Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Clover
I popped a Tootsie Roll into my mouth and sifted through the documents at my makeshift desk.
It was officially November. I had one month to find another place to live.
Van had scribbled some notes on a few of the sheets with info from when he had called the landlords—availability, deposit, monthly payment.
The front door opened. Van had been outside going through the shop.
The lawn didn’t need to be mowed, and the flower beds were ready for winter.
He’d cleaned up the garden, and he’d even repaired a portion of the wooden fence along the drive.
Today, he’d cleaned some of the junk out of the shop so he could make a trip to the dump in the morning.
“Look at this.” He appeared at the doorway.
A wave of fresh air, old dirt, and linen scent rolled over me.
A memory surfaced of when I’d helped my mom in the kitchen, and my dad would come in from working outside.
He’d wrap his arms around her waist, she’d laugh, they’d kiss, and then they’d break.
It had been a normal day, and I hadn’t realized at the time how much I wanted that.
I pushed the apartment information out of my way. I still wanted it, but I wasn’t going to be dependent on someone for it again. I’d do my own research. “What do you have?”
He took the chair next to me and sat with the tub between us, removing the lid.
The container was half full of little plastic bricks of all shapes, sizes, and colors. “Are those Legos?”
The way he smiled when he nodded melted my heart. He was like a kid who’d found a giant bowl of candy, like what sat in the middle of the table, and it was just for him.
“Lookit.” He dug his hand into the stash, and a loud, clattering whoosh filled the air. “They’re not even dirty, but I’ll still clean them. You gonna use the bathtub tonight?”
“I can wait. Need help?”
His gaze flicked to the apartment information. “You’re not busy?”
“I’ll call them tomorrow and set up some tours. Wanna go together? If I don’t like a place, you might.”
His expression stayed neutral. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
Now I was excited to look at apartments. I could be independent but not alone. He had gathered information, and I would set up the visits. Apartment hunting just got a little more bearable. But first, Legos. “Let’s get to cleaning. I’ll get the dish soap.”
A few minutes later, we were on our knees, and the faucet was running full blast. He dumped the whole container inside, and we swished them around.
“Why is this so satisfying?” I asked above the sloshing noise we were making.
I might not mind doing this on my own, but everything was more fun with Van.
Hanging out with my family achieved a new level when I could come and go with him.
When I had my own person to chat with at big gatherings, even if he wasn’t my person.
His eyes brightened. “Because we work at a desk all day, every day, and we don’t get to play.”
We played most nights, but that was with clothes off, and it ended in orgasms. This was different. Lighthearted. It wasn’t killing time watching movies—which was also fun. It meant that we enjoyed yet another thing together. We were cleaning toys, and it was a great time.
He dug out a few towels and laid them between us. We took handfuls of bricks out of the water, shook them, and spread them out. I was returning for another batch after dumping an especially satisfying load out when Van flicked his fingers lightly. Water droplets hit my face, and I jumped.
Laughter burst out of me. I did the same to him. He swished his hands through the water and tried to do it again. I dunked my fingers faster than him and sprayed him. His grin promised retribution, but when he lifted his arm, his hand dripping, I grabbed his wrist.
There was no way I could overpower him, but we wrestled over our pile of Legos. Him managing to wiggle his fingers. More water sprinkled onto me.
“You’re fighting dirty,” I accused him, gasping for breath.
“Prove it.” He wasn’t even out of breath.
“You have a longer reach.” I didn’t let go of him.
He leaned over the towel of drying bricks like he was showing me that he had a longer everything. “You seem to be doing just fine.”
“You’re toying with me.”
“Yes, Clover.” He tugged me closer, and I had to let go of him to catch myself on his chest. There was no way I would fall, though. He wouldn’t let me. “I absolutely like toying with you.”
Our faces were inches apart, our mouths a breath away.
It wouldn’t take much to kiss him. We’d already kissed.
Just once. Since then, we’d used our tongues on each other a lot.
Used our hands. But we hadn’t made out. We hadn’t done anything more intimate than a sizzling-hot orgasm.
It’d been the one unspoken line we hadn’t crossed, or it’d make our late-night pillow-talk sessions more dangerous.
It’d make what we were doing more alarming. More real.
“I like when you toy with me,” I said playfully, but my mouth had gone dry. We were so close. How easy would it be to feel his soft lips on mine again?
His gaze tracked over my face, dipping repeatedly to my mouth. “When we move…”
“I suppose we’ll have to quit.” My gut wrung out like a rag. One month left.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I guess you’ll be even more pregnant and probably not interested.”
“Actually, my sisters said they enjoyed sex almost to the end. Then it could get a little uncomfortable.” Was I supposed to tell him that? Did he think I was begging for us to continue?
He’d want to get on with his own life, right? He’d want to meet someone who wasn’t complicated from the beginning. Someone who could support him and his job beyond putting a roof over his head. Someone who didn’t need help raising her kid.
He didn’t move, but his muscles were taut underneath my hands. “That’s interesting.”
“Yes. But I suppose we should make a clean break.” The Tootsie Roll I’d had was going to launch itself back out of my stomach. “Hormones are one thing, but friends with benefits could get…”
“Messy.”
“Complicated.”
“You might fall head over heels in love with a buff geologist who isn’t a blatant nerd.”
I took the branch he held out, the offering to make our agreement casual with an end date, and swung on it. “Ew, yes. Nerds? Who needs them? I need a guy who rappels into volcanoes.”
“And I need a woman who can name at least a hundred Pokémon and rattle off Python in her sleep.”
“I feel like you’re not talking about a snake.”
“See? It’ll never work.”
I chuckled, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree. It couldn’t work. I had to be a good role model for this kid. No falling out of one relationship into another. No depending on someone else. No having it bad for its uncle.
Slowly, he released me, helping me straighten so I didn’t fall over on the Legos and get hurt.
His phone buzzed. Without taking his eyes off me, he dug it out of his pocket. Finally, he broke eye contact and read what was on his screen. Interest lit his face. “What are you doing at eleven tonight?”
Van
I brought several blankets with me in the pickup as we drove to the middle of the pasture closest to the house. The person leasing the land had moved their cattle out a few weeks ago, so I parked at the highest point on the four-wheeler trail running through the grass.
Shutting the engine off, I killed the lights. Silence fell. Clover had her face pressed to the window, and I peered through the windshield. My mind was not on our task for the evening.
One month. Then we were done.
“Oh!” Clover twisted toward me. “I think I see them. Should we go out?”
Yes. We were outside to see the northern lights. An alert went off to notify me that they might be visible in my area tonight, and the sky was clear.
I wiggled my phone. “I’m ready to be our professional photographer tonight.”
I turned off the cab lights. Nothing lit up as we got out.
“It’s so dark out,” she said, meeting me in the back.
I dropped the tailgate and spread a blanket out for us to sit on. Instead of having her clamber on in the dark, I put my hands on her shoulders. “May I?”
“Sure?”
I dipped to lift her under her ass. She let out a whoop and clung to me. Once she was settled, I took a seat next to her. Yeah, I liked doing all that way too much.
The temperature wasn’t down to freezing yet, but it was cold. I draped a blanket around the both of us.
She scooted closer to me. “You’re a heater.”
I couldn’t let her be cold. I put an arm around her and stared at the faint green haze in the sky. “Is that it?”
“Have you ever seen them before?” She gasped when I shook my head. “Seriously?”
“Too far south, and we lived in town. After I moved, I read about things I shouldn’t miss in North Dakota, and one site mentioned the northern lights. So, I set up an alert for whenever they were predicted to be visible.”
“I’m glad you got to see them,” she murmured. “The camera will pick up the other color wavelengths, but sometimes you can see them with the naked eye.”
The green got brighter like a surge of power had been plugged in. “Is it moving?”
“Yes!” She wiggled. I might miss the show if she kept doing that. “They’re dancing.”
Waves of green light rippled across the sky, and for the briefest of seconds, a flash of pink appeared. “Damn, that’s pretty.”
I took some pictures, and she was right. In the images, the green was flanked by the pinks and purples that I had seen in snapshots growing up.
“It’s really relaxing.” She laid her head on my shoulder. “It’s dark, and there’s no rush. And they show you how big the world is, the universe, but it’s just light, and it’s so peaceful.”
“I like the company.”