No Falling Allowed (No Kissing Allowed) Read Free

Then more certification or some shit. Before long, you’re going to have more degrees in your house than walls. They’ll talk about you on the news and everything.”
    “You really think so?”
    “With you? I know so.” My chest buzzed with warmth, and I wished I could get back home that second and tell him how great he was going to be in person so that doubt would disappear from his voice. It was hard to believe in dreams when you lived in Cricket Creek, South Carolina, but he would reach every dream he could conjure up. Even if I had to work myself to the bone for him to do it. A yawn sounded from the other side of the phone, and I slowed. “Get a good night’s rest, and hug Aunt Sandy for me.”
    “I will.”
    “Love you, Noah.”
    I swallowed. “Love you, too, kid.”
    The subway was more crowded than normal, and as I stood there, trying not to take in the people around me and failing because I’d always been a people watcher, I wondered what I was doing there. Why had I agreed to this trip? A visit with family, sure, but in all honesty, I’d needed a break from responsibility. From the constant schedule that had taken over my life.
    I woke at six every morning to work out, then the rigidity began. Teeth brushing, packing lunches, driving to school, opening the bar, football practice, soccer practice, baseball practice, Boy Scout meetings. Then came the homework and homework and more homework, half of which I couldn’t even understand because they dropped normal math for some method that resembled a foreign language. I was tired, dead tired, and I needed a break. What was so wrong with a break?
    Yet, here and now, all I wanted was to go home.
    I was a mess, and besides, I didn’t deserve the right to complain. So, ordering myself to shut the hell up, I dropped my head and focused on my boots, ignoring the faces around me.
    Before long, I exited the subway and hit the sidewalk again. The bright red and blue sign for Route 6 appeared a block away, and instantly, my chest felt lighter. At least for the next few hours I could disappear into my element, and then maybe I’d seek out an early flight home.
    Pushing inside, my gaze caught on Charlie—the grungy bartender fixed behind the cherry wood bar, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, like always. More ink than skin on his arms, and a man bun that somehow worked wonders with the ladies despite the fact that from behind the dude looked like a chick.
    I smiled the moment he spotted me, less out of genuine excitement at seeing my cousin and more because he hated smiles—said he couldn’t trust people who smiled too much. Still, before this morning, it’d been a year since I’d seen him or his brother Marc—the sick cousin who was supposed to work the Met gig—and I missed them. So smile I did.
    “Finally! Get your sorry ass in here. We’re slammed already.”
    I peered around the bar. “There’s maybe twenty people in here.”
    Charlie followed my gaze, then eyed the windows. “Seriously? Where the fuck is everybody?”
    My lips twitched.
    He pointed at me, and I lifted a fist to knock knuckles with him, a truce that I’d choose a less joyful expression for the night and he’d try to be less of a dick. Try the operative word there.
    “They’ll come. They always do. Okay if I head to the back to change?”
    Charlie eyed my waiter outfit, and his mouth curved like he wanted to smile, but wasn’t quite sure how. “Well, you sure as hell ain’t wearing that in here.” I disappeared into the back and pulled my phone and wallet out of my pants, set them on a shelf full of liquor bottles, then unzipped the small black duffle I’d brought with me—the only thing I’d brought with me for the weekend.
    Immediately, I spotted a folded piece of construction paper on top, the corners folded to keep the letter together, a makeshift envelope. Swallowing, I reached for the paper and folded back the corners, careful not to rip them, and then peered