Kiss Me Every Day Read online

  I’m so glad we got to spend some time together tonight.

  Me too. It was nice.

  Can I see you again? I mean, just you and I, alone, on a real date?

  I think I’d like that. She didn’t want to sound too eager. She was still working through her feelings about the whole evening…and Wynn.

  Tomorrow night, perhaps?

  Jordan certainly moved quickly. Carly took in a deep breath and contemplated her answer.

  Can I check my schedule and get back to you tomorrow?

  Absolutely. I’ll be waiting.

  Carly let the exchange end there. The walk on the pier with Jordan had lasted longer than she’d expected. The conversation was excellent and unexpectedly engaging. Spending time with Jordan this evening hadn’t been on her radar. She’d helped out at many of the previous events she’d held because Suzanna was always short-handed. Jordan never gave her the impression she was interested in anything more than her assistance at any of them.

  But on their walk tonight Jordan had made it perfectly clear that she wanted to see her again, yet technically she hadn’t asked, and Carly had been noncommittal. When she’d arrived back at the restaurant from their walk, Carly had fully intended to spend more time with Wynn and continue their conversation from earlier, but Wynn had left without a word. Not even Suzanna knew where she’d gone. She felt bad about being pulled away from Wynn so quickly—without having the opportunity to tell her how much she’d enjoyed their conversation.

  Jordan had offered to take her home, but she was confused enough about the events of the evening and needed time to figure out her feelings. Wynn had her interest, but Jordan had taken the first step and made her intentions known. It was as though the decision had been made for her.

  Chapter Nine

  Wynn opened her eyes. The glaring light from the window made her head thump harder. She cleared the glue from her eyes, sat up, and then sank back into her pillow. Her head was in no way ready for such quick moves this morning. Wynn had no idea how she’d gotten home the night before. Last she remembered she was talking to the bartender, but that was in the dream. Wasn’t it? It had to be. A crazy fucking dream. She had a huge blank spot in her memory from last night.

  She ran her hand across the sheet covering the other side of the bed. Alone again. She totally deserved it after losing her nerve with Carly last night. Wait, was it last night or was it last year? She didn’t know—she was so confused right now. Either way, she’d chickened out. It didn’t really matter which time. The alcohol had just made everything worse, and her thoughts were all blurred together. Everything that had happened a year ago had happened again last night. Was it a dream—could it have been? It was so real, she couldn’t imagine it was, but it had to be. She opened her eyes and peered through the small slits at the T-shirt she was wearing, lime-green again.

  “Shadow?” Her voice was low and gravelly. What had she drunk last night? Better question would be what hadn’t she drunk? Once Carly had gone out on the pier with Jordan, Wynn had hit the bar and taken a shot of whatever the bartender offered. When they hadn’t come back right away, she’d left the restaurant and stopped at the first bar she came across. The bartender was cute, with dark hair and eyes, and she poured a generous drink. Under normal circumstances, that would be the perfect combination, but not last night. Her thoughts were stuck on Carly.

  She felt soft licks on her foot and then heard whimpers from the side of the bed. She bolted up and sat clutching the sheet on each side of her, trying to steady herself as the room spun. Puppy Shadow climbed onto her leg. She was so sweet and tiny again. Not that she wasn’t adorable at a year old, but puppies always had the cutest ears and noses. She gathered Shadow in her hands and held her in her lap. There had never been any doubt that this little one loved her.

  Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, and she saw the notice of a voice-mail message from Jordan on the screen. Same shitty phone. She typed in her code and listened to the message. “Hey. I need your help at a fund-raiser tonight. Call me back.” No. Absolutely not. She was even pissed at Jordan in her dreams.

  She quickly typed in a message to Carly. She was the only one Wynn cared about hearing from right now.

  Thanks for taking me home last night. I’m a little foggy about what happened.

  I think this text might be meant for someone else.

  Carly had definitely kissed her back. Was she regretting it? Sorry, I thought it was something you wanted. I overstepped.

  She watched and waited as the bubbles appeared on the phone. Then they disappeared and reappeared. The words some other lucky girl flew through her head. Where did that come from?

  Again, not me. Some other lucky girl. The words had finally appeared on the screen.

  How did she know that was what Carly was going to say? She rubbed her head. What the fuck was going on? She checked her contacts, and Carly was listed in her phone as Carly Evans again. This was some freaky sort of déjà vu. Shadow jumped to the floor as Wynn rushed through the house just as she had before, then dropped onto the couch and examined her surroundings. Things were the same, except they weren’t exactly. She closed her eyes and willed the freakish dream to end, but an incredibly loud bark startled her. She opened her eyes to find the puppy version of Shadow attempting to climb onto the couch, a habit she’d never been able to break her of. She rubbed Shadow’s ears before she helped her onto her lap. She’d forgotten just how little she’d been when she’d rescued her from the shelter. No way was she going back to sleep now.

  “Come on, Shadow. You need to go outside.” They raced across the room together, and just as before, she stepped in something wet. “Shit.” She hopped on one foot to the kitchen, spun a paper towel from the holder, wet it, and cleaned the bottom of her foot. Shadow sprinted to the back door and squatted and peed again. “Oh my gosh.” Why was this all happening again? She slid open the door and let her outside before she went through the same floor-cleaning routine she had yesterday.

  After filling Shadow’s bowl with food, she took the box of Froot Loops from the pantry, grabbed a handful and stuffed it into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and repeated. She needed coffee. She opened the refrigerator—nothing there but coffee and soy milk. She wasn’t going to fall for that again.

  Her phone rang, and Evelyn’s name appeared on the screen, so she hit the ignore button. She wasn’t up for enduring the whole ordeal at work again today. She just wanted to go back to sleep and wake from this crazy dream.

  The next time she woke it was past three o’clock in the afternoon. She checked her phone and found multiple texts from Jordan about the fund-raiser as well as multiple missed calls and one voice-mail message from Evelyn. She hit the play button and listened to the message. “I hope you’re happy. I’m out of a job, and you’ve got an ass for a boss now.” Evelyn’s voice was loud and angry.

  She immediately hit the call-back button, and Evelyn answered on the first ring. “I guess you got my message.” Her voice was full of surrender now as her words whooshed softly through the phone.

  “What happened?”

  “Leadership wanted an immediate fix—a work-force cut. I didn’t offer them that. I wouldn’t.”

  “Who undercut you?” Someone else had done exactly what Wynn had done that day.

  “Davis,” Evelyn said, and Wynn could hear the ice hit against a glass as she paused. “He’s cutting staff immediately, starting with me. They gave me a month’s severance and escorted me to the door to make sure I don’t leak the news to the rest of the employees.” The sound of her swallowing came through the phone. “Made me sign a non-disclosure agreement, or they wouldn’t give me severance.”

  “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I didn’t know Davis had a proposal. I’ve never heard a viable idea come out of his mouth.” And she was sorry. Her plan hadn’t included firing Evelyn. She had great ideas and was well worth her salary. She was just a little too soft-hearted sometimes.

  “I’ll be fine.” Ice clinke
d in the background again. “But you’re going to have to deal with the fallout from the shit show Davis will create.”

  She wasn’t worried about Davis. She’d briefly discussed her plan with him, so he must’ve stolen it, somehow. He was an opportunist and wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to make the company profitable after the layoff. “What now?”

  “Not sure what you’re going to do, but I intend to find another job.” The line went dead, and she stared at the blank screen. What the fuck had just happened? This certainly didn’t feel like a dream anymore.

  She typed in a quick message to Jordan, letting her know she’d be at the fund-raiser tonight, and then headed to the guest bathroom, took a shower, dressed in the same clothes she had in the previous dream, and headed out. She only hoped it would go better than it had the night before.

  As Wynn walked out the door, she saw Mrs. P sitting on the porch drinking a glass of iced tea. What a shit she was, even in her dreams. She’d totally forgotten again to let Mrs. P know she had other plans tonight. She crossed the yard to her porch.

  “I didn’t see you come home.”

  She sat in the chair next to her. “Well, actually, I didn’t go to work.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. P pulled her eyebrows together. “Are you sick?” She poured Wynn a glass of tea.

  “No. Just needed a day off. Kind of a mental-health day.” She took a sip of tea and smiled as the sweet taste crossed her lips. Perfect as always.

  “It’s good to do that once in a while to recharge your batteries.” Mrs. P sipped her tea. “I’m feeling a little weary myself.”

  “I hope it’s nothing serious.” Mrs. P looked a little flushed.

  “No. Just a little dizzy from being out in the sun too long.”

  “Do I need to call Mr. P and have him come home?”

  “No.” Mrs. P shook her head. “I don’t want to interrupt his night out. I’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe you need a nap. I usually feel much better after some rest.”

  “Maybe so.” Mrs. P took another sip of tea.

  She held up her glass. “How do you make this tea so perfect every time?” She drank down the remaining tea in her glass.

  “I use simple syrup instead of plain sugar.” Mrs. P held her glass up in the sunlight. “Mixes better and prevents cloudiness too.”

  “Can you show me how to make it sometime? Maybe tomorrow night? You could come for dinner at my place.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “You can always come with me tonight.” She stood. “They’ll have plenty of food, and it’s always the best.” Jordan didn’t spare any expense at her fund-raisers.

  “Thank you, but I don’t want to get in the middle of your fun.”

  “Are you kidding? You’d be better company than anyone else there.”

  That got a smile out of Mrs. P. “You go ahead and have a good time tonight. Maybe you’ll find a pretty lady there to spend the evening with.”

  “I already have a pretty lady to spend time with.” She took Mrs. P’s hand. “She’s sitting right here.”

  Mrs. P grinned, and her thin lips spread perfectly. “That’s very sweet of you, dear, but I don’t think I’m up for a party tonight.” She squeezed Wynn’s hand. “We’ll have dinner tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” As Wynn stood, she heard loud voices behind her and looked over her shoulder to see her neighbor, Jack, following his wife Maria out of the house. They seemed to be having a heated argument. “I wonder what that’s about?” She watched as Maria rushed to her car and got inside. “I’ve never seen them fight like that. Do you think I should go see if Maria’s all right?”

  Mrs. P nodded. “Yes. I think you should.”

  She crossed her driveway and was halfway across the lawn between their houses when Maria looked up. She glanced at Jack on the porch but kept moving as the window of the car whizzed down. “Are you okay?” She’d caught sight of them fighting yesterday but hadn’t really paid attention.

  Maria threw up her middle finger. “Fuck you. Haven’t you done enough?” She threw the car into gear, backed up, and sped down the street.

  “What the hell?” she said as Jack came toward her. Wynn didn’t notice the logo on Jack’s shirt until they were almost face-to-face. Sexton Technologies was embroidered on the left side of it, and it sunk in. He must have been one of the casualties from today’s layoff. “Oh my God. You lost your job today.” She hadn’t looked through the list of names when she’d prepared her plan. She couldn’t. That would make it personal, and it had to remain business.

  “If you’d looked at my reorg proposal, nobody would’ve lost their job,” Jack said.

  “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even there today.” An invalid excuse. The workforce would’ve been cut even if she had been there, just by not as many.

  “Then I wouldn’t go in tomorrow because you may be out of job too,” he said as he walked up his driveway.

  “Hey, Jack. Where’s Buttercup?” He stopped, turned, and gave her a strange look. “Your chocolate lab?”

  “I don’t have a dog,” he said, and went into his house.

  She shook her head. That made sense. Shadow was still a puppy. But he did get a dog at some point, and she remembered him saying he got her at the shelter. Wynn also remembered seeing the dog there when she got Shadow. She’d chosen Shadow because she was small and trainable. Buttercup was sweet, but she was much larger, close to three years old, and hadn’t been trained at all. If this crazy dream happened again tomorrow, she would make a point of going to the shelter to get Buttercup.

  * * *

  As Wynn sat in traffic trying to make it across the San Francisco Bay Bridge to the restaurant, she couldn’t get the sadness in Jack’s eyes out of her head. He was crushed at having lost his job. Once she’d seen his shirt with the Sexton Technologies logo, she’d remembered that he ran the support desk—had started around the same time she had. The team was in horrible shape when he took over, and he’d morphed it into a knowledgeable, self-sufficient, premier service desk. His reward for that was being let go. He’d improved the team so much that he’d worked himself out of a job.

  She couldn’t blame Maria for lashing out at her the way she did. In an instant, nothing more than calculated numbers on paper had demolished all the stability in their lives. The red and black—the tidiness of it all had a tsunami brewing in her stomach. Even though Wynn hadn’t been the one to actually make it happen this time, they were still her numbers. It would’ve all been on her if she’d gone to work today. Before the party, she’d looked over Jack’s reorganization plan, and it seemed to be sound. She didn’t wonder why Evelyn hadn’t presented it instead of her own. Evelyn wasn’t a team player. She wanted the COO position, the salary, and all the accolades that went along with saving the company.

  Now she was out of a job. Funny, Wynn had wanted it all too, but after seeing the devastation on Jack’s face, none of it seemed important anymore. She would call them both tomorrow to see if she could help them in any way. Hopefully Evelyn will have calmed down, and Maria will have returned home to Jack. What a fucking mess.

  Wynn pulled up to the valet, and he directed her to her usual spot in the lot. She couldn’t believe he remembered her. She hadn’t been to one of these things in forever—since Carly had married Jordan. But then again, it was a dream, wasn’t it? She’d arrived late, but, thankfully, Jordan always held the events at the same place, or she wouldn’t have made it at all.

  She didn’t check her reflection in the windows as she walked to the restaurant, not caring if she looked good tonight. Knowing she still had a job when others didn’t was weighing heavy on her. Was this dream her conscience’s way of venting? Maybe she’d been in an accident and wasn’t conscious. She reached inside her sport jacket, pinched the soft area under her arm, and winced at the pain as she walked. Nope. That was definitely going to bruise.

  When she went inside, Suzanna greeted her with a compliment just as she had the
night before. Wynn had to admit that Suzanna was the best of them all. She never seemed to have a bad thing to say about anyone, and her patience was saintly. Growing up, she’d always been the peacemaker of the three sisters, probably why she was so good with her kids.

  She glimpsed Carly across the room, dressed in a black, form-fitting, sleeveless lace dress. Carly never failed to make her heart race, but tonight Wynn was so disappointed in herself that she couldn’t enjoy the feeling of exhilaration. She couldn’t be happy when she knew that a plan she’d devised had shattered Jack and Maria’s happiness, as well as that of hundreds of others. Carly glanced her way and smiled, and the usual swarm of butterflies danced in Wynn’s stomach when Carly headed in her direction. She immediately slipped through the guests and out onto the patio for some air. She refused to subject Carly to her foul mood.

  “What’s going on with you tonight?” Carly’s voice broke through her thoughts, and her stomach dipped.

  “I had a bad day. Some things happened at work that I couldn’t control.” More like didn’t.

  “Oh? Want to tell me about it?”

  “I proposed something horrible, and someone else ran with it.” She shook her head. “You’re going to think I’m an ass.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I think I’m an ass.”

  “Well, then. Can you fix this horrible thing you did?” The compassion in Carly’s eyes was clear.

  She shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know. I’m going to try, though.”

  “I think that’s the important part, right?” The simple smile on Carly’s face was magnetic.

  “I guess so.”

  Suzanna appeared between them. “You two make quite a good-looking couple. You complement each other perfectly.” She touched each of their shoulders. “The party’s winding down. Why don’t you take a walk on the pier together?” She looked over her shoulder. “I’ve got this for a bit.”