Chapter 20
WILDER
NOVEMBER
“Hey,” Chase said suspiciously, staring at Avery’s refrigerator. “Is this where you got the idea for that chore chart?”
I reached around him to grab a beer since he was being so slow about it. “Yup.”
Since I’d started working with Larry Harper, Avery had been watching Gracie on the afternoons that the guys couldn’t, and the chore chart had appeared on his refrigerator soon after.
The chores weren’t really chores at all.
It was stuff like washing her hands before eating, remembering to put her toys away, and watering the herbs on Avery’s kitchen windowsill.
But I’d done up a chart for home as well, with chores like making her bed and brushing her teeth and putting her shoes away.
I’d caught Chase giving it a narrow-eyed stare more than once.
He reached for a beer and closed the refrigerator door. “Why don’t we have a chart for us?”
“What?”
“I want a sticker when I clean the bathroom.”
“When the heck have you ever cleaned the bathroom?”
He cracked open his beer. “Well, maybe I would clean it if there were stickers involved!”
He stalked out of the kitchen, heading for the dining room and the sound of conversation and laughter.
I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting or not, but I was definitely going to test him on it.
The kitchen smelled of garlic bread and Bolognese sauce. We weren’t having a spaghetti night next week because Avery would be in Richmond with his family for Thanksgiving. The guys would miss spaghetti night. I would too, but I’d miss Avery more, even though it was only for a few days.
Avery bustled into the kitchen, looking flushed with laughter. He inspected the pots on the stovetop. “It looks ready. Grab me some bowls?”
I got him the bowls, then took the garlic bread out of the oven, my mouth watering at the scent.
Avery transferred the spaghetti to a serving bowl and we carried it through to the dining room, and Cash practically dived for the garlic bread as soon as it hit the table.
I didn’t blame him—Avery’s garlic bread was pretty great.
So was Avery.
Spaghetti dinner was as loud and chaotic as always. Avery told a story about one of his kids putting a crayon up their nose, Danny let it drop that he’d finally saved enough to enroll in community college, and Chase complained loudly about being put on permanent night shift by Bobby.
“Is this because you called some lady’s kid a little fu—effhead?” Danny asked.
“No, that was last week,” Chase said. “And he knocked over a whole display stand! This is because I punched some guy in the face.”
Miller winced.
“What?” Chase asked. “He was so drunk he won’t remember! Anyhow, Bobby says I need to work on my customer service skills, but how am I supposed to do that when hardly anyone comes in on night shift?” He wrinkled his nose. “Just that one guy I hate.”
“The guy you punched?” Miller asked.
“Nah, some other guy.”
“Chase hates a lot of people,” Danny said, and Chase nodded in agreement.
“How’s the new job going, Wilder?” Miller asked me in an obvious attempt to redirect the conversation away from Chase’s workweek, probably before he was asked for free legal advice about the difference between misdemeanors and felonies.
“It’s good,” I said. And then, because I knew they all loved gossip, I added casually, “I’m working on Bobby’s latest project. He’s stripping out the old bookstore and adding an industrial kitchen.”
“The fu-lip does Bobby want with a kitchen?” Chase asked suspiciously.
Cash leaned over and whispered something to him.
Chase brightened. “Yeah, I hope it’s gonna be a pizza place too!”
“I thought Bobby’s projects were mostly pie in the sky stuff,” Miller said. “Danny, didn’t you say he’d bought up half of Main Street but never got much further than that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny said. “Usually Bobby’s projects hardly go anywhere because he gets distracted by some other new idea and forgets all his old ones.”
“Excuse you,” Avery said, “I won’t hear slander against the owner of the Adventurama, Goose Run’s foremost tourist attraction! It has one and a half stars on Trip Advisor!”
“They have kittens!” Gracie added, giving me a significant look.
“And I’m sure the kittens are very happy living there at the Adventurama,” I said, pretending not to know exactly what she was angling for. “We can go visit them anytime you’d like.”
She drew a breath, and I knew what was coming.
“Gracie, do you want any more garlic bread?” Avery asked, holding the plate out to her.
She took a piece and ate it happily, the kitten temporarily forgotten.
See? That was some quality goddamn teamwork right there.
“Anyway, the job’s great,” I said, addressing Miller’s earlier question. “It’s a lot to learn, but I’m enjoying it, and hell, who knows? One day I might even have my own business.”
Avery flashed me a proud smile.
“That’s great,” Miller said with a smile. “Hey, and when you need an attorney to help set everything up, you know where to find me.”
I raised my beer in his direction.
We finished off the last of the spaghetti and had a couple of beers, and by the time we’d eaten the brownies Avery had made for dessert, both Chase and Gracie were yawning. “Someone needs to go to bed,” I said.
Danny laughed and said, “Yeah. Me.” He winked at Miller. “You coming?”
Miller stood, grinning, and started stacking the plates.
Between the lot of us, it didn’t take long to clear the table and clean the dishes. Gracie helped by wiping the table down, then looked pointedly at her chore chart until Avery added a sticker to the column for cleaning up.
Chase rolled his eyes, and Avery caught him doing it and pressed a sticker to his shirt. Chase rolled his eyes again, but he left the sticker there.
“Can I have one?” Cash asked softly.
Avery blinked, obviously shocked at hearing Cash use his words, and then he smiled. “Of course. Pick whatever one you like.”
Cash gave Avery a tiny smile, and after a minute he picked the one with a cartoon dinosaur that said, “Awesome!”
The guys all fussed over Gracie when it was time to leave, and she stuck out her bottom lip stubbornly as though it didn’t bother her in the least that she was having a sleepover at Avery’s tonight.
She’d brought her purple sleeping bag and Mr. Peanut Butter, and she’d been excited by the idea all week, but I could tell she was a little worried now the big moment was finally here.
I was pretty sure that stubborn bottom lip was going to start wobbling any second now.
“Oh, Gracie,” Avery said. “Would you like to take your things to the spare room?”
She nodded and set off down the hallway.
Avery flashed me a grin, grabbed me by the hand, and followed.
We were right behind Gracie when she opened the door, but even if we’d been at the other end of the house, we would have heard her squeal.
My jaw dropped as I saw what she was seeing.
Avery’s spare room, which last time I’d seen it had been a kind of storage and crafts space with a twin bed tucked in the corner as an afterthought, had been transformed.
All his plastic storage crates had been moved out, the twin bed had a Bluey comforter, there was a fuzzy rainbow rug on the floor, and fairy lights twinkled softly where they were strung around the room.
“Is this—” Gracie’s eyes were as wide as an owl’s. “Is this for me?”
“It sure is, sweet pea,” Avery said, and oomphed as she tackled him with a hug a linebacker would be proud of. “If we’re going to have sleepovers, you need a room fit for a princess, right?”
Holy shit, I loved that he’d done this.
I loved that he loved my kid.
I loved—I loved him.
I let that sink in for a minute, expecting the revelation to be jarring somehow.
It was big, you know? But it didn’t scare me, because it wasn’t a new feeling.
It was just finally discovering the word that explained what I’d been feeling for a while now.
What had been building since that first time I couldn’t stop thinking about him, or that first kiss, or the first time he’d called me Johnny and it had felt so right.
I was in love with my boyfriend.
“Can I go to bed right now?” Gracie asked, bouncing excitedly on her toes and dragging me back to reality.
“No, you have to have a shower first,” I said. “Grab your bag, and I’ll come and turn the water on and make sure it’s not too hot.”
Avery hummed to himself in the kitchen, finishing tidying up, while I got Gracie showered and changed into her pajamas. She pulled faces in Avery’s mirror while she brushed her teeth and then darted straight back into the bedroom and dived under the covers with Mr. Peanut Butter.
“Hey,” I said. “You want Avery to read you your story tonight?”
“Yes!”
Of course she did. He was her hero tonight. Mine too.
I leaned in the doorway while Avery read to her.
He was better at it than me. It was his kindergarten teacher training: he did all the voices, and it made Gracie laugh so hard that I thought she’d never get to sleep.
But she was fighting her yawns by the end of the book, and she closed her eyes when Avery kissed her forehead.
“I’m gonna turn the fairy lights off, but the nightlight can stay on, okay? Just in case you need to get out of bed for anything.”
“Okay,” she said through another yawn.
“Night, sweet pea,” I called from the doorway.
“Night, Daddy.”
I barely let Avery get out of the room before I pushed him up against the hallway wall and kissed the hell out of him.
“What was that for?” he asked, straightening his glasses. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“Because you’re amazing,” I said. “And I love you.”
Avery sucked in a breath, and for a second I worried he didn’t feel the same, but then his face split into a grin and he said, “I love you too, Johnny. Have for a while now.”
“Same,” I said and kissed him again. “Same.”
“Okay, so,” Avery said an hour or two later when we were finally getting ready for bed, “Gracie’s got her nightlight, and her door is open, so we’ll keep ours open too. Just so she doesn’t get scared if she wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t find you.”
I nodded, pulling off my shirt.
Avery’s mouth twitched. “Underwear stay on, is what I’m saying. But feel free to take your shirt off in a sexy way. Did you bring your cowboy hat?”
“I wear that hat one time as a confidence booster and now you’re obsessed,” I teased. “It’s actually in my truck, sorry, for tomorrow’s gig.”
Avery sighed. “And you didn’t even ask this bachelorette to extend an invitation to her party to your boyfriend? Rude.”
“I’m an asshole, I know,” I said and couldn’t resist leaning forward to kiss the end of his nose. It always made him laugh. “But next Friday I’m back at Easy Rider, and you can come see me there.”
“I’ll tell Dana,” he said. “She’ll be in the front row.”
With Avery right by her side. He loved to turn up and clap and cheer, but he’d made me promise not to pull him on stage again. He only enjoyed the audience participation part of my stripping if we were in private. Let’s just say we weren’t using that chair in the corner of the bedroom for reading.
“Well, tell her not to pull that stunt where she tries to put small change in my underwear,” I said. “It’s a dollar minimum.”
He laughed again, and we finished undressing and got into bed. He rolled over to face me and pulled me in close for a proper kiss. For someone who was insisting it was underwear on tonight, he wasn’t doing a very good job of selling it. I slid my hands down his back and cupped his ass.
He broke the kiss and raised an eyebrow. “Nice try, but I already told you, you’re not getting lucky tonight.”
“No, I know.” I shoved at him gently and he rolled onto his back, and I put my head on his stomach. He sighed happily and ran his fingers through my hair. “But joke’s on you, Avery, because I already got lucky.”
Avery traced the shell of my ear with his thumb. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Because I’m here with you.” I pressed a kiss to his stomach and smiled to myself. “I get luckier every day.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he said. He tugged my hair gently. “Don’t make me fight you about it!”
I lifted my head up long enough to stare at him incredulously. “You think you could take me in a fight?”
“Oh, I didn’t say I’d win,” he said. “But I can be scrappy. I might surprise you.”
“You surprise me every day,” I said. “And did I mention I love you? But you’re not scrappy. You’re whatever the opposite of scrappy is.”
He laughed silently, and I rested my head on his stomach again. We tangled our fingers together. I was tired, but I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to stay awake, to enjoy this moment of being here with Avery, quiet and warm and happy, for as long as I could.
And I wanted as many of these moments as the universe would give us—hopefully, a lifetime of them. A lifetime of loving and being loved.
Starting right here and now.
THE END