CHAPTER 16
MYLES
If you’d have told me a week ago that I’d be sharing a bed with Beau Bennett’s sister after shagging her senseless on a communal sofa, I would have told you to get your head out your backside and go see a doctor. Yet here I am, sprawled on my back in the middle of Sheridan’s bed, still half hard with her limbs draped over mine, her finger tracing the lines of my tattoos.
We’d used the en-suite shower together to clean up, gone for another round, wherein I shoved her up against the wall and feasted on that delicious heat between her legs—again—while tugging myself to orgasm along with her. I’m usually more ambivalent about oral sex, but Sheridan tastes fucking divine.
After drying her off, I thought she’d want me to leave—I wasn’t really sure what this meant now, if it meant anything at all—but when I made for the door, she yanked me back and shoved me onto the mattress. Then she snuggled up to me like I was her favourite soft toy, and I haven’t moved since. I don’t think I ever want to.
“Why a bear?” She asks into the quiet room as her fingers trace the lines on my abdomen. It’s the first time either of us have said anything since we got into bed.
My hand has been grazing up and down her spine for a while, and I pause at her question. “It’s a bit of a long story.” And likely one other reason Beau doesn’t want me anywhere near her.
Sheridan rests her chin on my chest, and I tuck one of her curls out of her face. “Is it a sad story?”
“It’s definitely not a happy one.”
“Then you can tell me another time.” She gives me a beautiful, impossibly soft smile, and I can’t help but stroke the apple of her cheek. Something about those big blue eyes and that sated expression has my chest squeezing like it”s trapped in a God damn vice.
“Why the birds?”
After a vacant pause, she giggles. “Um, no reason.”
“None?”
“No. Just…really like birds. I like how colourful they can be. The fact that there’s so many different types, breeds. Yeah… I just like birds.”
“Well, that’s okay. Not all tattoos have to have a meaning.” I assure her. “Do you go to London a lot?”
She seems thrown off by the question, a change of subject. “More than I’d like.”
“Have you ever noticed there’s an unusual amount of these green exotic birds flying around at all?”
This perks her up. “No.”
“Well, a few years ago, a zoo keeper at London City Zoo accidentally left the cage open on the parakeet enclosure, and they all escaped. Rather than heading back to Africa or India they just spread out across the city and acclimatised. Now they’re fucking everywhere.” This hasn’t ever been proven but it’s definitely the version of the story I enjoy the most. It’s easier to tell a fabricated story than they just showed up one day and never left.
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“So, there’s just parakeets knocking about all ‘round London now?”
“Yeah. Loads of them.”
Her gaze drifts off. “Damn. I need to keep an eye out for that.”
“You’re in North London when you go, right?” She nods. “Well, if you find time to go to Hampstead Heath, you’re sure to see some there.”
“Huh,” she says, and then snuggles back into me. “Do you miss London?”
I wish I could say that I did—that I had something back there for me to mourn, someone to keep in touch with—but it would be a lie. “Nope.”
“Not even a little bit?”
I shake my head even though she isn’t looking at me. “Not at all.”
Sheridan exhales heavily, and I feel her breath skitter across my skin. It raises goosebumps, but that’s nothing compared to what my heart rate does when she presses her lips against my collar in a soft kiss.
I stroke my hand over her wild hair when she lays her head back down, and I fall asleep to the sound of her breathing.
* * *
The next morning, I wake early and sneak out of the room, but not before leaving Sheridan with a kiss she won’t be forgetting any time soon. I make myself a coffee and sit on the sofa with it while the news is on at a low volume. This would be my routine if I were at home, sans the part where I leave a beautiful woman in bed by herself. Considering we barely slept last night, I’m not surprised that Sheridan grants herself a lie-in for our final morning.
Everyone else starts trickling in one by one, each with a sore head. Brinsley takes Hector for his morning walk—with a comment that she’s going to visit the guest services to make an almighty complaint about the bed situation—and I’m surprised to see Beau up with a clearer head than one should when they drink as much as he did last night. He still refuses to talk to me.
Once everyone has surfaced, we have one final ‘family breakfast’ before we pack our things and start loading the cars ready to go home.
I watch with a clenched jaw as Beau intercepts Sheridan on her way to the car and hijacks her luggage and Hector’s bed, packing them into the boot of his Range Rover. I half expected it anyway, but it still pisses me the fuck off. Yeah, now he wants the dog with anxiety and incontinence issues in his car. Just so he can get his sister away from me.
Never mind ‘the Bear’—I feel like the big bad fucking wolf.
We each do one last sweep of the cabin to make sure we’ve got everything before we leave. Satisfied, we split up into the two cars.
This time, I’m carrying Brin, Bailey, Stavros and Nash. How I ended up with the faux Greek on both journeys, I don’t know. I must’ve pissed off a Greek God in a previous life. At least I can go home today with the satisfaction of—hopefully—never seeing that man again. Somehow, I think a week with Stavros was even too much for Nash. And they’re business partners.
The drive is quiet, and I can only assume it”s because everyone is still feeling the after effects of last night’s ‘farewell’ party. I don’t even bother putting the radio on. I’m just grateful it’s not too long a drive back to Coventry.
We don’t stop this time, either, which means Hector’s travel tablets worked and there hasn’t been any nervous urinating in Beau’s car. Absolutely typical, considering I feel it would be almost justified if that did happen.
Maybe I’ll mock up a quick comic strip about it later just to make myself feel better.
The troops rouse just as we get off the bypass on Beau’s side of Coventry. They’re practical chatterboxes when I pull into the driveway of his ridiculous sized home. Beau’s house is a four-bed, three-bath detached monstrosity, complete with double garage, a gaming room, and surprisingly underwhelming back garden. And he lives here alone.
“Thanks for driving, Myles.” Brinsley pats my arm as I help her unload her luggage from the boot.
“No problem. Glad you could get some rest.”
“You should do the same.” She gives me her sister’s smile, and yet it doesn’t have anywhere near the effect it would if it came from Sheridan, even though they’ve got near identical faces. Near identical.
“I plan on it.”
I help the others with moving their bags around until everyone has what they need where they need it to be. And then we say goodbye.
The boys get handshakes, and the girls get hugs. Except Gemma, who I think is just awkward rather than frigid. I’m not one to push physical contact so I leave her with a polite wave.
Sheridan comes last, right on the tail of her sister. Even though we haven’t spoken much this morning, our embrace is not awkward. It’s comfortable. Almost too comfortable, and I know Beau is watching because I can feel his gaze on us from across the gravel drive.
“I guess I’ll see you soon?” I pose it as a question, so quietly there’s not a chance anyone will hear it. “Hopefully.”
A hand slips low to my backside, and for a crazy minute I think she’s copping a shameless feel in front of everyone. Then I realise she’s slipping something into my back pocket. I try to keep my face neutral.
“Hopefully,” she agrees, and then pulls away from me. I hate the absence of her body instantly.
I wander back to my car, pausing to look over the roof and watch Sheridan zip away in her tiny green Mini, her sister in the passenger seat. The other cars follow soon after, until it’s just me left standing in the driveway, Beau hovering by the door. I cast him a look to find him hesitating.
He throws a thumb toward the house. “Want to come in for a cuppa before you go?”
It’s an olive branch if I’ve ever heard one, and yet… “I’m good.”
With that, I slide into my car again and drive off.
When I get home, the first thing I do is strip out my clothes and shove them in the washing machine, along with anything else out of my duffle that will fit and put it on to wash.
It’s not until I’ve crawled into bed, ready to sleep the day away, that I realise I never retrieved Sheridan’s note from my back pocket.
“Motherfucker.”
* * *
SHERIDAN
I drop Brin off at her place and decline her offer to go in for a drink. I just want to curl up on the sofa and binge-watch something shit on the telly while stuffing my face and intermittently napping.
When I pull into the little space outside the cottage, I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved to be home. I take Hector inside first, still asleep and tucked into his bed, and put him down in his usual place in the living room by the fireplace. Then I retrieve the rest of my things, lock the car and the front door, and change into something comfortable and cool. I’ve already decided that I’m going to treat myself to a takeaway for dinner, which I haven’t done for months.
I queue up the first season of Friends—because I really need a fill of ‘90s Matthew Perry—and sink into the oblivion of my sofa.
Though I laugh at the TV and keep an eye trained on Hector, I also keep peering at my phone, waiting for a certain unknown number to pop up. I didn’t write Myles a crazy love note, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just wrote my number on an old receipt I had in my bag and shoved it in his back pocket. After what we did last night, I felt assured that he likes me and did the boldest thing I’ve ever done: gave a boy—a man—my phone number.
The only problem is that I’m impatient and want him to text me now.
I hear the clock ticking on the wall behind me and count the tocks. I reach 3,600 before I realise that I’ve wasted an hour waiting for it and missed three episodes and countless Chandler-isms.
To make myself feel less plaintive, I put my phone on silent and shove it between the sofa cushions.
Hours later, when I dig around for it to order my takeaway, I have messages from my mother, Brin, Emma, and Marina—my boss. But none from an unknown number and a certain sexy art teacher.