Kiss Me Hello Read Online Free Page B

don’t know. Settled.”
    “I’m sorry.” He dropped his fork on the plate with a clatter. “I’m sorry I lost my job. It wasn’t in the plan, I know. I’m sorry the economy has gone to hell. I’m sorry I’m not—”
    “I didn’t mean that. It isn’t you, Bram. It’s us.”
    “I’m working on it, babe.” He squeezed her hand and softened his voice, but there was no warmth in it. She’d pushed him away. “I do need the time to write. That’s my real work now.”
    “I wish we could move in with Aunt Amelia.”
    “So your banishment is over, now that she needs you,” Bram said. “I doubt Pelican Chase High School is hiring.”
    “Turtledove Hill would be a great place to write. Wait until you see it.”
    “I’m sure it’s as perfect as you say,” Bram said. “But for now it’s writer for love, waiter for money, and this is where the waiter jobs are.” He threw too much cash down on the table and slid out of the booth.
    “We have to stop living like this.” Sara grabbed Bram’s hand. He never wanted to hear anything that wasn’t cheerful, but sometimes things came spilling out.
    Bram twisted his hand out of hers, as if he wanted to put his wallet away. “What choice do we have?” he said, his eyes on the restaurant door.
    “We can’t keep passing in the hall, one clocking in as the other clocks out. We’ll become strangers to each other.” It would be a wrench to quit teaching, but better that than lose her marriage. “We could run the vineyard.”
    “Yeah, right. And that doesn’t take any special training.” Bram leaned over and kissed her forehead. “We can’t talk here. I’ve got to go, babe.”

- 4 -
A One-Off
    B RAM’S SNORE STARTLED SARA awake. Her reading glasses were askew on her face, jabbing below one eye, and her reading light was still on. She was pinned under Bram’s bare arm. He smelled like scotch and salmon and charbroiled filet mignon. She crawled out from under the arm and set her glasses on the nightstand by the clock. 5:19.
    The essays she’d been grading before falling asleep were strewn all over the floor out of order. She gathered up the papers and went to brush her teeth, closing the bathroom door so she wouldn’t bother Bram.
    Work today was going to be crappy. Everybody would be depressed over final layoff notices. No way was Marie the only victim. Sara spit out her mouthwash. She’d call in sick if it wasn’t a Friday. The district was such a dick about people taking Fridays off.
    She had to go in.
    She had to finish grading those Jane Eyre papers.
    Gah! She had to read Bram’s book.
    Everything in her life was about have to. It felt like her whole life was slipping away. Everyone said twenty-eight was still so young. Then why did she feel so old?
    She’d spent all her life waiting to be older. You can’t drive until you’re sixteen. When you’re eighteen you can vote. You can’t buy a beer until you’re twenty-one. Now she felt too old for anything. Too old to change careers.
    Too old to start having children.
    She didn’t want to start being a mom in her late thirties, ancient when her last kid was still in high school.
    She took the last two Jane Eyre essays out to the kitchen. The morning light was beginning to outline the trees in the backyard. She made a cup of coffee and opened a window to let in some fresh air. Her ereader lay by the Keurig.
    She’d meant to look at Hot Heat again last night, but she’d been caught up in grading papers. She opened the book now.
    I small-talked the stenographer while Hizzoner and the shysters met in chambers. “I hear court reporters stroke with speed and accuracy,” I said to the red-headed dame. “I’ve got something hard and hot that could use a few strokes.”
    The stenog stared at my bulge. The light in her eyes didn’t help my concentration. Her voice was like honey and mint over ice on a long, hot summer day.
    “Someday I’ll show you what I can do, Harker,” she said. “I’m