Hiding Place

“Wait for me,” Amelia called from the kitchen before running back into the living room of her and Marcus’ apartment. She had a bowl of chips and another jug of margarita mix. Every year before Danielle and I headed back to San Francisco, the three of us had a girls’ night. We spent the evening watching romantic comedies, talking about guys and drinking.

Of course this year, the focus of conversation was not guys in general. No, the focus became, at least for now, Logan and me. Something I did not want to discuss. If anything, I hoped to avoid this particular topic of conversation. Danielle and I were in San Jose for three more days after tonight, there was no need to talk about him. It wasn’t going to happen; at least I didn’t think so.

Danielle took the margarita mix and poured the three of us another round. We were now on our third jug – and I was pretty sure my fourth margarita – Amelia mentioned something about only having enough mix to make four jugs, of course earlier we thought that was going to be plenty. “So,” she announced. “He kissed you on the beach, then what?” Danielle already knew this story, I told her as soon as I saw her. She was just drawing the whole thing out for Amelia.

“No,” Amelia interrupted. Well really, she spoke before I could even open my mouth. “You can’t just skip the details of the kiss. How was it?”

I could feel my cheeks turning red. I wished I could pawn it off on the tequila but I doubted that excuse would fly with Amelia and it definitely would not with Danielle, they both knew me too well to believe me. The way I handled the discussion we had after the kiss resonated in my mind and didn’t give me much of an opportunity to even think about the kiss, but now that I was thinking about it…

The thoughts sent a rush of warmth through me and resulted in a shiver down my spine. “Easily top three,” I spoke softly before taking a long sip of my margarita.

My best friend raised an eyebrow at me. This was something we hadn’t discussed when the kiss happened. “So you’re saying with that setting, with that situation, he still ranks behind that asshole Curt Olson?”

She had to bring up Curt. He was on the guys’ soccer team and a couple of years older than Danielle and me. Looking back on it now, he was a total asshole.

“Gross,” I rolled my eyes. “Curt Olson is not even in the top five.”

“Name your top three then,” Danielle challenged.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly to gather my thoughts. “Oliver Hill, Logan and Ryan Turner,” I said quickly and hoped that the names blurred together somehow. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself but I could almost guarantee that I would have to thanks to someone’s five-margarita hearing.

Amelia gave me a light shove. “Who was Oliver again?”

My lips curled into a smile at the memories. I still kept in touch – thanks to Facebook mostly – with Oliver. We dated for two years in high school – grade ten and eleven – he was perfect, at least in my eyes, until he and his family moved to Boston when his dad got transferred out there. “Sophomore and junior year,” I mumbled into my orange margarita glass. Amelia raised her eyebrows at me. “Of high school.”

“He was pretty cute,” Danielle added. “But not as cute as Logan.”

My only comeback to that was to throw a couple of chips at Danielle who dodged them with ease. My throwing accuracy definitely weakened when I was drinking tequila.

“So,” Amelia slurred as she sipped at her margarita. She was sprawled out on the couch with a content grin on her face. “Details now Emma.”

I had absolutely no idea where to start. “Well,” I tried to stall and hide behind my margarita glass. The kiss was on replay in my head, like it had been for the last couple of days. And only half of the time did the moment crushing discussion accompany it. “He was sweet and surprisingly gentle. It wasn’t overpowering or completely lame either. It was just… Perfect I guess.”

Amelia sighed and let out an ‘awww’. Danielle on the other hand shook her head and added, “You’re an idiot dude.”

Rather than remaining sprawled out on the couch, Amelia sat up quickly, “What? What did you do?” She stared at me with a concerned look on her face like I did something wrong, as usual.

“You didn’t hear what she did after the kiss?” Danielle feigned shock.

“He just had to ruin the moment by asking me that!” I tried to defend what happened but I knew it was going to be futile with these two, especially Danielle.

My best friend rolled her eyes. “Okay, Em won’t say it right so I will. Basically, she started to ignore Logan’s texts and then he was hanging out at that teahouse Em loves in hopes that she would show up.” Danielle stopped to take a sip of her margarita and Amelia was staring at me like how could you. “So then, they play soccer on the beach, which I know right? How perfect for Em? She’s beating him, it gets a little competitive and he chases her. They both dive onto the blanket and then the kiss happens. And what do you know? He casually asks her why she’s ignoring him. And Em does what she usually does,” she paused for another drink. “She pushed him away.”

Before this story got any bigger and blown out of proportion – or worse made it’s way back to my mother that I pushed a guy who may like me away – I needed to set the story straight. “Okay, hold up there Danielle. While I appreciate your concern for my happiness, Logan is not right for that.”

Amelia and Danielle both opened up their mouths to argue but I continued before they could say a word.

“First of all, yeah I know what you’re going to say, we both love baseball. Do you think there’s even the slightest chance we will ever agree on the same team? Or really anything baseball related?”

Danielle rolled her eyes, “It could be worse. It’s not like you two are on opposite sides of the Red Sox and Yankees rivalry.”

Amelia took the opportunity to speak up, “I don’t think that will ever be an issue for any member of the Kennedy family. They will never ben involved in that rivalry.” I shook my head but I knew she was right.

I took a sip of my margarita quickly before Amelia could get a word in about the ‘Logan situation’ and Danielle could continue on some random outburst. “Second, he is going back to Canada. Not just north of us but on the other side of the fucking continent. We are going back to San Francisco. In reality, all we have done is argue, flirt a little bit and kiss one time. So really? Are we at the point where we make a grand commitment when we will never see each other?”

The two of them reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“And finally, I do not want to get serious with someone who not only lives forty-five minutes away but plays an eighty-two game regular season, half of which are spent on the road. The schedule he has to deal with coupled with our soccer schedule pretty much makes this whole situation impossible.”

My best friend let out a long sigh. She knew I was right. “I just want you to be happy Em. He’s clearly interested in you and I think deep down you are too. You can’t deny yourself the potential happiness here.”

“I know you do, I appreciate how much you look out for me more than you’ll ever know,” I smiled at her and she returned the sentiments.

Amelia stood up and grabbed the empty jug of margarita mix on the way to the kitchen. I surveyed the damage the three of us had made thus far into the evening – three jugs of margarita mix, at least one bag of chips and one bag of pretzels and a frozen pepperoni pizza. Plus we had already gotten through How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Proposal and 27 Dresses. Next on the list was Friends With Benefits and if we made it that far, The Five-Year Engagement.

“So,” Amelia came around the corner from the kitchen with an empty jug in her hand. “We have a slight problem with girls’ night.” Danielle and I turned to look at her curiously. “Not only are we out of margarita mix but we are out of tequila too. I could have sworn we had two bottles…” She started to mumble something about my brother that neither Danielle nor I could comprehend.

Danielle looked at me and I shrugged in response. I had no idea as to what the three of us should do next that would comprise of a girls’ night. There couldn’t be much better than siting around in yoga pants, a tank top and drinking while watching romantic comedies. But what did I know? Most of the other girls’ nights I experienced included the rest of the team.

“I’ve got it,” the look on my likely-future-sister-in-law’s face was priceless. “How do you two feel about ladies night?”

It was eight-thirty at night, the three of us had a solid buzz going and it seemed to be the next logical step to the evening. The only problem was that the three of us were nowhere close to being dressed to go out dancing, let alone to a club.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” My best friend took the words right out of my mouth.

“Of course it is, it will be so much fun,” Amelia was starting to use her pleading voice that I had seen work so many times on my poor brother. “Please I haven’t gone to ladies night at this club because none of the other girls here want to go. Can we?”

Reluctantly, I let out a sigh. Danielle had a similar reaction. But the two of us agreed despite reservations about ladies nights’. They never ended well in San Fran when the girls on the team went out, even after our seasons ended. We usually had early morning training sessions the next day and a few late nights led to some interesting experiences.

I don’t think I had seen Amelia as excited as she was when we agreed. She started to go on about how she could finally wear the new dress she got a couple of weeks ago and that it was going to be so much fun. The two of us had an hour, or so, to figure out what we were wearing and to do our makeup because she was going to call a cab right now to take us to the club for just after ten.

---

The three of us got into the club with relative ease, but an hour of dancing and a couple of shots later led to the three of us getting kicked out of the club thanks to Amelia. It wasn’t the proudest moment for her, considering all of the time I have spent with her; I would certainly hope it wasn’t. Despite claiming that she loved tequila, I now understood why my brother likely hid the second bottle of tequila at their place.

Tequila made Amelia a mess.

Luckily for Danielle and me, the fresh air of walking outside – and throwing up in a garbage can – seemed to refresh Amelia. It made the fifteen-minute walk to the sports bar that Danielle and I frequented when I forced her to watch baseball with me worth the wait – especially in the heels that Amelia convinced me to wear.

Somehow the three of us secured a booth – it must not have been that busy of a Wednesday night. We ushered Amelia into the booth first and Danielle sat beside her, she drew the short end of the stick and was put on Amelia duty. It didn’t take long for us to get her a pint of water, with a straw of course because she insisted on it, but the odds of us getting any other drinks were slim with Amelia’s ‘condition.’

Quite frankly, I was amazed that they let the three of us in the bar, although drunken Amelia can be pretty convincing if she really tries to. All we needed to do was get some greasy food in her and some water and she should really be fine in the morning, no worse for wear for Marcus.

“I’m going to get us some drinks, what do you want?” I asked Danielle – it was obvious to the two of us that tequila was out of the question for the rest of the evening.

She shrugged, “Just get me whatever you’re getting. Oh grab a menu if you can, for her?”

I nodded and weaved my way through the crowd around the bar. It was much busier as there were several people deep trying to get the attention of one of the bartenders. Lucky for me, I wasn’t in much of a rush and I didn’t feel like fighting guys who had at least one hundred pounds on me to get to the front of the bar. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to do two of my favourite things – catch up on the sports highlights, namely baseball, and people watch.

Figures that the Giants lose to the Rockies the night I can’t watch the game thanks to girls’ night, not that I’m complaining but sweeping that series would have been great but that’s not going to happen now. As usual, the Jays lost to the Orioles and I smiled when I saw that the Angels beat Kansas City.

When sportscenter switched to a football focus, I lost interest and moved on to people watching. Despite the ease of us getting a booth, I was surprised at how densely packed the sports bar was for a Friday. The Giants game ended a while ago, unless fans were drinking to the loss of their team. Oakland won tonight but the game ended a while ago seeing as the team was in Texas. It was a split evening for Bay area baseball.

My gaze scanned around the bar; there were a few couples, mostly groups of guys and the occasional group of girls sitting in the bar. There was the usual group playing pool, a couple of guys at the darts boards but mostly it was sports talk – something I loved. It seemed like it was going to be a good, quiet way to wind down the evening and sober up Amelia, until I saw him.

There he was smiling and taking a sip of a drink, probably water because it was playoffs, as this blonde woman in a dark purple dress giggled hysterically and put her hand on his forearm.

Suddenly my place in line to get a beer for Danielle and me didn’t matter.

I pushed my way out of the crowd that had developed behind me and made my way to the other side of the bar where he was leaning against one of those tall tables. I always wanted to have a romantic comedy moment and maybe this was it, maybe this was my chance to emulate one of my favourite scenes, although he was certainly no Ryan Gosling and I certainly was not Emma Stone.

Somehow his gaze made it’s way over to where I was standing a mere fifteen feet away. His eyes flicked over to the girl that he was ‘talking’ to and then back at me as though he was saying, ‘yeah, what are you going to do about it?’

This was it. This was my romantic comedy moment and there was no way I was going to screw this up.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out quickly before making my way over to where Logan and the blonde were standing. All I could hear were my heels clacking on the floor and all I could feel was his eyes locked on me. I closed the fifteen feet in seconds; I barely hesitated for a fraction of a second before grabbing him. My hands fisted his shirt as I tugged him down to me and captured his lips for a kiss.

As my lips worked against his, my hands unclenched and spread out against his chest. Only for a moment did I hesitate before sliding my hands up and over his shoulders to link my hands behind his head. He slid his tongue against my lips as his arms wrapped around me and pulled me even closer to him.

Before things got too carried away, I broke the connection between our lips – but didn’t let go of Logan – and smirked, “Hi.”

His hands were still linked, holding me in place against him. “Hi,” he spoke softly with his eyes locked on mine.

My fingers teased at his hair at the base of his skull. “If I were that kind of girl, I’d tell you to take me home. But instead, I’m going to kiss you again and promise that I’ll text you in the morning.”

I didn’t let him answer me. I pressed my lips to his once more, lingering a little longer than I should have, before ending the kiss for the second time tonight. He reluctantly let me go and I could feel his eyes on me as I walked back to the other side of the bar where my best friend was staring at me with her mouth open.

I couldn’t help the smirk that was on my lips as I slid into the booth across from Danielle. Amelia was staring at me but not with the same look that my best friend was giving me. I flipped the menu open and laid it down on the table, “And guess who has the top spot now?”