19. Weland
Chapter nineteen
Weland
“ H ow did your dad get so smart?” Sterling asks.
I toss a whole handful of spaghetti into the pot of boiling water. The frying pan is sizzling again, this time because we’re making dinner, so I dump a quarter of a bag of frozen meatballs. Don’t judge. We can’t all be masters of the kitchen, and besides, they’re good.
My parents and my brother left for the day right after breakfast. I could barely focus on anything while thinking about the plans Sterling was going to have to make. He spent most of the day in the basement with his laptop and phone, making calls. I had students come and go in the afternoon, and he needed the time and space to make a bunch of calls to lawyers and other people. I know the first one he placed was to Smitty, which makes sense because Smitty isn’t just his lawyer. I’m pretty sure he’s a wizard from another dimension.
“He reads books.” Sterling pulls a face at me like I’m trying to give him a token answer. I’m actually not trying to be funny for once. “No, really. He reads tons. But he’s also reading all these books on how to succeed in this or that,” I say.
“Self-help?”
“I guess that would be it, but he reads everything in that genre. Not just how to help yourself mentally or emotionally but how to help in business and every other venture. His social media feeds are full of bullet point lists that other people have highlighted from books.”
“So he gives you lots of that bullet-pointed wisdom?” Sterling quirks a brow.
“He does. That and tons that don’t sound like they’re from bullet points.”
“Like respect all life forms, even the kinds you’re scared of because they all have a job to do, so don’t you dare squash a spider or step on an ant?”
“He’s never told me that in those words, but it makes sense. Every lifeform has value. Although, when it comes to mosquitoes and yellowjacket wasps, it’s hard to see the value in those,” I say with a light chuckle.
Sterling nods. “I agree.”
I wait a few minutes and then fork the spaghetti apart to keep it from fusing into one huge mass. We were supposed to be putting on a show at dinner for the triptych of camping out evil, but now they don’t seem so powerful, menacing, or nebulous. I’m dying to ask Sterling how it’s going, and I have been ever since he emerged from the basement looking like he’s been living in a cave without seeing the sunlight for months, blinking and raking his hands through his hair wildly, but I haven’t asked since I don’t think it’s what he needs.
“Did he ever tell you not to eat yellow snow?” Sterling wonders.
“All the time. This is Detroit. Winters are long, and there’s lots of snow.”
I get out a separate smaller pan for the sauce. It also comes from a jar, and yes, it’s also excellent.
“I think his wisdom is more translatable, like today. It’s rubbed off on all of us over the years. He doesn’t just walk around spewing quotes or making lists. There aren’t quotes up on the wall, and there sure aren’t posters anywhere. He’s just very patient and easy to talk to. If we’re ever stuck, he’ll tell us things like, ‘Silence is a lovely thing because there’s space in silence to create loveliness.’ He’d say, ‘We don’t have to be worried about working to achieve all the things in life all the time because the best part of life is not being worried about working to achieve things. It’s just letting them come.’ Stuff like that.”
Sterling thinks about that. He tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, which sends a rocket of heat rushing through me. We got derailed this morning, so we haven’t talked about last night. Or repeated it. I’d rather be eating him than this dinner I’m preparing. Just saying.
“I bet he would say my cousins working so hard to derail me is only a reflection of the success I’ve achieved. The harder they work at it, the more successful I’ve become.”
“Maybe. Or he might also say the universe dealt you some crap cards because it had something else great waiting for you, but that doesn’t excuse the pain. It didn’t teach you how to be humble. You’re humble because you’re strong, and even though you’re successful, you realize that’s not all you are. He’d probably also say you should stop talking to your cousins because saying anything is just fuel for their asshole fire, and assholes shouldn’t be spouting flames.”
He grins, which is exactly what I wanted. I’m not sure why, but I would spend the rest of my life trying to make this man smile. He has a beautiful smile. I don’t know when it started to matter, but his happiness does matter to me. It makes my heart sing to see him looking a little bit less tired. A little less stressed.
On that note, I drain the pasta, spoon meatballs on top, and top both our plates off with sauce and more than a hearty sprinkle of parmesan cheese. You can never have too much parmesan. Unless you had all the parmesan. Well, nah, even if I lived in a house of parm and bathed in a bath of parm, I’d probably still think it wasn’t enough parm.
We sit down at the table across from each other. The meatballs are still hot, but that’s not why I hesitate to start eating. It’s more the fact that we’re doing this like it’s a thing. Having dinner together, ending our day together, starting out day together, solving problems along the way. I had my students and my work, Sterling had his work, and we’re still here now.
“Do you think it could work?” I didn’t want to ask him, but it finally came out. I guess I couldn’t keep it burning up inside any longer.
Sterling instantly looks more frazzled. I regret wrecking dinner before it even started.
I put up a hand. “Hold that thought.”
Our food can wait a hot minute. It needs to cool down anyway. I race to the living room and grab my guitar. Throwing the strap over my shoulder, I launch into one of the songs I haven’t even written down yet. It’s just been in my head, percolating around in there. A sad, mellow love song that certainly isn’t about me and Sterling and wasn’t inspired by him at all. I didn’t have him in my head in the least when I was writing it. Being totally honest here. Mmhmm, totally.
The way he cocks his head is adorable, but the way he’s instantly tuned in with everything else forgotten is… just wonderful. He focuses on my singing with the kind of single-minded intensity he would have if I were there auditioning to be signed to his label. It makes my belly flutter even while I’m singing and strumming and putting the final touches on a song that I probably won’t even remember how it’s supposed to go when I go to put it on paper.
Maybe it’s best that way. Maybe it’s best that right here, right now, it was sung just for us. Not everything has to be written down. In fact, the best songs are probably the ones that never get sung.
That sounds a lot like dad wisdom right there.
Except he’d probably say, “They aren’t sung because they stay in your heart, and the heart is the best place of all for anything that matters.”
When I’m done, I watch as his eyes slowly flicker back open. I don’t even know when he closed them, but the way he looks at me is utterly arousing. It makes my toes, my nipples, and my clit all clench up. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful in my entire life.
The crazy thing is Sterling is looking at me the exact same way.
Did he look like this the first time he heard my song? The one that bound us together? The one that was fated to bring him here four years later?
I set the guitar aside and silently sit back down. I pick up a meatball, blow, and take a bite. It’s basically wonderment from a bag. This company has the seasoning down perfectly.
“Wow,” Sterling hums when he tries one of his. “I feel like whoever made these seasoned them perfectly.”
Gah . What does it say about us that we’re having synchronized thoughts? What does it say when seeing that hint of a smile turn up his lips makes me want to keep making him smile? It’s a bit of an all-encompassing desire for me to see him happy.
Something behind my breastbone swells.
It’s hot in here. I made it too hot by cooking. So I jump up and race to the new thermostat. It’s still such a crazy novelty for me that I can just go to the wall and adjust the temperature to my liking, and it happens pretty much instantly. I hear the humming as the AC unit starts up outside. I turn to sit back down, but Sterling is here. Right here. Like a step behind me. My eyes shoot straight to his T-shirt, to the set of his shoulders, the muscles that trail down his arms starting under the thin fabric, to the ones I can see where the sleeves end, the ropey bands twining down to his hands and resting just below his hips. His hips, where his jeans hang low, and that T-shirt do other fabulous things like highlight the hard six-pack beneath.
It instantly heats me up to the point where even if it were glacial in here, no amount of AC would cool me back down. His hand shoots up, and he rakes it through his hair in one of those oh hell motions, and then he reaches for me.
I step into his reach, and we crash together. My hands grasp his shoulders, my fingers and palms smoothing over his muscles to his neck, where I can get the best grasp. Soft hairs tickle me as I tilt my face up, and his mouth slants over mine.
This is the kind of kiss to end all kisses. It’s the kind of kiss that says I’d rather be eating you than even the best balls. Meatballs, that is. Dinner. Spaghetti. All the dinners. Dessert too. Our lips battle it out, but then we both remember this isn’t a war, and we’re on the same team, so the kiss changes and deepens. Sterling’s hands sweep to my hips, and he steps into me, driving me back into the wall. I go happily, letting him press me there as I lean up against his solid body. I can feel how hard he is. He’s doing absolutely nothing to hide it, and now I realize that before this, he angled it away from me so I wouldn’t feel it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t turned on. This is every fantasy I’ve ever had coming true right here.
Sterling licks at my lips, and I lick back, tracing the seam of his mouth and exploring his bottom lip. He suckles mine back in response and groans like I’m the best meal he’s ever had. His hand caresses the curve of my hip right before I part my legs and invite him to step between him. Okay, it’s more like a not-so- subtle suggestion. Alright, it’s a straight-up demand. I need to grind against him. I need the friction of his hard thigh between my legs. And when I get it, I let out a sound that is barely human into his mouth while he makes one back in response.
I’ve been making music wrong my whole life. This symphony of primal and feral grunts and groans? It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.
Sterling grunts again, and then he growls and barks.
Barks.
Wait…what?
We break apart, and I whip back around to look at the table.
Which just happens to have a dog standing on top of it.
Eating my meatballs.
“Beans!” I clap my hands together, and he scurries down, but not before he laps up all the meatballs off the pile of my spaghetti, spraying sauce all over the place. Then, he goes running, munching all the way.
Honestly, it’s too cute to be mad. I can always make more meatballs. And more spaghetti.
But this…Sterling…he’s already breaking away, rubbing at the back of his neck and putting distance between us. That’s not just something we can resume. What happened was natural and hot, and I don’t feel like we can just pick up where we left off a second ago.
“Time for a walk?” he calls out to Beans.
Beans’ stumpy tail wags hard, and he licks his lips furiously.
Later, after walking the dog and having a second round of spaghetti and meatballs made fresh for dinner, and after a brief discussion about all the lawyers Sterling called and talked to today and how he’s moving forward with my family’s plan to pull the arsehole rug out from under his arsehole cousins and keep his company safe, we both fall into bed together.
Though not the way we did last night.
This is the kind of falling that involves separate sides and no touching. We’re as awkward as if we were strangers forced to be sharing a bed.
I turn over onto my side to face the wall, and Sterling does the same. We’re back to back, not just like strangers, but like two people who don’t even like each other. I know we’re just awkward. We’re shy, and he’s tired. He hasn’t slept well. He’s stressed. I should probably just let him sleep if he can find it.
Surprisingly, I feel the twisty, dizzy, falling sensation that comes right before the really heavy sleep feeling overtakes me. The last thought I remember having is that the whole so close but so far away thing actually makes a lot of sense. Sterling is so close to me in this bed, but he’s never felt further away.