Every Kiss a War by Leesa Cross-Smith

Author:Leesa Cross-Smith [Cross-Smith, Leesa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631200038
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2014-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Wild Hunt

West loved it when a woman’s braid came undone. It didn’t matter who the woman was or if he knew her. This woman in front of him at the hardware store with the coming undone braid lifted her boot up to brush something off of the toe. The little rack next to them held about five thousand shiny, tightly-wrapped packs of gum and some Chapstick and some home decorating magazines that boasted Christmas wreaths and trees on the front. There were at least six different magazine covers, even though they all looked the same. West had stood there staring at them while the cashier called over not one, but two different managers to help him ring up a discount code.

He recognized the woman’s boots because he’d bought an ex-girlfriend a pair exactly like them a couple of years back. Frye Boots. Dark Brown Crazy Horse was the color. The damn things cost him almost three hundred and fifty dollars and he only bought them because he’d felt so guilty for cheating on her the week before. She broke up with him that day anyway, when she found out. He couldn’t help thinking about it whenever he saw a woman in those boots, wondering if some asshole like him had bought them for her as a pitiful I’m Sorry present he didn’t really mean.

The woman lost her balance and West put out his arms to catch her. He dropped the small blue tarp he had in his hand, the reason for his run to the hardware store in the first place, thanks to a new leak in his roof.

“Shit,” she said.

She straightened herself and turned to face him. She apologized at least three times before he could get a word in. He reached down to pick up the tarp. The line still hadn’t moved.

“No problem. You should be glad I wasn’t holding something I couldn’t toss aside so easily. You should thank the tarp,” he said, nodding his head towards his hand. The woman grinned wildly and swatted at his shoulder before breaking into a sharp laughter that reminded West of birds taking off. She had a pretty face and small brown eyes, the sort of pretty he wanted his high school girlfriend to be— optimistic and cheerleader-ish even though she must’ve been at least thirty-five, like he was.

He looked at her left ring finger. He couldn’t help himself. It was instinctive, like looking both ways before he crossed the street. The only ring she was wearing was a large turquoise oval on her right index finger.

“Well thank you,” she said to the tarp in his hand. And she looked into West’s eyes and said Thank you to him. She reached up to touch his face. He hadn’t shaved in days.

His girlfriend would rage if she were here right now. She was rabidly jealous and he was thinking about breaking up with her anyway because he’d already cleaned out the closet underneath his stairs and dropped off three big black garbage bags at Goodwill.

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