I remembered saying how much I’d enjoy sitting out there, and I was shocked that he had remembered it too. “These are for me?” I asked, dumbfounded. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made such a sweet gesture. “Thank you.”
“I wanted to do something nice. To maybe help offset the years of ‘not nice’ between our families.”
“Wait, did you . . .” I looked over the smooth form of one of the chairs. They weren’t like any I’d seen online when I’d priced them. “Did you make these yourself?”
He actually blushed and dropped his eyes to the ground. I half expected him to utter the word shucks. But instead, he cleared his throat and then met my eyes. “Yeah. It’s the thing I really enjoy, making furniture. I have a workshop out behind the store.”
“You’re really talented. You could definitely sell these,” I told him, unable to stop myself from sitting in one to test it out. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” he said, as I stood again.
I stepped closer to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “This is nice. This is so nice.” And then I did what I’d been thinking of doing all day. I kissed him, long and sweet and languorous, out there under the sweeping fall of leaves and the angling rays of the setting autumn sun. And for that one moment, everything in my life was perfect.
We had dinner in the parlor after setting up the new chairs on the front porch. I tested out every one of them, rocking back and forth on the new porch planks while gazing out at the gates that led down to the town square. I could never have imagined a couple months ago that I’d be sitting on the front porch of the old haunted house, happy and content.
“I made a swing too,” Michael said, once I’d finished rocking and stood back up to go inside.
“Seriously?” I grinned. The idea of a porch swing made me so happy. It seemed so provincial, so very southern—to sit on a porch swing and drink lemonade. It wasn’t the kind of life I’d thought I’d have, the kind I’d had in New York. But it was the kind of life I was beginning to think I wanted.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over the porch railing, staring at something. “Come look at this.”
I joined him, following his gaze down to the ground, where there was a very noticeable anthill and about forty million big red ants.
My stomach roiled. I hated ants. I hated bugs. “Fire ants?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so,” he said. “I’ll call an exterminator. We don’t want to mess around with those.”
I put the ants out of my mind as best I could and went inside to open the boxes of clams and fries I’d brought home, and then turned on a movie neither of us was really watching.
“I told you about Sunday dinner, right?” I asked him, my mouth half full of clam.
“Yeah,” he said. “Uncle Victor was weirdly agreeable. The cousins are suspicious.”
“Maybe it’s a trap,” I suggested, grinning.
“Knowing your mother . . .”
“Careful,” I warned, though he wasn’t wrong to be wary of Lottie. “Oh, and speaking of my mother.”
Michael looked at me and then his eyes slid shut. “Just tell me. I can handle it.”
“She came by today with a pet psychic. Long story short, I’m supposed to call you Elias as much as possible and you’re supposed to spend as much time as you can throwing balls and putting out kibble.”
“Should I pretend that isn’t insane?”
“She thinks we’re haunted by a German Shepherd.”
“Right,” he said, just accepting this in stride because based on everything else my mother had done, this made perfect sense.
“So what do you say, Elias?”
“What do I get to call you?” He asked.
I put my drink down and turned toward him on the couch. “If you want to go upstairs, you can call me anything you want.” It was the boldest thing I’d probably ever said, but this thing between us had me feeling like a different version of myself. A better, more confident, sexier version.
“Let’s go,” he said.
We practically sprinted up the stairs, and the second I’d crossed the threshold into the bedroom, Michael caught my wrist and pulled me into his chest. For a few beats, he held me close and just looked down at me with those expressive blue eyes, and then he smiled and leaned in, pressing his lips to mine.
The kiss was slow and teasing, a current of control that was at odds with the wild thrashing inside my body every time Michael looked at me that way or touched me. But after a moment, his tongue swept the seam of my lips and the kiss deepened, and he walked with me toward the bed, pushing me back until the mattress hit my thighs.
We broke the kiss only long enough to scoot into the center of the mattress, Michael hovering over me for a long moment. I stared up at him, beginning to feel both impatient and a little uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny.
“What?” I laughed, reaching for him.
“You,” he said simply. “You’re incredible. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to know you. I would never have imagined this.” He shook his head lightly, smiling, and then the smile slid from his face as his eyes darkened.
For the rest of the evening, we didn’t talk much, and Michael, didn’t repeat his thoughts about feeling lucky—instead, he showed me. His tongue made trails across my body, swirling and laving every part of me, and at one point, when his head was between my thighs, my hands fisted in that thick red hair, I had the sense we weren’t alone in the room. And when I screamed my release, I thought I heard the ghost scream along with me—only this time, it didn’t frighten me.
But it was a little creepy.
And it definitely wasn’t a German Shepherd.
27
We Don’t Joke about Coons
Michael
Spending night after night with Addison Tanner in my arms felt like a completely different version of my life. Somewhere though, in the dark corners of my practical and pessimistic brain, I wondered if it wasn’t doomed from the start. She was a Tanner, after all. And the odds were stacked against us. Our disparate ages. Our families. Her career. My failures. Our mutual baggage. My responsibilities to my son. None of that added up to a carefree and successful relationship, but the neutral territory of the house made it feel like maybe it was all possible.
I decided, consciously or subconsciously, not to allow any of the realities of my life interfere with the first real selfish happiness I’d found in years. It was too heady, too addictive for reality to intervene.
Saturday morning we called the exterminator to deal with the ants. He was a tall wiry guy with a permanent scowl named Liam, who showed up almost immediately after I’d called and stood over the anthill shaking his head.
“It’s a big colony,” he said. “I might need to come out a couple times to really get it.”
I shrugged. “That’s okay. I just don’t like it being so close to the front door.”
He gazed up at me then, narrow eyes evaluating me. “Don’t mind the ghosts though, eh?”
I smiled, gazing around the rebuilt front porch. From the outside, I guessed maybe the house did still look a little dilapidated. We hadn’t had it repainted yet. But the place was sound, and the interior work was almost complete. The electrician had updated the wiring, and we had internet and cable, and a state of the art kitchen. It was hard to look at the old house the way I once had. “I guess I don’t.”