Chapter Ten Lily
Chapter Ten
Lily
“What the fuck am I doing?” I breathed, my hand poised in the air, unable to make contact with the front door of the King house. “It’s just . . . people. People hanging out together in a house. And he’s not going to give you shit in front of his kids.”
Except wasn’t that the point of a good ol’ mental spiral? We uncovered like a motherfucker, over and over and over, until the scab was well and picked open.
The moment I’d gotten his text saying I didn’t need to watch the kids the day after the concert thing, I knew that man was full of shit if he said he wasn’t thinking about our thing too.
My own musings were trapped in a three-part loop.
First, I had gotten arm tingles when he touched me. In general, I avoided tingles from complicated men like him.
Second—and a somewhat problematic second point it was—I had flirted.
Denying said flirting was stupid, because even when I did it, I knew what the hell was happening.
He may not have, though. Some people had the gift of subtle flirting, and I was one of them.
There was a fine line between being mean, giving someone harmless shit, and actual flirting.
I straddled the fuck out of that line. But I couldn’t help it.
Me being nice would’ve made his head explode.
Third, and most important, he had not flirted back. What he had done was react in such a perfectly grumpy way that a sick little thrill shot up my spine whenever his eyes met mine.
After Maggie’s concert, we didn’t converse further. After effusively praising Maggie’s performance and giving both kids a hug, I escaped back to my car—safe from any more loaded Barrett eye contact or interactions with spineless married dweebs.
Which was good, because that man with the wandering eyes and skinny arms was not my type.
What my type was was not a concern I needed to deal with at the current moment, because this sweet little invitation from the kids, who were rapidly becoming my favorite people in the world, had nothing to do with my . . . type.
Not that Barrett was anything of the sort.
The muscles were fine. Big and defined and clearly well maintained.
The jaw and the dark eyes were . . . whatever.
Anyone could have a cut jawline, and it didn’t make me want to remove my undergarments.
Trust me, a good profile wouldn’t make your life easier.
That was the other part of my spiral that I didn’t want to touch with several ten-foot poles. I didn’t even know what my type was. It felt impossible to think that anyone would want to deal with me—long term, at least. But the thought of only having short-term dealings for the rest of my life . . .
That left me feeling like my chest was strangely empty. Like all I’d ever hear were echoes of the things I didn’t have, clanging around against my ribs. The worst part was, it would somehow be even scarier if he was sweet and thoughtful and saw through the worst parts of me.
Hissing at new people and slamming doors, like he’d said. Not too far off, all in all, and if he—if anyone with muscles and jawlines and dark, warm eyes—could peek behind that particular curtain and not run screaming . . .
That seemed significantly worse.
Or it would, if I was worried about Barrett King being my type. But I wasn’t.
Because he wasn’t.
My hand clenched as I held my fist aloft. I was doing this for Maggie. For Bryce.
It was enough to bring myself to knock. Firmly, decisively, like I was totally fine being here.
With my stomach in regrettable knots that made my nerves impossible to ignore—those little dicks—I let out a deep breath and centered my chi or whatever I needed to do in order to face Barrett for the next several hours.
The sound of thundering footsteps coming toward the door made me smile. Not the owner of the house letting me in, then. I highly doubted he’d sprint in my direction, unless the house was on fire and I was blocking the exit.
It was a good thing I braced myself before the door whipped open, because Bryce and Maggie flung themselves at me like they hadn’t just seen me two days earlier.
“Whoa,” I laughed. “Hey, you two.”
Bryce pulled back first, his eyes shining. “Do you like Monopoly? Or any game? We can play Scrabble too. I love Scrabble.”
“I—”
“She’s baking with me,” Maggie reminded her brother, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the house. “I already told you that.”
“You can’t just claim all her time, Maggie,” Bryce huffed.
“We can do both,” I assured them. “But we should bake cookies first. Let them cool before we decorate.”
Barrett was nowhere to be seen, and the knot in my stomach eased a little.
What kind of Christmas dad was he? There was a cartoonish version in my head when I tried to imagine him navigating a lighthearted holiday.
He’d have a schedule, color coded and militant.
Fifteen minutes to eat cookies. Then fifteen minutes to drink eggnog.
Not a single piece of wrapping paper would touch the ground, lest it create a mess.
A hysterical laugh threatened to spill out of my mouth, because the fact that I was here made me question my own decision-making skills.
But despite all that, and the looming, unseen presence of Hot Scary Christmas Dad, the house smelled good—like a pine tree farm and mulled cider had exploded in the main room.
My eyes tracked over the space, drinking in all the details. I hadn’t made it this far inside the other night, and I didn’t even try to hide my curiosity now.
The kitchen was big, stretching along the back wall of the house, an island with four stools in the middle.
In the living room, there were a few support columns behind the long L-shaped couch that faced the TV mounted on the wall, and in the corner was a Christmas tree with twinkling colored lights.
It was the only nod to the holiday that I could see, but the space underneath it was filled with prettily wrapped presents. In the bag slung over my shoulder was one for each of the kids.
“You look pretty,” Maggie told me.
Elastic waistbands and forgiving fabric were the real MVPs of the holiday, which was why I’d gone for my softest pair of leggings and the Celtics sweatshirt.
Despite a quick swipe of mascara before I walked over, pretty was not the look I’d been going for, so I gave her a wry arch of my eyebrow.
I touched the sparkly headband holding her hair back. “So do you.”
“We went to church this morning,” she sighed. “And we don’t really ever go, so I wasn’t sure what to wear. But I felt like I needed to dress up a little bit.” She paused. “For baby Jesus.”
I nodded seriously. “Of course.”
Bryce started peeking in my bag. “What’s in here?”
I smacked his hand away. “Hey, do you normally go through people’s stuff? Away, little man. Nothing for you to see.”
He laughed, running off to the dining room table, where a messy stack of board games took up half the surface. “How long will it take you to get the cookies in the oven?”
I set my bag down on the counter and fished out the container of chilled dough. “Twenty minutes, maybe? Unless your sister has real problems using cookie cutters.”
“Oh, we bought some at the store this morning,” Maggie said, opening up a bag sitting on the counter next to the fridge.
“You went to the grocery store on Christmas Eve? You must be out of your mind,” I said, tapping her on the tip of her nose.
“Dad’s fault,” they said in unison.
“What’s my fault?” the man in question said, appearing at the end of a hallway on the other side of the room.
He was looking down as he rolled the sleeves up his forearms. It was basic—a plain white button-down I’d seen on hundreds of men in my life, but I cursed the sudden pitch in my belly at the way it fit him.
Good. It fit him good. Fit him well?
Whatever. The grammatical construct of that sentence aside, Barrett King was doing his button-down shirt some serious favors. Apparently, he’d also dressed nice for baby Jesus.
“Lily brought cookie cutters,” Maggie pronounced. “We didn’t even need them. I told you she would.”
His eyes lifted slowly, like the air was thick and made everything sluggish, and when they met mine, it seemed as though he was just as apprehensive about this as I was.
“Ah. You’re here.”
“Merry Christmas,” I told him, and I almost winced at the sound of my voice. It was half an octave too high, and my nerves were now a blinking neon sign over my head. “Thank you for inviting me.”
All morning, I’d promised myself that I could be polite to him. That I could be kind and sweet . . . okay, well, maybe not sweet, because I hadn’t undergone a personality transplant recently, but we could be in the same room without snipping and snapping at each other.
The pressure of his gaze was so tactile, I almost took a step back, but I forced myself to stay in place. There would be no backing down from this man, thank you very much.
When his gaze made it down to my feet and then back up, I merely raised an eyebrow. “Do I pass dress code, Mr. King?”
Only the slightest flicker in his eyes gave him away, even though his mouth stayed even. A low, scraping hum was his only response. “No scary little beast by your side today?”
I smiled faintly. “No, Larry was content to nap on the couch, as it turned out. I asked him if he wanted to come, but his response was to burrow under some blankets and growl.”
Barrett made a small noise in the back of his throat. “So he doesn’t just growl at me?”
“Oh no. That dog loathes my very presence, make no mistake.” I turned on the faucet, pushing my sleeves up to wash my hands before Maggie and I started. “Thank you for getting cookie cutters, though. You have some shapes that Patty didn’t.”
“Which ones?” Maggie asked.