Page 140 of My Heart Still Beats
“It is.” She kneels and scratches her dog behind her ear. “I named Rita after a margarita.”
I smile. “That’s so adorable.”
“I don’t know about adorable, but I think I’d like to have a margarita. Jamaica was the first time I drank anything alcoholic since…well, you know. I felt like I wanted one tonight.”
I follow her into her small kitchen. She pours the margaritas into a shaker. Then she strains them into two lowball glasses with salted rims and hands one glass to me.
“Cheers,” I say, clicking my glass to hers.
“Cheers,” she echoes and takes a sip.
I smile then because what I see is pure sunshine and goodness. Tessa’s face lights up like downtown Boston during the holidays.
“Good?” I ask.
“So good.” She licks a few grains of salt from her lips. “The salt, and the tangy sweetness of the lime, and the smoky tequila… I really forgot how much I love margaritas.” She sighs. “I seem to have forgotten a lot of things.”
“You’ll remember.” I take a sip. The lime and salt are tangy on my tongue, and the tequila has a bite that I like. Much better than the one in Jamaica. “This is delicious. What kind of margarita mix did you use?”
She scoffs. “Margarita mix? That stuff’s awful. I make my own simple syrup, and I use the juice from fresh-squeezed limes. I use reposado tequila, and I also use Cointreau instead of a cheap triple sec. If I’m really feeling excited I use Grand Marnier, but I don’t have any.”
“I can honestly say this is the best margarita I have ever tasted.”
“I imagine it’s one of theonlymargaritas you ever tasted.”
“Now that’s not true. When I was young, I preferred sweeter drinks over straight bourbon.” I stop abruptly.
Not a great time to think about when I was young. Tonight can’t be about anything except Tessa and me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But I don’t want to think about my younger days right now.”
In fact…
What I want is to kiss her again.
I take another sip of the margarita, and then I set it down on her small counter before taking hers out of her hand and setting it beside my own.
I cup both her cheeks. “God, your skin is like silk.”
She moves her hands upward, covering mine with her own.
Then she parts her lips.
I wait.
I wait for her to say something.
But she doesn’t.
So I kiss her.
I kiss her, and the sweetness of her lips infuses me, takes me to a place where everything is okay.
She doesn’t resist, not at all.
So I deepen the kiss.
