“I can’t,” she says in a breathy voice, calming herself with deeper breaths and finally loosening her grip on me.
“You worried someone’s going to see?” I ask and glance over my shoulder. With my head spinning, and all the blood in my body nowhere near my brain, I come to the very obvious realization that this woman doesn’t want to be fucked in her place of work.
Both of us still catching our breath, she answers me, “I haven’t dated in a long time.” The cords of her neck tense as she swallows then adds, “It’s a small town and I already have scandal all over me. I don’t really want any more.”
“Kissing me would be scandalous?” I offer her an asymmetric grin and nudge my nose against hers.
Even though it lightens the tension, she’s adamant. “We were doing a little more than kissing.”
“I know,” I tell her, “I get it.”
There’s a look in her eyes, like there’s something else, but I tell her the one thing I decided, “If you want to kiss me, then kiss me.”
She leans forward and plants a chaste kiss on my lips, this time molding her lips to mine a little more, and then gives me another, deepening it.
If she just keeps kissing me, there won’t be any problems. Robert can fuck off now that there are no secrets between us.
Magnolia
“I am complete chicken poo.” The theme song to Bridget’s favorite show fills the living room. She’s plopped cross-legged on the ottoman with mac and cheese on a little pink plate. Well … there’s some remnants of cheese left. I’m surprised my little girl didn’t lick the plate she ate it so fast.
“It’s ridiculous. I am an emotional wreck, for one, and chicken poo on top of that.” I cannot believe I told Robert but not Brody. I just … I just wanted him to kiss me again and I’m so afraid that he’s never going to kiss me again.
“Chicken poo isn’t quite what I’d call you.” Renee says each word slowly, carefully, testing them out. One would think she’s trying to comfort me, but knowing her she’s trying to twist the words to come up with some sort of teasing joke to make me laugh. She bugged me for every sordid detail. So the moment I locked up at work and came home, Renee was on me. As if I wouldn’t tell her anyway. She’s the first and only person I texted.
She already knew he’d come to the shop, though. Apparently “the handsome young bachelor” is the talk of the town. And the town knows he’s got an interest in me. I’m pretty sure the second part of the rumor going around is completely made up. The part about Brody and Robert hating one another. They don’t even know each other.
I didn’t bother to ask Renee if the town approves when she told me what was going around; I couldn’t care less if they do.
Tossing a little pink unicorn into the air and letting out a deep exhale, I say, “He already had to deal with Robert and I still don’t know how he found out about that.”
“Maybe you freaking out because Robert looked your way was a clue?” Renee’s voice is mocking as is her raised brow. “Like, just a tiny little clue?”
“A clue!” Bridget chimes in and gets both of our gazes to the back of her unmoving head. Her cute little locks bounce as she sways to the show.
“Is she listening?” Renee whispers.
“She’s a three-year-old … she’s always listening. With her little bat-like sonar hearing,” I whisper back.
Renee got all the good details first. The part about how he confronted me and kissed me and got me all hot and bothered. And now we’re stuck on the other part that goes hand in hand with that. The part where I probably should have told him my little girl is potentially his when I had the chance. Well, shoot.
A vibration on the coffee table alerts me to a text and I don’t miss that Renee scoots closer to me from the plush chair she claimed as “her spot” when I first bought it. “Is it him?”
“You are worse than Miss Jones,” I say, pretending to scold her as I guard the phone from her prying eyes.
“Pfft,” is all I get in return as she sits back in the chair.
I really like kissing you.
A smile pulls my lips up and there’s a warmth in my chest as I stare at the phone screen, both my hands wrapped around it.
My head falls back against the pillow and that’s when Renee says, “It is him, and you’re all gooey inside.”
I like kissing you too.
“So what’s the plan?” Renee asks and my sweet little innocent bubble pops. That’s exactly what it feels like. When I’m with him, we’re in our own little world where everything is perfect and all that matters are the butterflies in the pit of my belly.
And then my bubble pops. Just like it did now, right in time with the show ending on the television.
Clicking the power button, the screen goes black and Bridget yelps in protest. “Heyyyy!”
“Bedtime, little miss,” I tell her and toss both the remote and my phone on the ottoman.
Renee grabs my phone like I knew she would and I don’t stop her.
“No bedtime,” Bridget says then pouts. It’s a truly impressive pout, one where she sticks out her bottom lip and flashes puppy dog eyes at me. With both my hands on the ottoman, I lean down and give her forehead a kiss. “I told you only one show. Come on now,” I say then hold my hand out to her, standing up straight and Bridget follows my lead. “Time to brush our teeth.”
“Night night, little miss.”
“Night night, Raynay.”
Even though Bridget sounds completely defeated, she doesn’t fight bedtime. With the little yawn she gives me as her bare feet pad on the floor, I know she’ll be out like a light in only a few minutes.
It’s only when she’s tucked in with her night light on and the door open an inch, just how she likes it, that I head back to the living room. Brushing my hair out of my face, I let my cheeks puff out with an exaggerated sigh.
“So what is the plan?” I ask Renee, feeling that nervous pitter-patter in my chest.
It’s late, the night is dark and the salty breeze is now a little too chilly for the window to be cracked, so I close it. Renee hasn’t answered, so I turn around to face her and lift a brow as I say, “How can I tell him?”
Renee stretches out her legs and rests her head on the back of the chair before grinning like a fool and holding up my phone. “I don’t know but I like kissing you,” she jokes and then laughs, and I can’t help but smile.
And to toss a pillow at her smiling face.
“You’re no help.”
Brody
The smell of wood stain is overwhelming. It engulfs me as I lay down another sample of granite on the plywood that will be the bar top.
“I still like the steel best,” Griffin calls out from across the room. Of course he has his laptop open, his feet propped up while I do the manual labor.
A few of the painters look his way, probably wondering what the hell he’s talking about and if it relates to them. Griffin’s gaze never leaves the documents on the screen and everyone goes about their business.