Love, Suburban Style by Wendy Markham

say?”
    “It’s not what I would say. It’s how I would act. Body language.”
    Whoa, it’s getting steamy in here.
    He should go.
    No, he should stay.
    He should definitely stay.
    “Okay, then let’s see,” he challenges her.
    “See what?”
    “What you would do now, if you were into someone, and I was the person you were into.”
    “What?”
    “You know what I mean. Go for it.”
    Okay, what the hell are you doing, here?
    I’m flirting. And frankly, I’m surprised I remember how.
    Well, now that you’ve refreshed your memory, you need to stop.
    And go.
    And I will. Just as soon as she makes her fake move on me.
    “Go for it?” Meg echoes, and bites the edge of her lower lip, looking up at him alluringly.
    Or maybe she doesn’t mean to be alluring.
    She just is.
    “Right,” he tells her, “just do whatever you would do if you were interested in someone.”
    “And you’re the someone, right?” She takes a provocative step closer.
    “Right. I’m the someone,” he informs her in a voice that suddenly resembles his own, a good twenty-odd years ago. When it was changing.
    He clears his throat.
    Which, as it turns out, doesn’t matter, because he isn’t going to be speaking again for a bit.
    He won’t be speaking because his mouth will be otherwise engaged.
    Kissing Meg.
    Or rather, letting Meg kiss
him.
    That’s how it starts, anyway.
    She rests her hands on his shoulders, stands on her tiptoes, and plants a kiss that is both bold and gentle on his lips.
    “There,” she says softly. “That’s what I’d do.”
    That’s it.
    There.
    No preamble, no pretenses.
    Sam pulls her closer; they kiss again.
    His mouth comes alive at the slightest brush against her lips. He closes his eyes and allows himself the pleasure, however fleeting, of kissing a desirable woman, after all these years, after all he’s been through.
    He might have forgotten what that’s like, but he gets the hang of it fairly quickly. His body responds of its own accord; he pulls her closer, holds her against him; at once thrilled and dismayed by his own rigid need.
    This is as far as it can go. Kissing. Tonight.
    This is all he’ll allow himself.
    Tomorrow, they’ll be nothing more than next-door neighbors again, and she can go back to her hiatus, but tonight—
    Meg breaks the kiss and stiffens abruptly in Sam’s arms as downstairs, a door slams and footsteps tap across the hardwood floor.
    Now my imagination is getting into the act,
he realizes, still a little unnerved by the inexplicable slam they heard earlier.
    Then a voice calls, “Mom?”
    Heart still pounding from the unexpected kiss and what she thought was another haunting, Meg hurries to the top of the stairs with Sam on her heels.
    She peers over the banister to see Cosette and Geoffrey, bags in their hands, looking up at her.
    “Do you know how hard it is to find an onion ring in this burg?” Geoffrey demands. “Enough hummus, organic produce, sushi, pinot grigio, and espresso to supply a nation of soccer moms for a hundred years, but if you want—”
    He breaks off, looking over Meg’s shoulder, where Sam has presumably become visible.
    “Hello,” Geoffrey tells him politely, and casts a bit of a smug grin at Meg. She knows he’s thinking about her New Year’s resolution—and that he suspects she just violated it.
    To Sam, Geoffrey says, “And you must be…?” with obvious irony, as Geoffrey has no way of knowing who Sam must be.
    Meg dares to dart a glance at Cosette and is surprised to see that she looks merely intrigued. And… impressed?
    Looking over her shoulder, Meg can see why. Sam, with his shaggy hair and ruggedly handsome face, is…
    Well, pretty much a total hottie, to borrow a favorite phrase of Cosette’s. Or is it Geoffrey’s?
    No matter. It’s been a while since Meg has personally encountered a total hottie, but Sam Rooney definitely fits the bill.
    Which is exactly why she should have run in the opposite direction.
    Instead, you