Chapter 18 #2
But the whole time I’m under the spray, I’m wondering what would happen if I turned around, if he came in, if we forgot all this bullshit and did it again. Throwing Tanner against the shower wall, kissing the salty sweat off his neck, hearing that goddamn moan again.
I shake the thought loose and scrub shampoo through my hair like it can wash away the desire.
This is stupid.
We’re not together. We’re pretending to be married. For insurance. There is nothing less sexy than insurance.
I’m not built for permanence. I grew up watching a marriage rot from the inside. I swore I’d never get tied down. Never do to a kid what was done to me.
But...Tanner’s different. Always has been.
And I don’t know how much longer I can pretend that’s not what’s driving me absolutely insane.
We dress in silence, except this time, it’s different.
There’s no awkward fog. No tension.
Just...awareness.
Every time he brushes past me, my skin sparks. Every time he looks at me, I feel seen. It’s all charged. Alive.
We say goodbye to the rest of the team and walk to the car, side-by-side.
He unlocks the doors. “You hungry?”
“Starving,” I say.
“Burgers on the way home?”
“Only if I get fries.”
He snorts. “You always get fries.”
I grin. “Yeah, but this time I want extra.”
He smiles back, and the way he looks at me—
It’s not just friendly.
It’s not just nothing.
And as I slide into the passenger seat, sweat-damp and sore and stupidly content, I realize something else.
I might be falling for him.
For real.
And I don’t know if I can stop.
After a lunch of drive-through burgers and fries, we relax at home and watch some football.
Despite the pullout mattress being a form of torture, Tanner’s actual couch is shockingly comfortable.
It’s so easy to sink into the cushions and rot for a few hours.
Lulu dozes off against me during the third quarter.
My heart swells as I watch her sleep, her small body an accordion filling and emptying with breath.
As the sun sets, Tanner gets to work on dinner. I offer to help, but it’s decided I’ll clean up and take out the trash after. The kitchen smells like garlic and butter. Tanner’s doing his usual wizardry with spaghetti and sautéed zucchini, humming some off-key tune.
On game days, my appetite is insatiable.
I have two servings of spaghetti and meatballs.
I probably could’ve eaten more, but there are five other humans who need dinner.
We sit around the dinner, Davy regaling us with highlights from today’s game when Tanner and I made magic on the ice.
I keep looking over at Lena, moving spaghetti around her plate, only half-listening.
The way she keeps looking down, it’s obvious to me she’s stealthily reading her phone.
“Lena.” I clear my throat. “No phones at the dinner table.”
“Sorry.” She puts it in her pocket.
“She’s probably texting with Matthias.” Dean turns around and mimics making out with extra-loud kissing noises.
She turns red, which possibly means her brother’s right. Are they arranging a time to meet up to smoke, do drugs, have sex. All things I did in high school that now make me break into a cold sweat.
Once I’m done cleaning up the kitchen post-dinner, I knock on her bedroom door. She sits on her bed, scrolling her phone.
“Hey. Can you help me with bringing out the garbage and recycling?”
She glances up, warily. “Sure.”
Can she smell the ulterior motives already? Teens are scarily perceptive.
“Thanks.” I keep cool and have her follow me outside. We each roll a bin to the end of the driveway. In my apartment, there’s a convenient trash chute, so I never have to smell this putridness.
The start of a fall chill hangs in the air. I dig my hands into my pockets. “So, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh.” She tenses slightly, hands fixed at her sides. “What?”
I can feel myself entering a new level of dad. My stomach twists, but I’m already here. “I wasn’t snooping. I want to say that first. But I accidentally caught a peek inside your backpack the other day. And I saw a vape pen.”
Her eyes widen, then narrow just as fast. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I say, glancing back at the house to make sure her siblings didn’t follow us out here.
“It’s not mine,” she says, automatic.
I raise an eyebrow. “Lena.”
She shrugs, brushing curls out of her face, something she did as a little girl, too. It’s wild that I once held her newborn self in my arms. “It’s my friend’s. She was freaking out because her parents would kill her if they found it, so I said I’d hold it for her.”
“That’s altruistic of you.” It would be mean of me to call bullshit. She would shut down. I have to tread lightly. “Um, I’ve noticed you’ve been wearing your perfume extra thick recently.”
“I’ve been wearing too much? I thought it smelled nice…” She hangs her head and sniffs her forearm.
Fuck. Insulting my faux stepdaughter is not the best foot forward.
“It does!” I say. “It just seems like you want to cover up the smell of smoke.”
“I’m not.”
“Uh-huh.” I fold my arms, leaning against the mailbox. “Did this alleged friend really have nowhere else to hide a vape pen? Maybe this friend is actually…Matthias.”
I keep my eyes on her to gauge her auto reaction. Is this where she gives up that Matthias is actually a pot-smoking, cocaine-snorting, drunk-driving, sex fiend?
Yet she doesn’t get cagey. She doesn’t get still. She bursts out laughing. “Matthias?”
“Yeah. Mr. Goody Two Shoes Boyfriend. I know his deal.”
She laughs harder. “Matthias?”
Is she laughing too hard? Like she’s trying to cover up for her bad boy, bad influence boyfriend?
“He’s the variable. You weren’t stashing vape pens before he came around.”
She scoffs. “Oh my God. Matthias doesn’t even drink soda.”
“People who don’t drink soda are the ones you have to really watch,” I mutter. “Come on, Lena. I’m not trying to catch you in a lie. I just want to make sure you’re okay. That you’re not being pressured. That you’re thinking for yourself.”
Her eyes flash. “I am thinking for myself.”
“Good. Then think about this: if your dad finds this first, it’s not going to be a conversation. It’s going to be a house lockdown, no phone, and one of those serious, soul-searching dad lectures that lasts three hours and involves feelings.”
She rolls her eyes. “I doubt that.”
Her dismissiveness throws me off for a beat.
“I’m giving you the chance to be honest. That’s all. You want me to believe it’s not yours? Cool. But I’m asking you—off the record—what’s really going on with Matthias?”
She hesitates. Something flickers in her eyes—defensiveness, maybe, or just hesitation—and then she fires back with something I don’t expect.
“You know what I want to know?”
I blink. “What?”
“What your deal is with my dad.”
I go still. “My—what?”
She stands up straighter, crossing her arms. “You guys say this marriage thing is fake. But you sure don’t act like it’s fake.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You’re living here. You make breakfast. You’re sharing a bed.”
“Only because your pullout couch sucks.”
“You two do all this weird silent eye contact thing. So what’s your plan? Are you going to get together for real?”
I stare at her. She stares right back. And for once in my entire adult life, I don’t have a preloaded answer. Not even a slick one-liner.
“I...” I clear my throat. “That’s...not what this is.”
“But it feels like it is,” she says, voice softer now. “I’ve seen my dad. I know when he’s just getting by. He’s been just getting by for a long time. But lately...he smiles more. Laughs. I haven’t seen that since Mom died.”
I look back at the house. In the front window, I can make out Tanner playing with Dean and Lulu, his smile beaming all the way out here.
“I care about him,” I admit, quiet.
“Do you love him?”
My stomach drops. She watches me with those sharp teenage eyes, not letting me look away.
“I don’t know,” I say. And it’s the truth.
We each soften our stances and silently call a ceasefire. It’s no fun getting interrogated.
“If you ever hurt my dad,” she says, tucking hair behind her ears. “I will make your life a living hell.”
I smile despite myself. “Fair enough.”
As she heads for the house, she pauses and turns back. “Des?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not half as slick as you think you are.”