme, we had finished for the day. Catherine headed out to the car and as I was gathering up my purse and the many items I had to take home to decide on before our next meeting, Tasmin’s voice filled the silent room.

“Do you go by Lia, by any chance?”

I turned to face her and her blue eyes seemed to be watching me with curiosity, or that’s what I pegged that look to be anyways.

“I used to,” I replied, my brows furrowed a bit by her odd question. “Why do you ask?”

“We never got a chance to meet,” she came forward, holding out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you from Josh.” She let out a soft giggle. “ I was beginning to think you weren’t real. If it wasn’t for all of the pictures he has of you two.”

I gave a small smile and had to pull it off as if I hadn’t been so interested in Josh’s love life. As if his life really wasn’t any of my business. “If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know Josh?”

“Well, it’s pretty complicated.” She laughed, “We’re dating, but it’s on and off.”

I formed my mouth in the shape of an O and nodded my head slowly as if in understanding. “Not to be rude, but I went to dinner with Josh and the guys two nights ago and Hanna Warnes was with him.”

She laughed once again, and I found it annoying, how no matter how many times she laughed, it was still a beautiful sound and I found myself wondering how that was even possible. “Yeah, she tends to leech onto him the moment we take a break from eachother.” She seemed to be in thought for a moment.

“Don’t you worry about her? Like worry that she’ll grab a hold on him and you two won’t be together when you want to make up?” I realized the moment the words fell from my lips that I sounded a little bit too interested in their relationship and I felt like an idiot.

She instantly shook her head and her blue eyes met mine. “No, because he was never mine to begin with.”

My brows furrowed. “I thought they were just for fun, I didn’t know they were anything serious.”

This time, she shook her head again, and yet another sweet laugh fell from her lips. “He’s never belonged to her either.”

I was confused at this point. How many girls was Josh with while I was gone? I knew it was naïve to think he wouldn’t have any girlfriends all this time, but I truly was shocked when I came to realize that he had, had luck in the department. I guess I always thought no one saw him the way I did. “Then who does he belong to?” I could only imagine the gorgeous girl Josh had, had a fling with and in turn the girl had stolen his heart and could care less. But I wanted to know, needed to know. I wasn’t sure why I was so keen on knowing, it wasn’t any of my business, and for God’s sake, I was getting married to Alex, it shouldn’t matter at all, but it did and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t care even if I wanted to.

Tasmin opened her mouth to respond, but closed it soon after, and took a moment to glance down at the watch on her tanned wrist. “Actually, I’ve got to be going. I’ve got lunch with a client, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late.” She walked over to her desk, grabbing her bag and her manila envelope. “I’ll see you next week, yeah?” she gave me one last smile before walking to the door, and holding it open.

I walked myself out and headed to the car with my face contorted in thought. This conversation was obviously over, and I would never have the chance to bring it up again; seeing as I’d look utterly pathetic trying to find out every aspect of Josh’s life. And I certainly couldn’t bring it up to Josh. I could already picture the conversation in my mind, and it didn’t run smoothly.

’Oh Josh, I was working with my new wedding planner, Tasmin. You might know her, you two are madly in love and your room is filled with pictures of the two of you? Yeah, her. Anyways, she was telling me that neither her nor Hanna own your heart, and as much as I hate to quote Miley Cyrus, who owns your heart?’

Yeah. The whole situation would just be a little too awkward and unbearable for me to handle. It was most likely a sign, if it’s not your business, stay out of it. I needed to focus on Alex anyways, seeing as he was my fiancé.

&&

“Lia!”

I turned around at the sound of my name being called. Once I noticed it was Josh, I continued pulling the grocery bags from the car. I heard his footsteps as he quickly made his way across the street and come to stand beside me. He reached into my car without another word and grabbed the remaining bags.

“Sorry about dinner the other night,” he apologized once we began walking towards the front door. “Oli, he’s a little hard to get used to at first, but he’s a good guy. He didn’t mean anything by the way he was acting. I hope you or Alex didn’t get offended or anything.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I said quickly and opened the front door. I quickly stepped inside and set the bags onto the kitchen table. Immediately, I dug into the bags and began unloading the groceries. Josh came in behind me and followed suit by pulling each and every grocery from the bag. My eyes watched him from underneath my lashes as I pretended to focus on putting everything away. He closed his eyes and rubbed gently at his face. As he opened his eyes and brought his eyes to meet mine, I quickly averted my eyes to the box of pasta into my hand.

“You alright?” Josh asked, his eyes slightly furrowed as he kept his gaze intently on me.

I nodded my head and put the boxes into the pantry. “I’m fine.” I responded and grabbed the few cold items and carefully placed them into the correct spots in the fridge.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, Josh. I’m sure.” I spoke a little harsher and I watched as his eyed widened a bit before he grabbed a few of the groceries and put them away in their proper places in the kitchen.

“Well, I didn’t come to argue with you, Lia.” He started out, and he leaned against the fridge as his eyes landed on my outfit choice for the day. I self-consciously tugged on my navy sweater. “We’re going out tonight, all the lads, we’re going to this club that just opened downtown.” His eyes seemed to stay glued to my outfit. “I just wanted to invite the two of you to come along.”

“I don’t know, Josh. Alex really isn’t the type to go out to places like that.” I tried to argue with him. I couldn’t keep putting myself in the situations where Josh would be constantly around me. It would cause me to forget that I was in fact engaged, that I had a man beside me who loved me. All I would be able to focus on would be Josh, and every single little thing he did.

“Then you just come.” Josh shrugged his shoulders as if it was the simplest thing in the world, like he had solved the solution that easily.

“Josh, I’m not just going to leave my fiancé alone all night while I’m out getting drunk and doing God knows what.”

“Lia, come on.” He whined , I haven’t seen you in two years and then you come back, engaged and all this shit, you’re going to get married soon, and then you’re just going to take off and probably never talk to us again. The least you can do is hang out with us some while you’re here.”

I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh. He always had a way with words, especially when using his talent on me. It didn’t take much to break me, and it was clearly evident in the way that I was giving in. The way he put the situations always made me feel so bad; as much as id like to disagree, I knew once Alex and I were married and returned home, the only people in England that id keep in contact with would be Dad and Catherine. Josh was right, I did owe them at least this much.

“Fine.” I sighed. “What time?”

He grinned and pushed off from the fridge, heading towards the door. “Be ready around eleven, I’ll pick you up, sound good, yeah?”

“Whatever.” I sighed, and once he gave me his familiar smirk, I couldn’t help but smile.

I was in trouble. He had always been the death of me. Tonight would only prove that further.