She passed a thumb over the birthmark on my cheek and smiled at me with a type of joy I didn't actually understand. I bolted to my feet and glanced up at Linden, who must've interpreted my panic at being the source of his mother's cheek-stroking joy in some kind of urgent way because he looped an arm around her and steered her away, saying, "Jasper doesn't have all day, you know. Some of us have things to do that don't involve meddling or marmalade, or popping in unannounced."
"If you'd told me you had a special guest—"
"That's enough," he said, walking her to the door. "Save it for Sunday."
"Four o'clock," she called, waving to me over the ridge of Linden's shoulders. "Can't wait!"
I was still staring at the door when Linden returned to the kitchen, stepped into my space, and fisted his hands in the shirt I'd borrowed. "I should probably apologize for that ambush and tell you that you don't have to go to any of these things." He jerked me closer. "I should but I won't."
"Why not?"
He dipped his head to my neck, his beard rasping against my skin and drawing a slight squeak from me. "Because I want you there. I shouldn't. It's not fair to you because my mother will obviously get carried away. But I want you. There."
"I really don't want to ask what that means because I live quite contentedly without defining everything but what does that mean?"
From his spot against my neck and shoulder, he shook his head. "I don't know. I need a date for this party, is what it means. I have a family dinner coming up. I don't hate you, so—"
"You don't hate me," I said with a laugh.
He lifted his head, stared into my eyes. Down at my lips. "I don't hate you," he repeated. "I don't hate you at all, Peach."
So, this was new.
Until now, Linden had put on an ambivalent face where I was concerned. Even when he was kissing me and clearly turned on by me, it seemed as though he could just as easily not.
Yeah, he kissed me. Yeah, he backed me up against a tree or two and let me work out years of frustration. Yeah, he did something very terrible to my nipple the other day and something slightly obscene with my foot this morning.
And he didn't hate me.
"You just don't want to have to explain to your mother why I didn't come along," I countered.
Linden dropped the shirt and reached down, grabbing me by the ass and lifting me to the countertop. He liked doing that. Or, rather, he didn't hate it. "Because I want you there."
He leaned in and took my lips in a gentle kiss that seemed to go on forever, shutting down the world and responsibilities and bank balances and disappointments and all of it.
My hands flat on his barrel chest, I shifted my face to the side, asking, "What if someone recognizes me? I don't want to complicate—"
"Even if they do, there's nothing to complicate." He brought his forehead to my shoulder. "You're hell in heels. No one is going to come for you, knives out, at an anniversary party, especially not one attended by accountants and teachers. It's at a country club, for fuck's sake. The entire ethos of country clubs is making it as easy as possible for people to pretend everything is fine." He gave a quick shake of his head to my shoulder, ran his lips along my neck. "And if anyone has a problem with you, they'll have to go through me first. It's not going to be any other way, Jasper."
This insistence…I decided I could get used to it.
13
Linden
It wasn't my style to make snap decisions.
I didn't waffle or ruminate either but I preferred to take my damn time on the things that mattered.
The partnership with Magnolia was a good example.
Introducing Jasper to my family was another.
Lucky for me, my mother jumped in and took care of the latter for me. Awesome.
I probably would've invited Jasper along on Sunday if my mother hadn't beaten me to the chase. It wasn't like I wanted to keep Jasper away from my family. I didn't want them getting the wrong idea was all. I didn't want my mother gushing about how special Jasper was and how she had to attend the party, as if she could force this relationship into permanence if she pulled the right strings and pushed hard enough on the soft spots.
Permanence wasn't even in Jasper's vocabulary. She wasn't staying in a sleepy Boston suburb, first because she was only here to escape her present situation and second because she didn't want to stay here. This wasn't where she wanted to be. Even if recovering from her last job—and that marriage—she wasn't turning in her power heels for duck boots.
This was temporary and that was why I could live with taking her home with me on Sunday and to the party next month. When she left town and returned to her life, or some version of it, my mother would have to accept the absolute pointlessness of challenging me to find someone special on a prescribed timeline. She'd have to.
So, yeah. I told Jasper I wanted her with me. I meant it too. I liked Jasper and I knew my family would adore her. As far as the party went, well, that was for me. I wasn't positive Jasper would still be in town when that event rolled around but if she was, I got the bonus of hanging out with her all night.
Seemed like a good deal to me.
I wasn't getting attached. I was just looking out for her. Being a good neighbor, really. Or something along those lines. I liked her and—and, well, I didn't hate her. I wasn't irrationally angry about her fixing up Midge's house anymore, even if I did completely lose it when I saw her marching toward the half-dead rhododendron in the backyard with an axe the other day. We only yelled at each other for ten minutes that time, which was progress.
We only yelled at each other for ten minutes because I grabbed the axe out of her hands, tossed it into my yard, and kissed her while she flailed those bony little fists at me, but it was still progress.
I wasn't getting attached. This wasn't attachment. It was something else. Something that made me want to physically shake sense into her at least once a day while also making me want to fuck her clear through my mattress at least five times an hour.
I still had to talk myself out of both in order to survive this invasion.
Her life was a bunch of puzzle pieces thrown up in the air and she wasn't staying. I was all about casual sex but there was nothing casual where it came to Jasper. Taking her to bed would mean something. If not to her, definitely to me. After she left, she'd always be the beautiful maybe-burglar who blew into my life with a cloud of bats at her back and a toxic banana bread. She'd always be the woman who told an eternity of secrets the first time she stepped into the heart of the woods. She'd always be the woman who made my heart stop when I saw fire trucks outside her house and the one who got woozy at the sight of blood. She was the one who'd catalyzed ordinary concern for my neighbor into the kind of worry that kept me up nights. And she was the only woman I'd ever met who could make a meal out of toasted bread.
I wasn't getting attached.
14
Jasper
Linden found a reason for me to stay over every night that week.