20. TWENTY
TWENTY
CORY
Kinsley slept over in my bed like we did when we were in high school, which was a fact I’d apparently forgotten in my sleep, because when I woke up curled around a warm body, I assumed it was Garrett. But where I was expecting it to be a muscular body paired with a deep, masculine voice, I was instead met with soft curves and a whole lot more boob.
I jumped back and Kinsley’s hysterical laughter filled the room. “If that’s what Garrett’s getting, I don’t know how he’s holding out on you.”
She put her hands up to cover her face as I swung a pillow down, the feathers muffling her continuous laughter. “Shut up!”
“No, but for real.” She shoved the pillow away and looked pointedly at my phone. “Call him before you try humping me again. I’m trying to get pregnant, but not by you.”
As soon as the words left her mouth she leaped from the bed and ran from the bedroom. The pillow I launched after her missed and smacked into the wall next to the doorway with a muted thud .
I stared at the ceiling before letting my eyes drop to where my phone lay on the nightstand. Garrett and I texted almost every day, but it was always conversation with minor flirtatious undertones. He knew I wanted him. I thought I’d made that abundantly clear with the two times I’d all but begged him to take me upstairs to my bed. The ball was in his court, but I felt like he needed a little reminder.
Me: Garrett?
I threw the covers off and started heading to the bathroom, thinking he wouldn’t reply for a couple of minutes if not longer, but my phone buzzed almost instantly.
I dove back onto the bed, and then looked over my shoulder to check for Kinsley, as if my act of pathetic desperation would make her materialize in the room.
Garrett: Cory?
There was no reason for me to be smiling. None. He hadn’t responded with anything cute or funny or flirty. He’d literally just typed my name back with a question mark the same way I had. Yet, there I was, grinning like a fool.
I sent the text before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: You need to have sex with me ASAP.
The three little bubbles next to his name popped up immediately, then disappeared, and popped up again. They did that three times before they stayed on the screen doing the little gradient wave thing they did.
Garrett: How urgently are we talking?
Garrett: Should I call out of work?
Me: Pretty urgently, so maybe?
Garrett: All right, I’ll see what I can do.
Garrett: Am I allowed to know the cause of this sudden urgency?
For some reason I liked that he was a double texter. It bothered me when other people sent multiple separate messages back-to-back, as if they couldn’t be bothered to take the time to fully collect their thoughts. It felt like a demand for my attention by blowing up my phone, and it was too much—but not with Garrett. It didn’t bother me when he did it. It felt less like a bombardment and more like care. As if he always had something he wanted to say because he liked talking to me.
Me: I tried humping Kinsley in my sleep because I thought it was you.
Garrett: You tried, or you did?
Me: I think I did.
Garrett: When it’s me, you won’t think. You’ll know.
My cheeks were flaming with heat, and I looked up from my phone to ensure Kinsley still wasn’t lurking.
Me: Is that a threat or a promise?
Garrett: Both.
I was typing out a reply when Kinsley called up to me from the kitchen.
“Stop sexting Garrett and get down here!”
I spun around. “How the hell do you know what I’m doing?”
“Hayes has his panties in a twist because he tried calling Garrett and he ignored him!”
I laughed and texted Garrett.
Me: I just got yelled at. Stop ignoring your boyfriend. I’ll talk to you later.
Garrett: **see you later.
My heart raced in my chest at his correction. Our messages could hardly be considered sexting, yet it was enough to make anxious excitement for whenever “later” was course through me. It had me desperate to figure out how I was going to kill all of the time between now and then.
I clambered out of bed and met Kinsley and Siren in the kitchen, the sweet smell of breakfast flooding my senses. I dropped a kiss to her cheek on the way to the coffee maker.
“You know something? You’re the best. Hayes is a lucky man.”
She did a little dance as she flipped a piece of french toast. “I know! And so does he.”
“Good. If he ever forgets it, send him to me. I’ll give him a permanent reminder.”
She placed her free hand on her hip and pointed the spatula wielding one toward my face. “He’s no good to me if he’s dead.”
I put the grounds into the filter and closed the lid. “I didn’t say I was going to kill him.”
“No comas, no vegetative states, no paralysis, no—”
I cut her off. “I promise he will be returned in a singular piece.”
“With all his pieces. No lobbing off fingers or toes.”
I clucked my tongue. “Well now you’re being ridiculous. He doesn’t need all ten toes to be useful to you.”
“I like his toes!” she defended in a whine.
“Ew gross! No one likes man feet.” I got two mugs and the creamer from the fridge.
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Maybe it’s my kink.”
“No, I know your kinks and feet aren’t one of them.”
“He keeps his toes!” She took the french toast out of the pan before starting the next batch.
“Fine. How do you feel about his eyes?”
“Cory!” She tried to maintain her stern ruse, but ended in a fit of giggles with me.
I’d never actually hurt Hayes, not unless he did something to hurt Kinsley first, but that was a day I was confident would never come. Hayes was obsessed with my best friend in a way that you only ever saw in movies and books. His love for her was unconditional.
When we sat down to eat our breakfast, which was much better than anything I would’ve scrounged up for us, we fell into a comfortable silence. That was my favorite part about our friendship. We didn’t have to see each other all of the time to be able to pick up right where we left off. The teasing and joking were effortless, and the quiet moments were as comfortable as being by yourself. My entire being felt lighter around her. She felt like how it feels to be curled up on a comfy couch, snuggled up under a cozy blanket with a warm mug of hot chocolate in your hands on a snowy day. She felt like home—if home could be a person.
And if I let myself think it, which I was actively trying not to because it felt like too much, Garrett was starting to feel a little bit like that, too.
***
Kinsley left shortly after breakfast to run some errands before Hayes got home, and my client for the day texted me needing to reschedule which left me and Siren with a whole day to ourselves. I showered and dressed in a pair of black shorts and a red tank top, then grabbed Siren and climbed into the car.
It’d been a while since I took her to the dog park. I had been so wrapped up with opening the shop, and everything with the underage tattoo claim that I hadn’t been taking Siren on our usual jaunts, but I was determined to make it up to her.
The second we arrived and I opened the car door, she took off running to the gate where she pranced her feet, as if she couldn’t contain her excitement.
“Go have fun! Play nice!” I posted up on the fence, watching her make friends with a golden retriever and a dachshund immediately, the three of them engaging in a game of keep away with a muddied tennis ball. The dachshund was surprisingly fast on its tiny legs.
I closed my eyes for a moment and soaked up the afternoon sun, a cool breeze making my skin tingle with the mixed sensations. New England weather was funny like that, especially in September when it was technically still summer, but autumn tried to adopt it as its own. It was my favorite because the days were still warm, but not sweltering, and the nights were cool enough to sleep with the windows open.
My mind began to wander to everything Detective Levine had said on the phone, and Garrett’s take on it all as I watched Siren run laps around the park with the other dogs. The more I thought about it all, the more something didn’t sit right with me about Alex Barnes being behind it all. There was no reason for Elijah to lie about where he got his tattoo from unless he knew and was protecting the artist who actually gave it to him. As far as I knew, Alex wasn’t a tattoo artist, so if he talked Elijah into making the report, then it wasn’t because Elijah was trying to cover for anyone. And what’s more, Alex was in his thirties and Elijah was only seventeen, so how did they even know each other? None of it made any sense, and even though part of me wished it was him so the cloud of dread hanging over my head could dissipate, the shoe didn’t fit.
Siren interrupted my spiraling thoughts a little while later when she sauntered over to me, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she panted, thoroughly exhausted, but happy.
We walked back to the car where, after several failed attempts at jumping in on her own, I had to lift her into the Jeep. Once she was inside, she collapsed onto the seat, letting her head rest on the center console.
“You are the most dramatic dog I’ve ever met.” I laughed, getting in the driver’s seat and starting the engine.
It was only noon, and while I had no idea what to do with the day, I knew I didn’t want to go back home yet.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked Siren who in turn looked at me like she was already doing exactly what she planned on doing for the rest of the day.
“All right, then. We’ll just drive around for a bit.” I put the car in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot.
Our aimless driving found us in the heart of the city, which was not what I had intended on, but I didn’t fight it. It was oddly comforting to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle when I wasn’t one of the ones hustling. I was able to take the city in and appreciate all it had to offer, the sights, the sounds, all the people living in it, without the stress of having to be somewhere or do something. My days off usually consisted of me staying home or venturing further away from the city, so it felt somewhat surreal to be deep in the center for no reason other than that I could .
At least, those were my thoughts until I sat in rush hour traffic for an hour on the ride home. Siren looked over from the passenger seat, staring at me as if to say “you screwed up” like I didn’t already know that.
By the time we made it onto our street, it was getting dark out. The sun had dipped behind the trees and painted the sky a beautiful array of color. It was a sunset that reminded me of taping crayons together and melting them against paper, the rivers of wax blending together seamlessly. If I thought my phone’s camera would’ve done it any justice, I might’ve taken a photo, but it never did.
I was pulling into my driveway, still marveling at the sky, when I slammed on my brakes, just narrowly avoiding rear ending Garrett’s truck and the man himself.
He was casually leaning against the tailgate, making a gray sweatshirt and jeans look way better than they had any right to.
“Why are you smirking? I almost just hit you with my car,” I asked after I opened my door, Siren leaping out behind me, a renewed sense of energy filling her body at the sight of Garrett.
He crouched down to pet her, offering a hello and something else he murmured so only she could hear. Then he looked back up at me and shrugged.
“I was just thinking that I was right.”
“About what?”
He stood and walked over to me, grabbing my face between his hands and tilting my head back until I was looking up at him.
“I knew you’d be the death of me.” His smirk returned.
I hit him in the side. “If I was trying to kill you, I’d succeed.”
“I know you would.” He was staring at my lips, eyes bright with a hunger I knew intimately because it was the same one I’d been feeling for a while now.
I swallowed and watched Garrett’s eyes follow the movement and then linger on my neck. My pulse began racing, and I was suddenly hot despite the cool evening air. I placed my hands on his stomach, the hard ridges pronounced even through his sweatshirt, and slowly slipped them beneath. I needed to touch him. I needed him to touch me , the cradle he had my face in no longer enough.
“Garrett?”
“Mhm?” The huskiness of his voice sent a rush of warmth straight to my core. I swore I could feel his gaze move across my skin like fingertips until his gaze collided with mine.
“Is it later now?”
He ran his tongue along his top teeth, a throaty moan rumbling deep in his throat before he lifted me up and threw me over his shoulder. Siren ran in circles around his feet as he crossed the yard in large strides.
“Keys.” His voice was gruff and authoritative, and if this is how he talked to the people he arrested at work, I was one thousand percent going to become a frequent offender with the Boston Police Department.