Chapter 40
***Boone***
I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared at the front door of the guest house.
It was late, but her lights were still on.
If I could just get over my hangup and go inside, I could see her.
It wasn’t easy, though. I was thinking of turning around and going back to my own bed when I saw movement through the window in the door.
Memphis walked into the kitchen with a book in her hands, reading even as she walked.
Her T-shirt stopped at the top of her thighs and her legs were bare, except for a pair of fuzzy socks on her feet.
With her bare face and messy hair, I knew I wasn’t leaving without getting closer. I wanted that image of her, so natural and beautiful, in my head forever.
My blood pressure was probably sky high and my hands shook, but I still managed to knock on the door. Inside, Memphis jumped and clutched the book to her chest. When she saw it was me, though, her face brightened and she hurried to unlock the door.
“Boone! Hi.” She smiled up at me as she leaned against the door. “You came over. You never come over.”
“Can I come in?”
She blushed and stepped aside. “I’m sorry. Of course, you can come in. It’s your house.”
Just over the threshold, I stopped and looked around. The space was a lot smaller than I remembered. It was more weathered, too. In my head, it was perfectly polished. “You need something bigger and nicer than this.”
Memphis reacted like I’d physically struck her. “No!”
Frowning down at her, I searched her face for any sign of bullshit. “Why not?”
She held her hands out and gestured around the house like she was showing me the Taj Mahal. “Look at this place, Boone. It’s beautiful and perfect. I’ve never lived anywhere that felt more like me.”
I looked at the house again and felt a headache forming. “I hate this place.”
Memphis gripped my arm and cupped my face with her other hand. “You came for a reason. Do you want to sit while I get you something to drink?”
I picked her up and carried her over to the old couch, figuring it’d kill my back when I sank into it.
Surprisingly, it didn’t. It wrapped around me like a fucking cloud and even smelled sweet, like Memphis.
With her straddling my hips, it almost felt good enough to make me consider getting one just like it.
Memphis sat back with her ass resting on my thighs and watched me. “You’re upset.”
I gritted my teeth, frustrated with myself. I was being stupid. It was just a house. Memphis was just another woman. Even thinking it made me feel like shit, though, because I knew she wasn’t just another woman. No one had ever captured me like she had so easily.
“Boone?”
I rolled my neck back and forth and gripped her thighs. If I was going to talk about my feelings, I was going to do it while touching her as much as I wanted. “This house was our mom’s. Her pet project, I guess.”
She took my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm. “No wonder you don’t come here.”
“It’s complicated.” I held my breath as she pressed her lips to each of my fingertips. “Like I said earlier, it’s just...complicated.”
Memphis pressed my hand to her chest and held it there, between her breasts. Her heartbeat was strong and the steadiness of it calmed me. “You don’t have to talk about it. If you’re not ready to unravel the knots, that’s okay.”
“It’s fucking pathetic, Memphis. This anger I feel towards her.
She did abandon us and I’ve waited most of my fucking life for it to feel different, but it never has.
Seeing this place, it’s like stepping into who she was.
I feel like a child, still angry at his mommy, but everywhere I look in here, I wonder if there’s another secret waiting.
You think you know someone and then you find out they had this entire other part of them, this other life. I mean, it’s fucked up.”
Her heart beat harder against my palm. “Have you ever given yourself the space and grace to feel all of that? Instead of insulting yourself for hurting, maybe you should just let it happen.”
I dropped my head back against the couch and closed my eyes to the waves of emotion attacking me. “I can’t.”
Instead of pushing me, Memphis moved my hands and curled into my chest. She shoved her arms between my back and the couch to hold me.
Her warmth soothed some of the pain, and when she pressed a soft kiss to my chest, I felt the rest of the tension seep out of me.
“That’s okay, then. I’ll just hold you until it feels okay enough to pretend again. ”
I wanted to argue, to deny that I pretended about anything, but as the words lingered in the air, I felt just how true they were. I spent a few minutes breathing, focusing on packing everything away again. “I’m holding you. Not the other way around.”
She sighed into my chest. “Uh huh.”
I grabbed a throw from the back of the couch without thinking about what it was, whose it was, and pulled it over her. “Why are you still awake, by the way?”
She rubbed her face into me like a kitten. “Couldn’t sleep. I was worried about Wells. I was overthinking how much I said about myself. I was also thinking about the fact that there’s a baby growing in me. It’s strange.”
I smiled down at the top of her head, amused by her openness.
Listening to her voice as it grew groggier made me feel something warm and big for her.
I could almost picture how she would’ve been as a kid, and that hit me square in the chest like a truck.
I’d never thought of a woman I was sleeping with as anything other than that.
I’d never imagined a tiny version of any of them talking themselves to sleep.
I had to swallow down a mixture of fear and something softer, something unknown, before I could talk again. “Wells is okay. And you should talk more about yourself.”
She turned her head and rubbed the other side of her face against me. “And the baby?”
The baby. Our baby. It was supposed to be a transactional tool.
I hadn’t thought much about it beyond securing the house.
That felt wrong, though, while holding Memphis and thinking about a mini version of her.
Would our kid look like her? Another hit to the chest had me struggling to get words out around the lump in my throat.
“I hope it’s a girl.” And that she looked just like Memphis. I kept that part to myself.
“She’s only the size of a sesame seed right now. Isn’t that weird? There’s a sesame seed in my stomach that’s going to grow arms and legs soon.” She shuddered. “Sorry. It’s a little gross if I think of it like that.”
I laughed into her hair and silently agreed.
“I hope it doesn’t hurt.” She was fading fast.
“Birth?”
“Walking away from them.” Her arms went slack around me. “Wishful thinking.”
My gut twisted as a whole other layer of what we were doing unfolded at her words.