Chapter Thirty-Five
Nico
“Mom’s making blueberry waffles.” Alex slips his arms gently around my waist, holding me from behind. Our eyes meet in the bathroom mirror as he dips his head down to kiss my cheek. “And then, after breakfast, I’ll drive you to work, ’kay?”
We already talked about it—or argued about it, really—last night after getting home from our errands and shopping in Omaha. I stubbornly insisted I could walk the two miles to the library. He stubbornly insisted I would not.
He won the argument after much negotiating, kissing, and another round in bed where I discovered that giving oral is just as fucking incredible as receiving it.
“Yeah, thanks.” I give him a half smile and then finish running a brush through my hair. “Um, we should leave by eight fifteen. Is that okay?”
He straightens up, and, keeping one arm around my waist, he pulls my phone out of the pocket of my new slacks and holds it up so we can both see the time. “A half hour? Yeah, no problem.”
He slips the phone back in my pocket, kisses my neck again, and then steps away, tugs off his shirt, and reaches into the shower to turn on the water.
I’m allowed to stare now. So I let my eyes linger on him, admiring parts of his body I’m becoming intimately familiar with—his strong forearms, well-defined abs, smooth skin, perfect ass.
“I’m gonna take a quick shower, and then I’ll meet you downstairs,” he says, turning back to me. He pauses, his eyes glinting as he sees me watching him. “Unless you want to join me?”
A flood of possibilities hits me, and I can imagine it—water dripping down his chest, over his nipples and stomach and down to his hard, stiff cock; my hands following the same path, his skin smooth and wet and warm; getting down on my knees and taking him into my mouth as he stands there under the stream of water from the showerhead, my hands massaging his ass cheeks.
I’ve got some crooked grin on my face, I’m sure, because the teasing glint in his eyes darkens to want, and he steps up to me, hooks an arm around my lower back, and tows my hips to his.
“Maybe that’s something for later, when we’ve got more time?” he whispers. Without waiting for my response, he lowers his mouth to mine and claims a hungry kiss that contradicts his words. His tongue finds mine, and his hands slip down to grasp my ass.
He’s bold. Confident. Sure.
And that fucking turns me on.
It’s over much too soon, although I’m breathless and panting when he pulls back, grinning at me. I want to swat him on the arm and make some joke about how he’s a tease. I also want to tug him back in for another kiss, just as hot as that last one.
But instead, I just stare at him as an incredible warmth builds up in my chest. Slowly, I reach up and touch his cheek, watching as the tips of my fingers graze along the light stubble on his jawline. Then I take a deep breath and lift my eyes to his.
“Definitely later,” I say, and my lips twist up into a smile that matches his.
He huffs a small laugh, his cheeks turning pink, and he ducks his chin. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“’Kay.”
With obvious reluctance, he steps away from me, and as he finishes undressing, I slip out of the bathroom, take a moment to steady myself, and then jog down the stairs.
Just as he said, his mom is making blueberry waffles.
She’s got a platter of them already cooked, sitting next to a plate heaped with scrambled eggs, and she’s pouring what looks like the last cupful of batter into her waffle iron.
She glances up at me as I reach the bottom of the stairs, her smile as welcoming as always.
“Good morning! Hope you’re hungry,” she says in greeting, motioning to the platter on the counter. “Waffles, eggs, and I think we’ve got OJ in the fridge still, unless Alex drank the last of it yesterday.”
“Ah, um, I did, actually,” I admit, frowning. “Sorry, I—”
“No worries,” she interrupts, closing the lid on the waffle iron. “We do have milk, and I made some coffee too.”
“Coffee sounds great.”
She smiles. “Help yourself.”
I do—pouring myself a cup of coffee, then helping her move the food from the counter to the kitchen table, careful to carry things only in my right hand since the injury to my shoulder has my whole arm feeling weak.
Not more than a few minutes later, she sits down next to me, giving me a silly look as I smother all of my food in an excessive amount of syrup. I just grin back, and she laughs.
The waffles are delicious, and I make sure to tell her that. She thanks me and then asks what my week looks like and whether I have any plans outside of work. It’s small talk, which I usually hate. But somehow, she makes it easy.
I’ve never been able to say that before.
We chat for a few more minutes, and then there’s a brief silence as I finish the last bites of my syrup-covered eggs.
From upstairs, I hear the water shut off in the shower, and I pull out my phone to glance at the time.
We’ve still got fifteen minutes before we have to leave, which should hopefully give Alex enough time to eat.
His mom must be thinking the same thing, because she says, “He’s driving you in, right?”
I stuff my phone into my pocket and look back up at her. Does she know? Or rather, how much does she know?
Her eyes are soft with understanding, but they’re sort of always like that.
Alex probably hasn’t told her. In fact, I’m not even sure he’s told her about us. I blink and look down. Does she know about him?
“Um, yeah. I hope . . . I hope that’s not a problem?” I can’t look back up to see, though I’m not really sure why. But she answers right away.
“No problem at all.”
I can hear the same soft understanding in her voice, and I purse my lips and nod slightly. “Thank you.”
“Anytime. Really.”
My chest tightens. “I appreciate it. Everything, actually. I appreciate it all so much,” I say, my voice catching. “Did . . . did Alex tell you why I don’t have my car anymore?”
“No, he didn’t,” she replies softly, and I almost hear her unspoken words as well. She doesn’t need me to tell her. She doesn’t need a reason to want to help me.
That’s both a relief and painful at the same time—to know that I have her support and yet to be reminded again of my mom’s abandonment.
I glance up at her, meeting her eyes for the briefest of seconds. Then I stare at my half-empty coffee mug, and my heart cracks. I hold back the tears I let Alex see yesterday morning. But I tell her the truth.
“When I showed up to pay my mom for the car on Friday after work, she wasn’t there,” I start, doing the best I can to keep my voice steady.
“Patrick was. Her . . . her ex-husband. He told me she increased the price of the car to twelve hundred dollars. A-and since I didn’t have the money, he took the keys.
She . . .” I close my eyes and shake my head.
“She never told me the price changed. And she knew I didn’t have that kind of money. ”
“Oh, Nico . . .”
There’s more, of course. The constant ache in my shoulder and tenderness of the muscles in my back are proof of that.
But I can’t get myself to tell her what Patrick did to me.
Instead, I try to force a smile, and I make myself look up at her.
“Alex and I looked up the cost of public transportation near Palo Alto, and it’s cheaper than the car insurance I was going to have to buy, so I guess at least there’s that. ”
She gives me a sad smile, but nods. “They have a pretty good bus and train system there, from what I understand.”
“Yeah.”
She’s studying me with a gentle but knowing look, and I try for another smile, then take a small sip of my coffee.
“Have you thought about what kind of job you’d like?” she asks, and I frown and shake my head.
“I don’t know what . . .” I swallow hard and glance toward the stairs, wishing Alex was here to help me talk. Or something. “I really don’t know what I’d be any good at. And it’ll have to be something where I can make at least twenty-five bucks an hour.”
There’s defeat in my voice, and I know she hears it. Her expression changes to one I’ve seen from her before—that sort of motherly-advice-incoming expression she always has when she talks to Alex about certain things.
“It feels pretty impossible, doesn’t it?
” When I nod, she continues. “I won’t sugarcoat things.
It’s not going to be easy. But, Nico, I’ve known you for a long time, and I’ve watched you grow up, and I honestly believe that you’ll figure it out.
I know how hardworking you are, how determined.
You’re smart and thoughtful. And organized. ”
“And punctual!” Alex pipes in, jogging down the last of the stairs. His mom arches her eyebrows at him, but he shrugs and winks at me. “He is. Always on time.”
I roll my eyes and turn back to his mom. She’s smiling softly still, her head tilted ever so slightly to the right as she regards me. “I do have a suggestion that might help, if you’re interested.”
Alex slides into the chair right next to mine and starts piling up waffles and eggs on his plate. I ignore how good he smells—clean and fresh and with just a hint of that aftershave he uses—and I nod slowly to his mom.
Her smile grows, and she scoots her chair in a little. “Okay, so I have a friend in San Jose—do you know where that is?”
I try to picture the maps Alex and I looked at the other day when we were checking out the public transit stuff. “South of Palo Alto, I think?”