CHAPTER 4 |

Sticky Lips & Gaudy Rings

 

 

We were married when we were six.

Patrick had proposed to me with a plastic ring from one of those twenty-five cent machines at the supermarket.

He had told his mother the quarter was for a gumball, but he had more romantic ideas in mind. I’d asked him what he was doing, when he inserted the coin and twisted the crank. He flashed his dimples my way, and simply told me that he was getting me a present.

My girlish heart fluttered in my little sundress and sandals, and I anticipated what could be in the little plastic bubble as it tumbled its way down. Patrick gripped it between his hands and popped it open to inspect the surprise gem, and a smile slowly spread over his face.

That was the precise moment he dropped down to his knees, and took one of my sticky ice cream hands in his.

“Kinsey, will you marry me?” he announced to the store front, and his mother turned to look on with adoration, hands clapped to her heart.

“I can’t get married!” I cried with horror, pulling my hand out of his. “I’m six!”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “I want to marry you, because you’re my best friend,” he said, as though that somehow made it better.

And it did. “You’re my best friend too.”

The plastic green ring was on my finger in the blink of an eye. The fit was perfect, no adjustments needed, and I made the announcement the moment I walked through the door after being dropped off. My parents shared a smile with Mrs. Kinney—"How cute are they?”—and they congratulated me on finding such a worthy man.

Plans were made immediately. My sister offered to perform the ceremony, Molly the Dog was to be our flower girl, Shadow/Murdoch/Mister the Cat was to be our ring bearer, and his three-year-old brothers were to be our witnesses. The dress was my favorite—something one of the Ingalls girls might have worn on Little House on the Prairie; long and floral with an eyelet bib. Mrs. Kinney had braided my hair, as she laughed about her hairstyling skills going to waste with three little boys. On my feet were the black patent leather Mary Janes my mom allowed me to wear, although they were bought for school. “It’s a special occasion,” she had said, and with a splash of cherry Chapstick, little Kinsey Ingalls was set to make herself an honest woman.

And then, there was Patrick.

I could still see it. He looked so genuinely happy, standing there in his bow tie and suspenders. His dimples deepening by the second, and his hands remaining clasped tightly together, as I made my impatient approach.

The summer breeze swept his fluffy blonde hair off his forehead, and my sister cleared her throat.

“You’re supposed to take her hand, Patrick,” she hissed.

Kate, the eight-year-old. So much older, so much wiser.

Now, a man about to be married is said to have clammy hands, but not Patrick Kinney. No, Patrick was smooth, Patrick was suave. He was cool as a cucumber, and he smelled like one too, thanks to the cucumber sandwiches his mother had served before the ceremony.

And then, there were the vows, written lovingly by Kate.

They were brief. Short and sweet—just like us.

“Okay, repeat after me,” Kate had said to each of us. “I, (insert name here), take (insert name here) to be my awfully wedded husband/wife. I promise to let you watch your favorite TV shows, and I promise to never eat the last cookie. Amen.”

Our rings were made of molded tin foil once used to encase Ring Dings, eaten as our dessert before the ceremony. I slid Patrick’s onto his finger, next came mine, and after we said, “I do,” I stood there reluctantly as he came for me with determination. He planted one on me, mushing his kid-sticky lips against mine with enough force to squish my mouth against my teeth. I shoved him backward, knocking him on his ass, and our mothers laughed with hands clutched over their chests.

Patrick just stared. Never diverting his eyes from me.

So genuinely happy.

So genuinely in love.

 

❧

 

“Patrick,” I growled for the hundredth time that night.

He jumped out of the truck before I had a chance to demand he start it again. He ran around to open my door to find me with my arms folded like a scowling little kid, refusing to budge. Stubborn. That’s what I was, what I had always been.

Ten years of faraway stubbornness; two years of round-the-corner resistance.

“It’s part of the plan, Kins,” he said, growling my name. He sent the hairs of my arms to stand on end.

“What plan?” I asked, looking out the window at my childhood home.

The lights were on. My parents would know we were there, and if they didn’t, their dog would make sure they did. My stomach knotted at the thought of our parents seeing us together. The things they would remember, the things they would hope for now ...

“The plan to make you remember that you’re madly in love with me,” he said, and grabbed my hand.

Should I tell him I haven’t forgotten?

No.

“I am not—”

He easily pulled me to the edge of my seat with his Herculean strength, and went ahead with his bold moves and picked me up out of the cab. My arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. Traitors.

“Oh my God, put me down!” I squealed, tempted by the perfect height of his crotch in line with my knee.

I expected him to keep his grip on my waist, pressing me against places simultaneously foreign and familiar, but he didn’t. He let my body slide along the front of his until my feet were on the ground, planted firmly to the sidewalk, where I had kissed him in darkness thousands of times before.

And then, in my mind, I was sixteen years old, in my thirty-two-year-old body.

I could stand on my toes, I told myself, watching his mouth. I could pull him down to me like I always had, and bite that upper lip. I could kiss him the way I knew he liked. The way I had remembered after all those years. How could I forget?

His lips parted, framed by a layer of stubble. “You can let go now,” he said under his breath, looking down at me through hooded eyes. “If you want to.”

I had to force my eyes away, and wrenched my hands from his neck, taking a step back.

Distance was needed, distance was good.

Distance was torture.

He couldn’t hide the disappointment. He didn’t even try.

“Come on,” he said with a little pained smile, taking my hand again.

He pulled me across the front lawn and toward the backyard gate, and if I had closed my eyes, I could have taken myself back to all those moments from our shared childhood when he had performed that very act countless times. His hand was more callused now, rougher to the touch and so much larger, but it was still his hand clasped around mine.

God, what I would have given for a time machine.

The gate opened, and he pulled me through, closing it behind us.

“Patrick,” I whispered. “My parents are home.”

“I know,” he said, leading me through the garden and towards the old swing set. “They won’t bother us.”

“Why not?”

“Because they know we’re here.”

“What? You talked to my parents about this?”

“Part of the plan, Kins.”

Sneaky Irish bastard.

He sat down on one of the swings, wincing at the creaking of the wooden frame. “Christ, have I gained weight?”

I unsuccessfully fought my laughter. “Yeah, I’d say you’re a little heavier than you were twelve years ago.”

He rubbed his stomach. “Jeez, Kins, are you sayin’ I’m fat?”

The guy was little more than lean muscle strapped to a six-foot-three frame, and I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Patrick. You’re a house.”

“It’s all those sandwiches you’ve been feedin’ me.”

I cocked my hip and tilted my head. “You didn’t have to come to the deli every goddamn day for two years.”

His eyes met mine, holding me and pulling me in. “Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t.” My voice was a whisper against the summer air and crickets.

“How else was I supposed to see you?”

I swallowed. “You didn’t have to see me.”

The corner of his mouth curled upward into a gut-wrenching smile. “Yeah, I did, Kins.”

Patrickinney, why did I ever let you go?

Then, freeing me from his gaze, he cleared his throat and pushed his long legs out to get some momentum going. The swing set screamed in agony. “God, I might actually break this thing. If I do, will you catch me?”

“If you fall, you’re on your own, pal.”

“Kinsey, I’ll probably break something. A hip, maybe. I hope you’ll at least call an ambulance, unless ya plan on carryin’ me out of here.”

“You have a phone. Call an ambulance yourself.”

“What if I can’t get at it? Are you gonna reach into my pocket, and grab it for me?”

“I’m not reaching into any of your pockets and grabbing anything.” I laughed, scraping my teeth over my lower lip at the thought.

“Well, are you at least gonna sit, then? We can break the feckin’ thing together.” He tilted his head toward the other swing, and I shook my head. “You’re actually gonna make me swing alone?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh.

His feet hit the grass, dragging a bit before he came to a complete stop.

“Can you let go for just a minute? Just one? I’ll even time ya.”

I swallowed, looking anywhere but at him and his perfectly tousled blonde hair. “Let go of what?”

“This!” He gestured a hand toward me: my crossed arms and firmly planted feet, my jutted hip. “You’re so pissed at this town, at me—hell, maybe even yourself. Just let it go, and have a little fun.”

“I am not angry,” I said through my gritted teeth.

“You’re full of shite.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

“And you’re changin’ the subject.”

I groaned, dropped my arms to my sides, and stomped forward, plonking myself down on the swing beside him. My hands gripped the chains, the wooden frame bowed a little lower, and I swallowed again.

“There ya go, Kins. That’s the spirit,” he said with a smile, and began to swing again.

Sitting there, my feet on the grass and my hands on those chains, I looked out into the moonlit backyard, shrouded in a summer haze and freckled with lightening bugs. I hadn’t sat there in years. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I was in my parents’ backyard. I seldom came to the house since moving back home, after I claimed my space in Kate’s basement apartment.

I wanted to keep my distance from the memories, but still, it was frustrating, not remembering the last time I had enjoyed the peaceful cricket-chirp soundtrack in the glow of the back-porch light. The last time I had allowed the painful bliss of those old backyard memories to wrap their arms around me.

It was more frustrating that my eyes fell on that grassy spot near my swing, and my memory began to play.