Just Like a Man by Elizabeth Bevarly

to her wasn't one of them. On the contrary, he'd been kissed himself while being lied to, and he hadn't liked it much. The last thing he wanted to be was someone like Tatiana.
    So he stopped himself from doing what he wanted to do, forced himself to rescind his hand from Hannah's face and take a step backward, then shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his blue jeans so they wouldn't break free again. Hannah sensed his withdrawal, because she straightened and opened her eyes, blinking a few times in rapid succession as if just awakening from a trance. Michael sympathized. He felt a little fuzzy around the edges of his brain, too.
    "Yeah, I, uh, I guess there comes a time in our lives when we don't want birthday parties anymore," he said, trying to pick up the threads of their conversation where they'd dropped it, amazed that he even remembered where they had been. "A time when birthdays don't seem so much like something to celebrate." He expelled a rough sound that he hoped didn't sound like dejection, but feared very much did. "Must happen around the same time we stop referring to ourselves by fractions. I mean, me, I'd be thirty-nine and three-quarters now. Somehow, though, I just don't feel compelled to tell people that."
    Hannah smiled back, albeit a little shakily. Her smile seemed to result more from gratitude, though, than from any kind of amusement his comment may have inspired. But whether she was grateful for his deflecting the potential embarrassment of her situation away from her, or for the fact that he'd stopped himself from kissing her, he couldn't have said. He hoped it was the latter. Because he still wanted to kiss her. Still intended to kiss her. Once he was in a position to do so. He just hoped he
would
be in such a position. Soon.
    "Thanks," she said, cementing his suspicion that she was more grateful than anything else. And then, more forcefully, "But I actually do enjoy celebrating birthdays," she told him. "I just keep my observances to myself, that's all. Well, usually," she amended, and he told himself she was too polite to be making a dig at his intrusion.
    In spite of that, "I'll go," he said, "and I'll just call you at school tomorrow."
    "No!" she exclaimed, surprising him.
    Surprising herself, too, judging by her expression. But then, it had been a night for surprises, hadn't it? Surely she had found their near-embrace just now as unexpected as he had.
    "I mean," she hastily backpedaled, "I don't mind you being here." She lifted one shoulder and let it drop in what he supposed was meant to be a shrug. "You can stay if you want."
    Oh, he wanted. He most definitely, most assuredly wanted. So maybe he'd do like the song said and stay-ay-ay, just a little bit longer.
    Hannah looked at Michael Sawyer and told herself she really should have stopped after one glass of Chianti. Because if she had, then maybe he wouldn't look so dreamy and winsome and fine. And maybe it wouldn't feel so good to have him here.
    And maybe she wouldn't have nearly kissed him just a minute ago. Good heavens, what had happened with that? One minute, she'd been wondering where he had come from and why his presence in her home had been even nicer than the presents in her home, and the next minute, he'd been
this
close to kissing her, and she'd been
this
close to letting him. Letting him? she echoed to herself. Hah. She'd been
encouraging
him. She'd closed her eyes and tilted her head, just like a dewy starlet in a fabulous forties film. Could she have
been
any more obvious? What had come over her? What must he think of her?
    And why was she tempted, even now, to lift her hand to his face this time and trail her fingertips over the smile that so sweetly curled his lips, and then press her mouth to his?
    Chianti, she thought. The libation of love. Except that love had nothing to do with it. No, it was another L-word, she was certain, that was ruling her just then. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't lust, either. It was simple