I gave her my best scowl, but it held no heat. Fuck, I loved that woman.
“I need to borrow your garage for a few days.” Pausing, she slanted her head to one side. “Okay, maybe a few weeks. Just until things settle down.” She walked through the dining room and opened the garage door, slapping her hand against the wall until she found the button. With a low hum, the motor slid the exterior door open, the late afternoon sun driving out the darkness.
Abandoning dinner prep, I followed her out. With the exception of my truck, I didn’t keep much out there, so I had more than enough space for whatever she needed. Though I was still curious about the whole wine, orgasm, and credit card thing.
She’d correctly predicted my answer, something I liked a hell of a lot too, by already having backed her car up to the edge of the garage and opened the tailgate. Two long rectangular boxes almost as big as she was filled the back of her SUV.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Well, assuming I didn’t break anything while wrestling them into my car before Mark and Aaron came home and saw them sitting on the front porch”—she patted the top of the boxes—“this is the finest garden table you can buy off an Instagram ad from the comfort of your Sirfriend’s bed at one in the morning.”
There were so many parts of her statement requiring elaboration, but there was only one that made my stomach sink.
With Sally, insomnia had always been how it started. After a suicide attempt, they’d tweak her meds and add more intensive therapy. For a few weeks, she’d seem better. Hope would flood my veins that maybe we’d finally found the right combination to ease her pain. She’d kiss me like she meant it again. Make love to me like she couldn’t get enough. And then at night, she’d lie beside me wide awake while I slept—sated and spent—a vortex of agony devouring her even as I held her in my arms.
She’d go days without sleeping, her mind ravaging her from the inside out. Not long after that, she’d quit eating. Her only calories became whatever alcohol she could get her hands on. She’d never been an alcoholic, at least not in the traditional sense, but it was the only drug she could find to numb the pain. If experience told me anything, I had three weeks after the insomnia started before the darkness swallowed her all over again.
Careful to keep the panic out of my voice, I asked, “What were you doing up at one in the morning?”
“Listening to you snore.” She chuffed and turned toward her SUV.
I caught her arm, anxiety making it rougher than I intended. “You having nightmares? Trouble sleeping? Anything you want to talk about?”
Her head snapped back. “What? No. It was last week after we took that long afternoon nap on the swing.” She smirked and traced her index finger over my bottom lip. “I figured two glasses of wine and that thing you did with your mouth between my legs would be more than enough for me to sleep, but unfortunately that only worked on you. So, buzzed, sated, and with the unfortunate luck of having a credit card stored in my phone, I did some shopping. Then promptly forgot about it.” She waved a hand through the air over the boxes. “So now I need you to help me hide it until I can sweet-talk Aaron and Mark into letting me keep it.”
The relief that struck me was staggering.
She looked like Sally.
She acted like Sally.
For all intents and purposes, she was Sally.
But sometimes I’d forget she wasn’t. And for as much as I missed the woman I’d originally fallen in love with, thank fuck for that.
“Yeah. Of course,” I muttered, praying it didn’t sound nearly as stilted as it felt.
She smiled, bright and white, and patted me on the chest. “For being such a gracious cohort, I’ll see about doing some things with my mouth tonight. Now, come on. Let’s put those muscles of yours to use. Help me unload.”
“What exactly is a garden table?” I asked, sliding the top box out and carrying it to the far corner of my garage.
“If I remember correctly, it’s like a rectangular coffee table with a glass top. But the bottom layer is a huge planter for all your wildest succulent creations. It even has a drain so you can’t overwater. Trust me, it is pure gorgeousness.”
I grabbed the second box. “And if you don’t remember correctly?”
She shrugged. “An ugly overpriced planter that’s going to take me twelve hours to assemble only to leak all over the floor.”
I let out a laugh, and instead of carrying it over to the other box, I set it on the ground between us. “So why don’t we put it together now and find out?”
She curled her lips. “Then how will I get it home?”
“Well, your boyfriend does drive a truck, so transportation shouldn’t be an issue. Or you could leave it here and avoid the argument with Mark and Aaron altogether.”
She stared at me for several beats, her smile never faltering, but something magical passed over her. “Here?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m only moderately attached to the coffee table my sister picked out. Though I am immensely attached to you.” I winked.
Her cheeks pinked just the way I’d hoped. “That’s sweet but you don’t want an arrangement of succulents as your coffee table. It’s the main focal point of the room.”
I twisted my lips and squinted one eye. “You gonna be sitting on my couch across from it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then you’ll be the main focal point of the room. I’m not too concerned with it the rest of the time.”
She blinked rapidly as she tilted her head back. “Bowen, you do realize this isn’t like a normal table. It’s a commitment. You’ll have to water them and stuff.”
“I’m doing all right with the snake plant I bought. Which, by the way, you still haven’t named yet.”
“It’s your plant. You’re the one who’s supposed to name it.”
“Then I guess it stays unnamed, along with all the other suck-you-whatevers that end up in the table.”
“Succulents,” she corrected, the smile that owned me stretching wider.
“Right. Well, let me grab my toolbox and you pick out some names and we’ll put this thing together as soon as we finish the fajitas I’m making for dinner.”
After moving around the box, she plastered herself to my side. “You don’t have to do this. It’s really going to kill the whole stylish bachelor vibe you’ve got going on in your living room.”
I brushed her hair off her shoulder, trailing the tips of my fingers across her exposed collarbone. “Good. Because I’m not a bachelor anymore. I have an incredibly sexy woman whose whole face lights up anytime she sees anything with so much as a leaf. Therefore, I don’t care if she transforms my entire place into a greenhouse as long as she keeps that smile aimed at me.”
Her face got soft and her eyes filled with emotion—not tears, but there was definitely love. The same love burning a hole in my chest damn near twenty-four hours a day—even when she was missing from my life.
Sliding her hand across my stomach, she hugged me tight and sighed. “Okay. Sammy.”
“Excuse me?” I tipped my chin down and scowled. “Did you call me Sammy?”