Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Betsy
Sun filtering through the gauzy curtains wakes me up the next morning.
I stretch out my legs and wince at the soreness absolutely everywhere.
Nothing like walking around in sky-high heels for several hours to ruin a good pair of legs.
I don’t know how these sorority girls do it on the regular. Silas shifts in his sleep behind me.
I roll over and prop my head on my hand, gazing down at him.
We were exhausted when we left the party late last night.
Silas offered to drive me home, and while we had intentions of hitting the shower and falling into bed together to slake that need that pulses between us at all hours of the day and night, we fell asleep the second we hit the mattress.
My brain is screaming at me to get up and leave. I don’t do sleepovers. I don’t do kissing in public. I don’t let my heart get involved with anything to do with men.
And yet here I am, curled up in Silas’s bed, dressed in one of his T-shirts, watching him sleep like a total lovesick creeper.
His bare chest rises and falls with each relaxed breath.
He has a dusting of golden-brown hair that spreads across his pecs and down the middle of his abs.
I lean closer, a ray of sunlight highlighting one side of his torso.
Yep, just as I thought. There’s one gray hair in the bunch.
I lift my arm and creep closer, my finger gently touching the gray hair before settling on his chest. I tuck this information away for a good time to tease him about it.
Silas hums in his sleep, a deep vibration I feel through the mattress.
My gaze sweeps up his strong neck to his sharp jawline.
A five o’clock shadow has grown even longer, creating a scruffy appearance I like, mostly because he never wears it that long in public.
It’s like getting to see him with his hair down. A special viewing, just for me.
My feelings for this man are complicated.
Exactly what I didn’t want when I threw out the idea of fucking for fun.
I should have known I wasn’t capable of that.
I know I act aloof and pissed off most of the time, which I usually am, but that’s just to mask a heart that feels too much.
A heart that’s been through too much rejection by men to be worn haphazardly on a sleeve.
The thing is, Silas hasn’t rejected me at all.
In fact, even when he didn’t like me at first, he still accepted me.
He welcomed me into his boutique and his life, sharing about his financial strains, his mother’s dreams for the shop, and his father’s ridiculous threats.
He’s done nothing but open himself to me, and I’m finding holding back to be difficult.
My father didn’t care to stick around long enough to get to know me.
My ex knew me but didn’t value me enough to try to work things out.
Silas knows me better than I know myself some days and he’s not afraid to be seen with me.
The man threw me over his arm and kissed me in front of everyone he knows, for heaven’s sake!
He’s carrying out his dead mother’s wishes for the boutique to honor her memory, which speaks of integrity.
The kind I didn’t know still existed. Silas also values what I bring to the business and he pushes me to be a better version of myself.
Not that I’ll ever take up jogging on a regular basis. He’s going to have to give up on that.
Hell, Silas even stood up to his father when he badmouthed me last night. He chose me.
Only an uncaring fool would turn their back on Silas Winthrop.
I lean down and lightly kiss his cheek, feeling the scrape of his whiskers. I think about what life could be like if I gave in to what my heart is trying to say. It’s beating against my chest like it plans to climb right out of my body and land at Silas’s feet.
“Good morning, honey,” Silas whispers.
I jerk my head up and see his eyes open, watching me carefully. “Hi.”
“You look like you were entertaining deep thoughts.” His voice is gruff and calm. The perfect way to wake up on a Sunday morning.
There’s no way I’m divulging what I’ve been thinking about. “Hmm. Just thinking of what to wear to church.”
Silas turns on his side and slides his arm around my waist. He pulls me into him, dropping lazy kisses on my neck, making me shiver. “I say we play hooky and skip church this Sundee.”
I gasp, feigning outrage, even though I love the way he says the day of the week with that twang. “To do what?”
I feel his grin against my skin. “How about I show you?”
And then his head slips below the covers. His T-shirt gets pushed up above my breasts and Silas’s mouth finds its way between my legs. My back arches and my mouth drops open, chanting for my maker.
We end up at Jasper Lake in the early afternoon, a place I’ve heard about but have never actually been.
It’s just outside the town limits, a smallish lake that’s overrun with families with children.
Coming from California, I’m used to beaches with deep sand and cold waves, but Jasper Lake offers lapping lukewarm water and a dirt shoreline.
The heat is unbearable, only beat by humidity so thick it’s curling my eyelashes.
Silas took great pleasure in lubing me up with sunscreen before we left his house.
He didn’t miss an inch, but the first thing I do stepping out of his truck in the grass parking lot is spray myself down with bug repellant.
Mosquitos seem to love me here in the South.
Silas reaches in the back of the truck for a cooler packed with our lunch and two folding chairs.
I slap on a pair of sunglasses and grab the beach umbrella.
“I’m too pale for this,” I whine as we pick our way across the lot to the dirt beachfront. Sprays of dirt are flying up behind my flip-flops and hitting me in the ass with each step. My jean shorts are going to be dirty by the time we get to the actual water.
“You need vitamin D, Betsy Mae. It does a body good.” Silas stops at a bare patch of dirt and plops down the cooler. I grunt, not sure I agree with him. I catalog vitamin D up there with jogging. It’s overrated, in my opinion.
He sets up our chairs as I watch him move about. He’s dressed in hot-pink swim shorts with tiny hunting ducks regularly spaced on the fabric. His yellow polo shirt has the collar flipped up. Yes, the man wore a polo to the lake.
“Do you own any T-shirts that you actually wear outside the house?” I had to dig deep in his drawers to find a shirt to sleep in last night.
Silas gives me a winning smile under aviator shades that make him look ten times hotter than the sun blasting down on this lake right now. His brown hair looks golden in the bright light, like even the sun came down to kiss this gorgeous man.
“Are we talking fashion on our one day off, honey?” He gestures to a chair and waits until I plop down in it before he grabs the umbrella I dumped in the dirt.
“No, definitely not!” We agreed that to celebrate Harp and Hemline’s huge win yesterday, we’d not do one damn thing work related today. We deserve a day off.
Silas digs in the dirt for a good five minutes before he can wedge the umbrella in there enough for it to stay. He pulls up the spokes and the thick material provides instant shade. I let out a sigh of relief and rest my head on the back of the chair.
“My little storm cloud can’t handle the sun.” Silas laughs as he whips his polo over his head and settles in the chair next to me, which is entirely in the sun.
Damn, he looks good shirtless and tan. Maybe I do need to expose my skin to the sun. I hold my arm out from under the umbrella, regretting it when it turns pink almost instantly. That’s even with SPF fifty!
“You might want to save your suntan hours for when you’re in the water,” Silas drawls.
If we were in sand, I’d kick some on him.
Instead, I flip him off. He shakes his head at my antics, stands, and reaches down for me.
I let him help me up and then we walk hand in hand down to the water.
We have to weave around kids everywhere but we find our own little area.
I tiptoe in, expecting cold water, but find it’s almost bathwater temperature.
“Seriously? That’s not even refreshing.”
Silas just shakes his head at my grumpiness and pulls me in deeper.
When he reaches down into the water with his hand and splashes me playfully, I find out that it is, in fact, refreshing.
I yelp and don’t hesitate to splash him back.
With both hands. That leads to an all-out water war and pretty soon my jean shorts and tank top are soaked through.
“Told you we should have stopped at Nana’s for a swimsuit.” I find it adorable that Silas now calls my grandmother Nana.
He grabs me while I’m feeling mushy about him, pinning my arms between us as he hugs me tight.
He leans down and kisses me. The heat, the screaming kids, and the soaked clothing fades into the background.
His lips part mine and what was a sweet kiss turns hot and not at all appropriate for the public beach.
A wolf whistle from somewhere behind me has him pulling back, placing quick kisses to my nose, my eyes, and my forehead.
“You make me crazy, woman,” he mutters in between kisses.
“Right back atcha, frat boy.”
His answering grin is so sweet it keeps me at the lake for several more hours just to bask in it. I don’t even complain about the heat and humidity.
Okay, I do, but only once or twice. Pretty much a record for me.
By the time Silas drops me back home at Nana’s, I think I have a hint of a tan forming on my pale skin.
I’m just about to head to bed, my heart full from our day off, when my phone rings.
It’s my mother. I’m not sure if I want to talk to her.
On the one hand, she hasn’t bothered to call me since the day I rolled into Heaven and it might be nice to speak to her and catch up.
On the other hand, conversations with her never end well and I’ve had too nice of a day to ruin it like this.
The call rolls to voicemail and my shoulders drop, relieved I didn’t have to make a decision.
Then the phone rings again.
Shit.
She didn’t leave a voicemail. Guilt eats at me and I pick up.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Well, it’s about time you picked up. Thought you might be ignoring your own mother. How you doin’, B?”
My eyes slide shut and I sink onto my bed. Here we go.
“I’m good. Really good.”
She hoots into the phone. “Sounds like you found a man there in the South!”
Of course she would think my good mood is all to do with a man.
“Well, yes, but we also just won a trophy for best boutique in town. And I’ve made some friends—”
“Forget about work, babe, tell me about this man!”
I roll my eyes heavenward. “He’s my boss, actually.”
Mom hoots again. “You’re just like your mama, going for the boss.
And why not, right? They got money, power, and they’re usually handsome.
I’ve always had a kink for bossy men. Speaking of bosses, I met someone at work too.
He’s a manager, not the boss-boss, but close enough. In fact, that’s why I’m calling.”
I roll my lips inward and get comfortable on the bed.
This is how our conversations always go.
She asks about me, but never listens to the answer.
She just launches into whatever man she’s met recently.
Hundred bucks says she’ll tell me he’s the one and they’re moving in together.
Hundred more bucks says they’ll be broken up within six months.
“He’s taking me to Arizona for vacation. To one of those fancy resorts, not camping in the desert, thank God. Anyway, when we get back, my lease is up here so I’m going to move in with him. He’s got this great two-bedroom place closer to work, so it all works out.”
There’s a short pause when she finally takes a breath. “You still there?”
“I’m here.”
“Anyway, I’d love for you to meet him. He’s really great. Has three grown kids, close to your age. I bet you all would be such good friends.”
“I bet.” No chance in hell.
“I really think he’s a keeper, B.”
There it is.
“I’m happy for you, Mom.” It pains me to say it, but after years of observing this cycle, I know that’s what she wants to hear.
“Well, I have to go, but you let me know when you can come visit, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. Good night.”
“Night, babe!”
Then she’s gone, off to whatever else has her attention lately. Sadly, it’s never been me. I swore to myself I’d never be like her, which is why I was so mad my ex kicked me out so easily. That whole situation felt entirely too much like Mom’s behavior.
Am I doing the same thing with Silas? I mean, I moved to Heaven with the intent on helping Nana and making a living, but here I am, already interested in a guy.
We’re not dating, I’ve made that clear, but it sure looks like dating.
Wasn’t I just thinking earlier today about how much I care for Silas?
Am I just like Mom, repeating the cycle over and over again, completely oblivious?
I throw my phone across the bed and squeeze my eyes shut.
For the first time since I got to Heaven, I feel alone.