Chapter Seven Lily #3
More than once, I’d stopped myself from googling Barrett King.
Nothing good would come from it, I thought.
It was hard enough not to pepper his children with questions about what kind of father he was.
They were so sweet and smart and funny. He couldn’t be a total asshole, right?
Curiosity in any one person didn’t typically yield the kind of fruit I was looking for, not given the life I’d led.
It wasn’t like I was devoid of male companionship in my travels.
I’d had some great companionship. Didn’t-even-have-to-fake-it-with-anyone kind of companionship.
But in general, I didn’t chase it. I didn’t care enough to chase, because that was just one more thing that might make it harder to leave, and no one had time for that shit.
Me. I was no one.
I stopped, studying a framed photo of a slightly younger Barrett wearing a football uniform, face stoic as he stood in between an older couple that must be his parents.
The chiseled features were sweaty and dirty, black streaks under his eyes, and the curves of the muscles in his arms covered in streaks of green from the grass. Even then, not a smile in sight.
Maybe his face would break if he tried. Shatter from the force of trying to use muscles that never got used. Then I snorted, because what a fucking hypocrite I was. Like I was any better.
There was a side effect to living the life I led.
Meeting people all over the country, from all walks of life, you started recognizing patterns.
You could see things that others might not always see so quickly.
And in Barrett King, I could see, quite clearly, someone who’d work himself to the bone trying to prove . . . something.
I wasn’t sure what; I didn’t know him well enough. But it was enough of a mystery that the seed of interest had been planted and bloomed before I could do a damn thing to stop it.
There was a shuffling sound behind me, and I tilted my head as I continued to study the picture in front of me.
“Does your dad ever smile?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Sure,” answered a deep voice. “Just usually not at prickly neighbors with the social skills of a potato.”
The sound of Barrett’s voice—low and measured and just that hint of annoyance—had me pinching my eyes shut and fixing my face into an approximation of a polite smile before turning.
There was no way it worked. I probably looked like I’d chugged battery acid instead.
How did a man that big ninja-sneak into a house? From the size of him, he should have heavy footsteps, a telltale slam of the door. Something to prepare a girl to, you know, not be snooping in his shit.
“You’re home early,” I said slowly, absolutely hating the blush flooding my cheeks. Blushing! For fuck’s sake. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been embarrassed by anything, and the fact that this time it was him made me want to scream into a pillow.
“I did text you.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I hedged, shifting away from the bookshelf like I hadn’t been two seconds away from riffling through family albums.
Of course I hadn’t heard anything. My phone was in my soggy-ass coat.
“It’s not my fault you ignored your phone.” It was the utterly unrepentant gleam in his eyes that made my cheeks feel hot. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who liked pushing buttons. “Just keep in mind who’s breaking the rules here. I did uphold my promise that you’d never have to see me.”
“You didn’t say I could never come over,” I argued. “Should I have left your kids in their freezing-cold clothes?”
“No.” His eyes started at the top of my head, which was covered in a black beanie with a fluffy white pom-pom on top, to the blanket around my shoulders, stopping on my feet—the feet currently wearing his slippers—where they narrowed imperceptibly.
I swallowed. “My feet were . . . cold.”
“Apparently. Do you always help yourself to strangers’ clothing?”
“Only when absolutely necessary.” I tilted my head. “I wasn’t sure you wanted my little piggies falling off in your entryway, what with the impending hypothermia and all.”
“How long were you outside?”
“About an hour and a half.”
He let out a disbelieving scoff. “Unless you were out there half dressed, you aren’t at risk of hypothermia. It’s in the high twenties.”
“Fucking freezing,” I amended.
“Can’t hack it? You’re in the wrong place for winter, then.”
“Yeah, lake effect, whatever, I heard all about it.” I tightened the blanket around me as the tiniest shiver racked my frame. He noticed, his gaze dragging from head to toe again, like he was scanning for injuries. “It’s snow. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll remember that when we get eighteen inches in a weekend.” I narrowed my eyes, ready to call bullshit, but Barrett glanced up the stairs. “What are they doing up there?”
“Changing their clothes.”
Just like he had the first night I met him, Barrett wore a black quarter-zip that stretched across his heart, the red-and-white logo over his chest.
“There are sleds in the driveway,” he said, crossing his arms.
I nodded seriously. “Personally, I wouldn’t recommend going sledding without them.”
“And where did you manage that? We have a flat backyard, and it was in the rules not to take them anywhere,” he said, his gaze colder than the glacial air outside.
Heat crawled up my neck as I remembered the rest of his note that I just . . . ignored. My chin rose a notch. “We stayed in the neighborhood. There’s a good hill behind that church a few blocks over. Their school friends told them about it.”
Barrett hummed. “So their homework is done already?”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth. “It would’ve been before you got home.
” I kicked off the slippers, tucking them back into place.
And even though I wanted to weep sad, cold tears at the thought of putting my wet, soggy coat back on, I pulled the blanket off my shoulders, kept the visible shivering to a minimum, and laid it in a neat pile on the couch.
“I’ll just head back home. Tell the kids I’ll set their backpacks by the door when they’re ready to come get them. ”
His hand shot out and grabbed my elbow. Not a hard, mean sort of grab. If it had been, I probably would’ve kneed him in the balls as a reflex. The pressure of his palm was just enough to stop me. The heat of his fingers seared through the thin layer of my long-sleeve shirt.
“I had rules, Lily. That was our agreement.”
“I saw them.” When he gave me a disbelieving look, I bit down on my bottom lip, trying my very best to look contrite. Based on his reaction, it wasn’t working, which was probably for the best because I didn’t actually feel bad. “Most of them, at least.”
His jaw tightened, and goodness, if there was such a thing as an ominous muscle tightening, this was it. Like a siren blaring before a storm, cutting through the air like a scream.
“And you just . . . chose to ignore them? I said I didn’t want you taking them anywhere.”
I ignored a lot of shit out of a resolute sense of self-preservation. A therapist would have a field day with someone like me.
What do we do when we’re scared of our big feelings, Lily? they’d ask.
We run away and distract ourselves with new experiences. We pretend like those feelings don’t exist because it’s a million times easier than dealing with them.
There wasn’t a shrink’s couch in the continental United States that could hold all my baggage.
I gave him a hint of a smile, and his eyes never wavered from mine. “Flexibility isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes we’re better off breaking the rules.”
He released his grip on me, and I fought the urge to shake my arm out. It tingled where he’d held it. Good tingles, which I hadn’t gotten from a man in a very long time.
No. Bad tingles. Very, very bad tingles.
“Not the way I live,” he said. “Everything will fall apart.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “My goodness, I didn’t take you for the overly dramatic sort.”
“My life is held together by rules,” he said in a low voice. “Theirs is too. I didn’t ask for your help to have you dismantle it. They need structure. Routine. And so do I.”
“Sounds like my nightmare,” I said lightly.
He let out a quiet huffing sound, almost a laugh but not quite. “My entire day is lived fifteen minutes at a time. I don’t have a single minute unaccounted for. If a piece falls out of place—one single piece, a domino knocked over when it shouldn’t be—everything comes crashing down.”
Lord, I wanted to muss him up. There was something about this man. It was that serious air, the unshakable focus, that sent an itchy little urge under my skin to see if I could shake him. Just a bit.
“Fifteen minutes,” I said quietly, taking a step closer and glancing up at him with a guileless expression. “Can’t really accomplish anything fun in fifteen minutes, can you?”
There was a flicker in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
In fact, it didn’t even seem like he was breathing.
His body was so close to mine—he smelled clean and crisp, scents and notes that I couldn’t place.
Like anyone actually knew what bergamot and sandalwood and citrus smelled like unless they read it on a bottle somewhere.
Anyone who said otherwise was full of shit.
Good. He smelled really fucking good. And that gave me unfortunate little tingles too.
I brushed past him, pausing momentarily to see if he’d react, and when he didn’t, I walked over to my coat and gloves.
He was still facing the den, and the only sign he’d even heard me, that my words had registered at all, was the way his hand tightened into a fist at his side. I couldn’t help it; it made me smile.
“Barrett?”
His head turned but he kept his body facing away. The harsh lines of his profile would photograph like a fucking dream. But that was neither here nor there.
“You’d be so much prettier if you smiled more,” I said silkily.
He let out an incredulous huff, big body finally turning in my direction. “Excuse me?”
Putting on my coat felt like draping a wet towel over my shoulders, but I kept my face even, pulling my hair out from underneath the collar. “What? You don’t like it when people say that to you? Weird. I love it.”
An almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes was the only reaction I got. After I turned around to slip my shoes on, I let out a low, controlled breath. Probably not smart to poke the bear, but he was so fucking pokeable.
“Have a good night, sunshine,” I said, then let myself out the door without waiting for a reply.