Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
WYATT
I’m trying to pour myself a cup of punch and adopt the look of a woman who didn’t just come in a high school chem lab when Grace comes skidding up beside me so fast she nearly takes out the entire refreshments table.
“You were in the hookup nook!” Her voice is pushing the limits of a whisper.
I raise my eyebrows. “It has an official name?”
“I went there with Tyler Jessup during junior homecoming,” she says, working to catch her breath. “So, you and my brother? It’s happening?”
“It’s just sex,” I say.
Her nose wrinkles. “Okay, ew, I don’t need the details.”
I roll my eyes. “No, I need you to hear me. Owen and I talked about it. I’m not his girlfriend. We’re just having fun,” I say, like I’m laying out a business plan. “I don’t want to sneak around or hide things from you, but I also don’t want this to become…”
“A relationship?” she says, her voice hopeful.
“A thing,” I say, because the r -word sticks in my throat. “It’s categorically not a thing. Please hear me on that.”
She nods solemnly. “Okay. Absolutely. Just…” She wrinkles her nose, clearly uninterested in labeling her brother my fuck buddy.
So I help her out. “We’re calling it a pineapple,” I say.
Now she looks really confused. “A what now?”
“I swear it sounded a lot less insane a few minutes ago.” I shrug. “Just go with it.”
“Well, okay, then. I support you in your…pineapple.”
Carson slides through the crowd and sidles up beside me.
“I heard about you and Owen!” she squeals, and at my wide eyes, she points directly at Grace. “From her. I heard it from her, and I told no one else.”
“Nor did I,” Grace chimes in. “I mean, Decker was there, so he knows, but?—”
“We can keep it quiet,” Carson assures me.
“They’re calling it a pineapple,” Grace says.
“Excuse me?” Carson looks from me to Grace and back. “Isn’t that, like, the symbol for swingers?”
“Oh my god !” Grace cries.
“No! Good Lord, the two of you are ridiculous. We’re not swingers, nor are we in a relationship. We’re just?—”
“If you say fuck buddies, I’m barfing in that punch bowl,” Grace warns.
“—not labeling things,” I say firmly. “And I definitely don’t want this circulating around all of Ye Olde Cardinal Springs, so we’re going to play it cool for the rest of the night.”
“And you want us to help with that?” Carson asks.
“I mean…” It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d need help, but as my gaze drifts across the dance floor to where Owen is twisting the lid off a beer bottle with a quick flex of his forearm, rocking back on his heels like the cat that ate the canary, I realize this is going to be a very long night. What am I doing here? Charity? Dancing? What’s my name, even? “Yes. Please keep me occupied so…”
“So the entire town doesn’t pick up on your seismic sexual attraction,” Carson finishes.
“Consider us your wingwomen,” Grace says.
Across the gym floor, Owen catches my eye and winks. It’s the wink of a man who knows what I taste like, and while I’m no virgin bride, I find the look on that man’s face downright scandalous.
Fingers snap in front of my face. “Are you sure you want us to do this?” Grace asks. “Because we can step aside and you can go, uh, do it like they do on the Discovery Channel or whatever.”
“Seriously, I have never seen a woman look so horned up in my life,” Carson says, laughing.
Oh god, I’m in so much trouble.
“Help me, Obi-Wan, and all that,” I mutter.
“Okay, then eyes on me, Hart.” Grace is using the voice she reserves for rowdy toddlers at the library. And you know what? It works. I snap my eyes to hers, and she’s looking at me like a general about to lead me into battle. “We’re going to dance our asses off. Away from Owen. Capisce?”
I nod, resolute. “Capisce.”
For the rest of the night, we dance and snack and hype each other up to make it to seven a.m. Grace and Carson are true to their word, keeping me from drifting toward Owen whenever he’s on the dance floor, even though my body feels magnetically drawn to him. I find myself turning toward him like a flower finding the sun.
The only time he slips past their defenses is just before Corianne declares the dance marathon complete. We’re all gathered on the floor, a sudden surge of adrenaline battling with the yawns as we collectively realize how close our beds are.
I feel him behind me immediately, his warm, strong presence there just before I feel his breath on the shell of my ear.
“You good to drive home?” he whispers, his big hand drifting gently over the curve of my hip. The crowd is tight as we all gather near the stage, and I let myself lean my weight into him just for a brief, delicious stolen moment.
“I’m good,” I say, because the jolt of electricity I feel at the contact gives me enough energy to sprint home.
“Good. Sleep well,” he says, then takes a gentlemanly step backward. I glance over my shoulder just in time to see his smile. “Tonight,” is all he says before disappearing into the crowd.
Exhaustion catches up to me as soon as I pull my truck into the driveway. I’m seconds away from having to hold my eyelids open with my thumbs. With my bed as my only target, I trip through the front door and begin shuffling down the hall.
“Pancakes?”
My mother’s voice slices through my fatigue, as does the smell of butter and vanilla and…something burning?
Against my better judgment, I veer into the kitchen to find my mother standing over the griddle, a spatula in one hand and a dish towel in the other. She’s attempting to wipe up the drips of batter rolling down the front of the oven and pooling on the floor. There are also spatters on the counter, a puff of flour on the cabinet door, and dripping eggshells lying near the sink.
And a burner spattered with pancake banner glowing, nothing cooking on top.
Suddenly I’m wide awake.
I huff out an exasperated sigh and march over to the stove, hustling her aside with my hip so I can turn off the extra burner. Then I snatch the dish towel out of her hand and set about cleaning up the mess.
“Honey, I was gonna get to all that as soon as I finished with the pancakes,” Libby says in that leathery, syrupy Southern drawl that I know started out fake but by now is probably her true voice.
“Right,” I mutter, because in the four months I’ve been roomies with my mother, I’ve become all too familiar with her brand of cleaning. It usually consists of sweeping everything into an overfull trash can, stacking the dishes in the sink to “soak” (until someone else comes along to rinse them and load them into the dishwasher—spoiler alert, it’s never her), and fucking off to vape in the backyard.
“I was!” She flips the pancakes, rogue batter flying.
“Good morning!” Hazel says, padding into the kitchen with Eden on her hip. Her eyes go from Libby and her culinary disaster to me. Ever the peacemaker, Hazel plasters on a smile. “Oooh, pancakes! We love pancakes, don’t we, Eden?”
“That’s right, Little Edie!” Libby says in that sickly baby voice she uses.
“You know Little Edie was a tragic figure, right? Emotionally stunted by her abusive mother? Quite the legacy to bestow on your granddaughter,” I say.
Libby rolls her eyes like a snotty teenager. “Give it a rest, Wyatt.”
Noticing the way my jaw is clenching as I try to bite back my words, Hazel passes me the baby while she starts making Eden’s morning bottle.
“How was the dance marathon?” she asks.
Like she’s cast a spell, my tension melts away. Owen McBride is a gift that keeps on giving, apparently, because simply calling up the memory of last night floods my body with heat.
“That good, huh?” Hazel grins.
“Be careful, that kind of starry-eyed glow is how you wind up saddled with one of these,” Libby says, taking Eden out of my arms.
And just like that, my body cools. “Wow, you’ve managed to insult both your daughters and your granddaughter in one sentence. Impressive.”
Libby waves me off with the spatula, hoisting Eden higher on her hip. “Oh, that’s not what I meant.”
I drag the trash can over and swipe the eggshells into it with a little too much force. One pings off the edge of the lid and skitters across the linoleum floor. Watching the gooey bits settle beneath the fridge makes something snap inside me. Twelve years of resentment bubbles up all at once, everything I’ve been holding back since Libby showed up on the curb back in January. Suddenly my exhaustion is secondary to the rage adrenaline boiling inside of me.
“Really? Because that’s the message you gave me when you sent me packing at eighteen.”
Libby’s eyes go wide, like I’ve slapped her, and I take a sliver of satisfaction in the notion that I’ve caught her off guard. I’ve been playing nice for Hazel and Eden and the Indiana State Board of Corrections, but a girl can only bite her tongue for so long.
“That’s not what—” Libby protests, and then Hazel steps between us.
“Come on, guys, it’s early, we’re all tired,” she says.
“Oh, I’m tired, all right. Tired of her pretending she has any authority to hand out motherly advice,” I snap. “She gave up that right more than once. Like the time you went to that casino after work and left me waiting at school for three hours . Or the time you forgot to pay the water bill and they shut it off for a week . Oh wait, that happened twice! And of course, let’s not forget the time you went to prison because you cared more about some lowlife deadbeat boyfriend than your own daughter.”
Now Libby’s mad, and she passes Eden back to Hazel so she can wave her spatula in my face. “Don’t talk to me like that,” she says, the venom overtaking the Southern drawl.
“Or what, you’re gonna kick me out of this house too?” I say, toe-to-toe with her.
“Stop it!” Hazel shouts, and at the unusual rise in her voice, Eden begins to cry.
“Fine,” I grind out, spinning on my heel and stomping out of the kitchen.
In my room, I pace, hands on my hips as I mutter all the angry words I want to say to Libby. It would be such a relief to tell her once and for all that she fucked up my childhood, that she fucked up Hazel’s childhood, and that I won’t let her do the same thing to Eden. The notion that she should ever feel entitled to offer me advice or correct me like a naughty toddler is laughable . It’s downright offensive.
A gentle knock at my door freezes me along the track I’m wearing into the carpet. “What?” I call, because I am not letting Libby into this room. Not now, not ever.
“It’s me,” Hazel replies, then cracks the door.
I let out a breath. “Come in.”
Hazel steps in, closing the door gently behind her, then settles onto the end of my bed.
“I can’t, Hazel. I can’t deal with the fake mother shit,” I say, feeling the anger boil up inside me anew.
“I know. And we need to deal with it. With…well, everything. But that’s not going to happen right now. Not after you’ve been up all night doing unspeakable things with Owen McBride,” she says, her lips curving into a Cheshire Cat grin.
“That obvious?” I ask, huffing out a rueful laugh.
“You blushed head to toe when I asked about the dance marathon,” my sister says. “Nobody has that much fun doing the Electric Slide.”
I bite my lip and fall back onto the bed beside her, my eyes on the water-spotted ceiling. “I like him.”
“I can tell,” Hazel says. “I think the whole town can tell.”
I groan.
“Hey, it’s your business, and I support whatever boundaries you want to put up. Lord knows we’re in need of some around here,” she says, then flops back to lie beside me.
I sigh. “I’ll try not to…” I trail off, trying to figure out what I can reasonably promise.
“Just don’t go all Khaleesi on her,” Hazel pleads. “At least not until we can get ourselves to a therapist.”
“Oh god, anything but that,” I beg.
Hazel sits up. “Steel yourself, because it’s happening. It’s the only way Eden is going to grow up in a happy home. I’ll do anything to protect that kid, and that includes busting through your walls and making you confront all your shit.”
“How do you not have shit? She abandoned you too.”
Hazel rolls her eyes. “I have shit. And I handle it in my own very unproductive ways. The difference is, I want to change that. And I’m going to make you change with me, okay?”
I sigh. “Fine.”
“Good girl,” she says, patting my head like I’m the little sister. “Now get some sleep. I’ve seen what a nightmare you become when you don’t get a solid eight hours. You after an all-nighter might just be lethal.”
I let out a leonine yawn that I feel all the way down to my toes. “Okay,” I say, my eyes already fluttering shut. I roll onto my side and hug my pillow.
Hazel lets herself out, the door clicking quietly behind her—she’s developed ninja-level stealth skills since having a baby— and I’m seconds away from sleep when my phone vibrates in my back pocket.
The pull of Owen is the only thing that keeps me from dreamland. I slide the phone out and read the text that I knew would be from him.
Owen
I hope you’re in bed, maybe even asleep already. I need you well rested for later.
The grin starts at the corners of my mouth, and soon I feel the thrill of his message radiating out through my body. I start to tap at the screen, but another message appears.
Owen
I see you typing
Stop
Go to sleep
Text me when you wake up. 8 hours minimum please
The please is a nice touch, considering the orders he’s dishing out. And while my reflex is to send him a smart-ass little message, to push against the control just for fun, I find myself happy to let him boss me around.
That doesn’t mean I won’t have a little lip for him after eight hours of sleep, though.
Good thing he likes it.