The Kissing Game (10 page)

Simon glanced at his watch. “It's not even eight o'clock. Are you sure—”

“Jazz was a morning person. I'm betting he still is, and that he's already at his office,” Frankie
said. She picked up the kitchen phone and gave Simon a pointed look. “If you don't mind …. ?”

Simon didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay. And listen. “I guess I'll be in your office.”

“With your ear pressed to the wall? I don't think so,” Frankie said. “Why don't you head home? I'll call you later.”

Simon crossed his arms. “No way am I leaving without stepfather John's phone number. Remem ber me? I've got a client to keep happy too.”

“There's no way
you're
getting John's phone number before Clay Quinn does,” Frankie countered.

She was right. It would be unprofessional and unacceptable. And it had nothing to do with the real reason he wanted to stay.

“I'm sorry, you're right,” he admitted. “It's just…” He trailed off, out of excuses.

“I know I'm not the only one who stands to make a lot of money on this deal,” she said, “but I'm not thinking about the money right now.”

He wasn't either, but he wasn't sure she'd believe him if he told her the truth.

“This boy used to mean the world to me,” Frankie continued, waving the piece of paper with
Jazz's phone numbers. “If you want to know the truth, I believe I was truly in love with him. Leila once told me that she thought I was secretly still in love with Jazz, still waiting for him to come back, even after all these years. For all I know, she could very well be right.” She took a deep breath. “But what I
do
know is that I don't need you and your games to get in my way.”

His
games.
Her words stung particularly harshly, because he knew they were true. He
did
play games. His entire life was one giant game— never too serious and not particularly hard to win since he alone was responsible for writing and rewriting the rules. He was silent. What could he possibly say?

“Can you try to understand, just a little bit?” “Yeah.” He understood. More than she'd believe. He took his mug of coffee from the counter and pushed open the kitchen door. “I'll be on the beach.” He paused, looking back at her, wishing his stomach weren't in a knot, praying that Jazz Chester was married, or a priest, or gay, and at the same time praying that the man was everything Frankie wanted him to be, everything she needed. She deserved happiness, and he knew that
he himself—he and his
games—
couldn't bring her that. He tried to smile, hoping the words he was about to say weren't going to stick in his throat. “Good luck.”

She'd never know how much it had cost him to say that. She'd never know that his heart felt as if it were breaking in two.

The door closed gently behind him as she began to dial the phone.

Frankie closed her eyes, listening to the telephone ring. It rang four times and then clicked over to an answering machine.

She didn't know whether to feel relieved or alarmed. She was going to have to leave a message. What was she going to say?

“Hi, this is Jonathan Chester. I'm away from my desk right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

It was Jazz. He called himself Jonathan— Frankie hadn't realized that was his real name— but the voice on the tape was Jazz's. His voice sounded deeper, richer, older, and more restrained,
but it was still musical and pleasant, as if he were smiling while he spoke.

The phone beeped. It was Frankie's turn to talk.

“Hi, um, Jazz? My name is Francine Paresky, and I'm calling from Sunrise Key, down in Florida. I don't know if you remember me, but—”

There was a click and the phone was picked up. “Frankie?” It was Jazz. “My God, is that
you?”

Frankie laughed, suddenly giddy with relief. “Yeah,” she said. “It's me.”

“I'm sorry I didn't pick up right away,” Jazz told her in a voice that sounded a whole lot less grown-up than the voice on the tape, “but when I come in to work this early in the morning, I screen my calls, and
…. God,
how are you?”

“I'm …. I'm okay. I'm good.” After all these years, she was talking to
Jazz
again. She felt both hot and cold and decidedly weak in the knees. She sat down at the kitchen table, playing with the curled telephone wire, stretching it out and then releasing it, watching it bounce. “Older. I'm older.” A movement out the window caught her eye. Simon. Walking on the beach.

Jazz's laugh was rich and warm. “Yeah, me
too. You know—this is really crazy. You're going to think I'm nuts, but I was just thinking about you. Not more than two days ago. Isn't that
wild?”

He sounded exactly the same. He still spoke with that same underlying sense of urgency and excitement, as if the words he spoke and the person he spoke to were the most important in all the world. It
was
wild. It was as if she'd suddenly been thrust into a time warp and sent back a dozen years into the past.

Frankie tried to picture Jazz, but oddly enough her mind kept turning his clean, all-American features into Simon's more angular, almost elegant face, his brown hair into blond. She turned away from the window, suddenly aware that she was still gazing at Simon—a romantic solitary figure looking out over the waves.

“I was watching a movie,” Jazz continued, “and this girl, I swear, she's gorgeous—she looks
exactly
like you. Marisa something. She's in everything these days. Honest, Frankie, the first time I saw her, I was sure it
was
you.”

Frankie smiled, rolling her eyes. “Thanks for
the compliment, Jazz, but I think maybe you don't remember me all that clearly.”

“Oh, yes, I do. I have extremely vivid memories of you.” He spoke softly, pausing just long enough to make her recall her
own
vivid memories. Long, slow kisses on the beach …. But just like that, his voice changed and he was upbeat and friendly again. “So come on. Tell me what you're up to these days. Probably married with a pack of adorable kids, right? Come on, ‘fess up, babe. Break my heart.”

Frankie's gaze slid back to the window. Simon hadn't moved. The wind tousled his blond hair.
Break my heart.
When Simon had left her so she could make this phone call, he'd looked at her with the oddest expression on his face. It was almost as if she were breaking
his
heart. But she knew that couldn't be true. Simon's heart was made of Tyvek. It was indestructible.

“Frankie, you still there?”

Lord, what was she doing? Letting her mind wander to Simon while she was on the phone with Jazz …. “No, I'm not married—”

“No? That's hard to believe.”

“How about you?”

“Me? I'm …. still as footloose as ever. I tried marriage for a while, but things, you know, change. But that's not fair. We were talking about
you.
Come on, fill me in on the past ten years. Don't leave out any details.”

“You're working—I don't want to take up too much of your time—”

“Are you kidding? I've got my priorities straight—and old friends win out over early morning busywork any day.”

Jazz wasn't married. He wasn't married, and he was still the nicest guy in the world. She looked out the window again, but Simon had disappeared.

“I still live on Sunrise Key,” Frankie said. She told him the entire story. Clay Quinn's visit. Alice Winfield's death. The will. Her search for his stepfather. Jazz listened intently, interrupting occasionally with a sympathetic comment or a lighthearted joke that made her laugh.

But the entire time she spoke, she watched out the window, wondering where Simon had gone, and waiting for him to return.

WHAT ARE YOU
doing? Where did you get that?” Simon was on the beach, sitting on the sand out of sight of the house, reading one of Frankie's diaries. He jumped about a mile into the air at the sound of her voice, then tried to hide the notebook he'd been reading so intently.

“I don't believe you.” Frankie held out her hand for the notebook. “Leila always claimed you were the nosiest brother in the world, but I didn't believe her—until now.”

He managed to look abashed, but on Simon the effect was disgustingly charming. “I'm sorry.” He
handed it to her and pulled her down next to him on the sand at the same time. “I couldn't resist. It was on the floor in the hall, and I …. “ He shrugged. “I'm addicted.”

“To my diaries,” Frankie said flatly.

“It's awful. I can't seem to get enough.”

Frankie flipped open the cover. “I wrote this when I was
twelve.
Was it really that fascin ating?”

Simon laughed. “Yeah. You were a scream. Some of the things you said …. “

“Oh, Lord, should I dig a hole and bury myself in it now?”

His eyes were the same color as the sunlit ocean, and when he laughed again, they sparkled even brighter. “No way. It's great stuff, Francine. Like …. you had this plan to end the cold war. It was great. Each family in the United States had to exchange one child with a family in Russia. You figured no one on either side would dare start a nuclear war when one of their kids was behind enemy lines.”

Frankie had to smile. “I remember that. I bet it would've worked too.”

“That was almost as good as your plan for racial harmony,” Simon told her with a grin. “You figured if everyone who was white was required to marry someone nonwhite and vice versa, within a generation or two we'd all be the same color.”

“That works well in theory,” Frankie admitted, “but at age twelve I didn't know too much about the workings of love and freedom of choice.
Requiring
people to marry …. it's unconstitutional.”

“In some ways, life was much simpler at age twelve,” Simon said. “In other ways, it was incredibly complex. Two weeks after you wrote that particular forward-thinking diatribe on social reform, you proclaimed exactly who you and Leila were going to marry.”

Frankie closed her eyes, scrunching her nose in an expression of dread. “I'm afraid to ask.”

“You don't remember? I'm crushed.” Simon leaned back in the sand, supporting himself on his elbows. The ocean breeze blew a lock of hair in his face and then pushed it away. “You decided that Leila would marry Marsh Devlin.”

He smiled at the expression of surprise Frankie
knew was on her face. “Wow. Just call me Nostradamus,” she said. “How could I possibly have predicted
that?
Leila despised Marsh back then. What was I thinking?”

“You weren't thinking. From what you wrote, I'm guessing it was some kind of early hormonal reaction.”

“To what?” Frankie glanced down at Simon, surprised to see embarrassment in his eyes. He looked away first, squinting as he stared out at the ocean.

“You honestly don't remember?”

She shook her head.

“Well …. to me, actually. Since Marsh was my best friend, you figured it would work out rather neatly if Leila married him. Because you decided that you were going to marry
me.”

When their eyes met, something caught and sparked. Frankie felt hypnotized. She stared at him, unable to look away, unable to move, unable to think about anything but the way she had held him so tightly, her body pressed intimately against his, just a short time ago. Lord, she still had some kind of raging hormonal reaction to the man. Some things never changed.

As she watched, Simon wet his lips as if they were suddenly too dry. It was a nervous movement. Simon, nervous?

“You saw me shooting hoops down by the town beach.” His voice was raspy and he stopped to clear his throat. “Apparently my incredible teen age splendor made your twelve-year-old hormones kick in.” He was trying to joke, but his words didn't counteract the hunger Frankie saw in his eyes. He must have realized that, too, because he made himself look away. “You wrote in your diary that you were riding your bike, and it was the weirdest thing. You looked over and saw me, Leila's big brother, Simon, playing basketball. No big deal. But then you looked again, and suddenly it wasn't just Simon, it was
Simon.
I know exactly what it felt like, because the same thing happened to me the summer you turned eighteen.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

Simon met her eyes again, and she could not for the life of her figure out if he was teasing or serious.

“You and Leila were walking toward me on the beach,” he told her. “I saw you coming, and I started thinking, Leila and Frankie want a ride
someplace. I started trying to think up excuses and reasons why I couldn't drive you where you wanted to go. But in the time it took you to walk up to me and past me, I'm looking at you and
looking
at you and I'm thinking that's Frankie. That's Frankie? Oh, man, that's
Frankie.”

Frankie laughed, shaking her head, unable to react any other way. She couldn't believe what he was saying. How
could
she?

“Of course, I have no proof,” Simon continued. “I didn't keep a diary.”

“How convenient for you.” Frankie stood up and brushed the sand from her bottom. “If fairytale hour is over, I've got to go get packed.”

“Fairy tale?” Simon said. “Oh, man, I share my deepest secrets with you and you have the audacity to call them
fairy
tales?”

He actually managed to look hurt. Frankie had to remind herself that this was Simon Hunt she was dealing with. Somehow he'd gotten it stuck in his mind that she was going to be his next sexual conquest. She had to remember that he'd say or do damn near anything to achieve his goal.

But she knew how to make him back away, and back away fast.

She lifted her chin as she looked down at him, still sitting there in the sand. “You want to make my predictions two for two?” she asked. “We could do a double wedding with Leila and Marsh.”

But he knew she was only bluffing, and he smiled and called her on it. “Why wait? We could fly to Vegas tonight.”

“Sorry, I can't,” Frankie said coolly, annoyed that she hadn't managed to make him squirm. “In about three hours I'm catching a flight up to Boston.”

Simon sat up straight. “Boston?”

“I'm having dinner with Jazz tonight.”