Chapter 17 Eden
Eden all but runs up the stairs to his apartment. He smells like oil and tortillas, there’s salsa on his skirt, and he desperately needs a shower, but there’s something else he needs more.
His key barely makes it in the lock when the front door swings open.
“Ella had me on door duty,” Addy laughs.
Stumbling into their apartment, he crashes into Addy, exhausted and missing her.
It’s weird since he’s seen her almost as much as usual.
Despite how much time he’s been spending with Charlie, most of that has been after work when Addy and Ella are already asleep so he can make sure and sneak home by the time Ella wakes up to see her off to school in the morning. Yet he misses her.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Addy asks. “If you’re too tired—”
“Is that Eden?” Ella bellows from down the hallway.
Seconds later, tiny feet pitter patter on the floor, and Ella comes racing through the living room dressed in a bathing suit and a tutu before slamming into Eden.
“You took forever,” Ella bemoans.
“He’s on time, baby. He had to work,” Addy reminds her.
“Boring work,” Ella mimics, holding her arms up for Eden to lift her in a second, bone-crushing hug. She presses her tiny face into his neck, the beads in her hair clinking together when she pulls back. “I’m more fun than work, right Eden?”
“Definitely.”
She beams at Addy as if to say, ‘see Momma?’
“Ella, I told you it’s going to be freezing at the beach. We’re going to watch the sunset, not swim.”
“But there’s gonna be water,” Ella frowns.
“Well, yeah,” Addy says, “but it’s November. The beach is freezing.”
“I won’t get cold,” Ella insists.
“Put pants on and a jacket at least.”
“But I wanna wear my tutu.”
“You could wear it over pants,” Eden says. “How about I change, and we both wear a skirt over pants. I’ll be too cold to wear mine without it.”
Ella’s small face pinches up in serious thought before she shrugs. “Okay, if I can match Eden.”
“I’ll help Ella get dressed while you change,” Addy tells him, kissing Eden’s cheek before plucking Ella from his arms. “We’ll meet you back at the front door in ten. I’ve already packed a blanket and snacks.”
“You’re the best, thank you.”
“What can I say,” Addy smiles. “Ella’s not the only one who’s been looking forward to tonight.”
Ten minutes later, Eden’s back at the front door, changed into clean clothes including a pair of black jeans with a red, ruffled skirt he rarely wears because it’s so short but that works perfectly over his jeans.
He waits for his girls who appear not a minute later, each dressed in sweats and a hoodie, and in Ella’s case her tutu over it all.
Addy grabs an oversized bag from by the door and then they’re off, driving across town towards the public parking lot near the pier.
“We won’t miss it, will we?”
“We won’t miss the sunset,” Eden assures her.
He’d made sure to talk to Juanita yesterday and arranged to get off work early today in order to spend the evening with Addy and Ella.
He knows he can’t make a habit of it, but the day before while eating her cereal before school, Ella had mentioned missing looking for shells at the beach with her mom and Eden, one of their favorite summer traditions, even if neither Addy nor Eden can swim.
Winter isn’t exactly the perfect beach day, but Eden did his best to get the time off while Addy prepped everything else.
The public lot is expectedly pretty empty, a row of cars belonging to those surfing down at the end furthest from the pier and a smattering of people sitting in their cars watching the waves.
Addy parks closest to the stairs that lead from the paved promenade down to the shoreline.
The engine is barely off before Ella’s carseat is undone, and she’s scrambling out of the car.
“Slow your roll, speedy,” Addy laughs.
“I wanna see the beach!”
“The beach is right there, I can see it,” Eden points out, laughing at the look of pure indignation on her face.
“Eden.”
“Alright, alright. Race you?”
“Okay, you count, Momma.”
Eden hardly listens to Addy counting, his chest lighter than it’s been in weeks as he breathes in the salt air and listens to the sounds of waves crashing and Ella’s excited laughter as she takes off running.
If he were really trying to win, he could, but he’s not trying, trailing after her while dramatically pretending he can’t keep up.
“I win,” Ella cheers, crashing into Eden and toppling them both into the cool, smooth sand. It gets in Eden’s hair, and he’s never cared less.
“You wanna build a sand castle with me?” Ella asks, sitting on his stomach. “Momma brought my sand toys.”
“Yeah,” Eden whispers, unsure he’s ever wanted anything more.
Ella takes Eden’s hand, leading him closer to the shore where the tide has turned the sand wet enough to mold with.
Addy follows behind, laying out their beach blanket and adding oversized rocks to the corners so it doesn’t blow away in the wind.
Eden settles himself down beside Ella, removing his shoes and socks so he can bury his toes in the sand.
It really is fucking cold, but he doesn’t care.
It feels good to be somewhere besides work, especially with his two favorite people.
“You gotta make the wall,” Ella announces, passing him a small plastic mold. “I’m gonna make a moat.”
“How big should it be?” Eden asks, still out of his depth with shit like this, even after years of playing with Ella.
He didn’t build sand castles as a kid, not just because he grew up landlocked but because he didn’t have toys of his own or grown-ups who played with him.
Sometimes, he can’t relax until Ella tells him exactly what to do.
Luckily, Ella’s pretty assertive, so that’s not usually an issue.
“This big,” Ella instructs, holding her small arms out wide. “Make sure the sand isn’t too wet or it gets stuck.”
“Got it,” Eden nods, turning to look at Addy who is watching them with a smile and already taking photos of them on her cell phone. “Oh no, it’s the paparazzi.”
“Can you blame me? It’s the only time I can sneak a photo of you.”
Eden waits until Ella’s not looking to flip Addy off, finding himself laughing when she snaps a photo of that, too.
“This was a good idea,” Addy says, twisting open a bottle of iced tea she pulled from the bag and takes a drink before holding it out to Eden.
Sweet tea is Addy’s favorite since she grew up in the South, and Eden’s grown to love it because it tastes like home—the first drink Addy gave him after bringing him home.
“It was a good idea,” Eden agrees, using one of the tiny neon yellow shovels to fill his mold with sand.
The first one is clearly too dry because it all crumbles, but he scoots down half a foot and uses wetter sand, uncaring about the way his ass and legs get wet as he continues to mold up the wall for Ella’s castle.
Time passes too quickly for Eden’s liking, but by the time the sun is beginning to set on the horizon they’ve made a pretty impressive—albeit wonky—sand castle that Ella has decorated with broken sticks and little shells.
They join Addy on the blanket for steaming cups of cocoa she pours into paper cups from a thermos, along with homemade chocolate chip cookies.
“This is the best day ever,” Ella exclaims, fingers stained with sand and chocolate, and the smile on her face is something Eden will remember for years to come. Apparently getting a second wind from all the sugar, she abandons Eden and Addy on the blanket in favor of chasing seagulls.
“So, tell me about this guy,” Addy prompts once Ella’s out of earshot.
“It’s nothing,” Eden shrugs, unsure how to begin to explain Charlie King.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Addy says, arching one sharp eyebrow at Eden over the rim of her paper cup of cocoa. “Tell me everything. I’ve been really patient but I’m kind of losing it. You’ve spent more nights away from home in the last two weeks than since I met you.”
“I’ve made sure to be home before Ella wakes up so she doesn’t know,” Eden frowns. “Except that one night.”
“You have, and I appreciate that, not because you need to pretend you don’t have a life, but because Ella would miss you terribly if she didn’t get to see you before school, especially on the days you work all night. But you know what I mean. You don’t sleep over with guys, Eden. You never have.”
She’s not wrong. Even in the early days before he’d been able to stop turning tricks, he’d never stayed out all night. Eden doesn’t sleep with people. Charlie is the first person Eden ever spent the night with. Charlie’s been a lot of his firsts.
“Charlie is…something else.”
“I’m gonna need more than that,” Addy says, playfully nudging his shoulder. “Come on, you landed yourself a sexy older man who is an artist. Is he passionate? Romantic?”
“He’s a pain in my fucking ass.”
“Okay,” Addy laughs. “So you must like it.”
Eden groans, gulping down the last of his cocoa before setting the cup on the blanket. “I do like it. What the fuck am I gonna do?”
“Uh, keep dating the hottie, obviously.”
“You think Charlie’s hot?”
“I do have eyes, Eden. That man is sexy as fuck.”
“He is sexy, isn’t he?” Eden sighs, thinking about how eager and pliant Charlie had been in the car earlier.
He’d let Eden do anything he wanted to him.
He’d also asked if Eden might ever let Charlie fuck him which had turned Eden on so much he’d nearly run away.
The only thing that kept him in the car was changing the subject, slightly terrified by how much he wanted the one thing he’d swore he’d never want again.
Eden didn’t let men have power over him, not any more.
But the idea of Charlie fucking him had filled Eden with such a sharp longing he’d almost walked into oncoming traffic.
“You’re thinking about fucking him right now, aren’t you?”