“Owen is picking up sandwich stuff for lunch. Nora was texting him quite the list.”
“Force of nature,” Monroe reminds me.
“Mama! Meet my Huck!” Stella runs across the yard, Huck right on her heels, curls falling out of her loose ponytail and bouncing in the breeze behind her. She stumbles up the steps, coming to a quick stop right in front of me. Huck immediately sits down right next to her. “Say hi, my Huck.” Stella giggles. “Say hi to Mama.”
The lab lifts his front paw, holding it out and waiting for me to take it in my hand. I shake his paw carefully, then let it drop, and I swear it looks like the dog is smiling right at me. Then he turns to look at my daughter, and it is obvious the dog is every bit in love with my little girl as she appears to be with him.
“My Huck likes to play tag, and chase, and he can sit and stay and roll over,” Stella tells me in a rush. “He likes Phant and diddna try to eat him. I’m hungry. Can I hab birthday cake?”
I flick my finger over her nose. “No, ma’am, you may not have birthday cake. But you can have a turkey-and-cheese sandwich.”
“Phant wants birthday cake.”
“Me too, but we can’t always get what we want.”
Stella sighs heavily, well accustomed to that particular phrase. She turns her head to Monroe, and with a perfectly straight face says, “You get what you need.”
So, yes, I’ve taught my daughter Rolling Stones lyrics. It was entirely on accident, but every time I found myself telling her that you can’t always get what you want, I found myself automatically following it up with the rest of the lyrics. I can’t quite stop myself.
“Most often, what we need ends up being better than what we want,” Monroe tells my daughter.
Stella doesn’t even hesitate before telling Monroe, “Cake is better than a sandwich.”
“Hard to disagree with that,” Nora says as she opens the back door. “Owen is here with the groceries, Tristan. Do you want to come to take a look at everything before we unload and bring Stella in? Nut allergy,” she says to Monroe before her friend can question why I need to inspect everything.
“Tell me when you’re ready for her to come in,” Monroe says with a smile. “She can keep running around with Huck until then. Maybe they’ll finally wear each other out.”
Nora moves down the steps so I can get by her. “I’m going to hang out here with Roe for a minute.”
I slide past them and into the blissfully cool house. The heat in the South is no joke. Taking one step away from the door, I stop, leaning against the wall for a minute to gather my wits. I can hear the Gallahanger brothers and the movers moving around upstairs, with the occasional muffled conversation, as they finish putting the new furniture together.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I moved to Broward, but this definitely wasn’t it. It’s a little overwhelming to have all these strange people moving around my house, to have them helping me so much when they know so little about me. In the neighborhood I lived in DC, there were very few scenarios where I felt like perfect virtual strangers would jump right into my life so willingly.
It’s a little exhausting.
Lifting my hands, I yank my hair out of the knot on top of my head before shifting my fingers through the long, black curls to give myself a few more seconds to gather myself before heading into the kitchen, where Owen is potentially still hanging out.
All of the Gallahanger brothers might be excellent specimens of male, but Owen is the only one who literally makes me feel like a fire has ignited inside of me just by looking at him. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about that, any more than I was sure about how to handle this sudden influx of people in my life.
I gather my hair in my hands again, rewinding the strands into a messy knot at the top of my head. I’m just getting ready to step further into the house when I hear Monroe’s voice from the back stoop.
“So, when Tristan left my kitchen this morning, I’m relatively sure I heard Owen muttering mo chuisle mo chori under his breath.”
“Seriously? I didn’t think he believed in that,” Nora pipes in. “Didn’t he say something along the lines of all that mumbo jumbo is bullshit?”
“Haven’t they all?” Monroe says with a small laugh. “No one wants to think their fate is decided for them. It’s a little scary.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Oh, Nora,” Monroe says softly. “Cam is—”
“Has nothing to do with him,” Nora interrupts sharply. “The whole idea that you can know someone is the love of your life by just a glance and a freaking feeling is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I’m going to see if Tristan is ready for us.”
I take a quick step away from the door, hurrying past the half bath and around the corner into the kitchen, and run right into Owen. He reaches up, his large, warm hands wrapping around my upper arms to keep me from keeling over backward. His dark eyes lock on mine, and his lips tip up in a small smile as we stand there.
Once my clothes had made their way into the house, I’d taken time to change into a pair of cut-off shorts and a tank top to help combat the intense heat that still clings to the area despite the fact that we are sliding right out of September and inching into October. The tank top allows the rough skin of his palms to burn into the bare skin of arms, and despite the fact that sweat still slides across my skin from being outside, goose bumps form at his touch.
He’s not watching me like some puzzle to be figured out anymore, but like he’s managed to figure something out, to figure me out, and I don’t like it.
I pull against his arms, taking two small steps back when he drops his hands.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help unload the moving truck.” He takes a step away from me, reaching for another grocery bag that needs to be emptied.
“Oh, um, that’s okay. I think your brothers are just about done.”
“Yeah, they were putting your bed together when I came in. Do you need to look at everything to double check that there’s nothing here that will hurt Stella?”
“Uh, yes.” I cross my arms under my chest, and his eyes tip down at the movement. I follow his gaze and see that my breasts have been pushed up to the point they’re nearly spilling over the top of my tank. I look back up at him as I drop my arms, and watch as he shifts his stance. Letting out a little huff of breath, I brush past him, moving across the small kitchen to the items he has lined up along the counter. I start to pick through the groceries, taking the time to read the labels even though I’m familiar with most of the items and know they are safe.
“I picked up some milk and some juice boxes; they’re in the fridge.” I nod absently in response to his statement, unsure what to say to him. I can feel the tension rolling off of me in waves.
I know he feels it too when he asks me, “Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“Yes.” I keep my answer simple, honest, turning my head to look at him in time to see his lips twitch up in a small smile, that damned dimple flashing briefly in and out as a chuckle escapes his lips. I spin around completely to face him, the loaf of bread I’d been studying in my hands. “Should I have lied?” I ask with an arched brow. “Because that isn’t something I make a habit of doing. Lying is complicated.”