Chapter 13 #2
“Except Jordy,” she said fiercely. “I have no problem with that.”
“I said Cammie because she’ll put up a fight. I need Jordy to know for certain he wants this, because taking her on will be that much easier.”
“I understand it tactically. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Can you just imagine having him live here? Finally? I can teach him the basics at the store. Have breakfast every day, and dinner. Watch him join all the extracurriculars here that I’ve always missed.
He can be in theater productions with our friends’ kids.
Go to all the festivals on the town common and not just the ones he happens to be in town for.
I’ll have him for the majority of the year.
Colleen…” His voice went from excited to an emotionally charged whisper.
“I get my boy back. I have this one shot. He–it’s so–”
“Moore,” she said, her eyes tight with tears, her arms going around his waist, his cheek resting on her hair. “I am here for it. All of it. Here for you. Here for Jordy. If we have to keep hiding forever, it’s fine.”
“Forever?”
“I lied. Not forever. But for however long it takes to get you what you want.”
“I want you both.”
“You get us both.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
This kiss tasted salty, her single escaped tear joining their mouths as Moore kissed her so lovingly, hands cradling her face, body pressed against hers.
Fingers curled around the fold of the bakery bag, she couldn’t grasp him as hard as she wanted, because she really, really wanted him but there was a chocolate cherry muffin in that bag, and, well…
It was kind of a tie.
“Here,” he said, reaching around to take the bag out of her hands, setting it down on the bench. “Now, really kiss me.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I know you.”
“I love that you know me so well.”
“I hate that we can’t tell the world.”
“The world doesn’t matter. Jordy does.”
Sweeping her into his arms, this time his kiss was deep, hot, so–
Bzzz
“Again?” he groaned. “Why can’t we ever have time together?”
“That’s your hip vibrating. Not mine.”
“There are no jewelry emergencies. We have no weddings today. No big proposals. And no one shoves a two-carat diamond ring up their butt.”
“Have any women accidentally swallowed engagement rings?” Colleen joked, expecting a no, but Moore surprised her.
“One.”
“Really?”
“Billionaire client. One of my uncle Roy’s first big commission pieces from the 1950s. Family heirloom. The groom’s father called us to explain the whole mess and had his private jet on standby in case we needed to be flown down.”
“But what would a jeweler do about a foreign body caught in her digestive tract?”
“We would have handled any damage to the ring or the gem.”
“Damage? What can a colon do to diamonds and gold?”
“Billionaire panic is like no other panic, Colleen. Doesn’t have to make sense.”
Bzzz
Moore stepped back and looked at his phone, then laughed.
“Jordy. Asking if we can do lunch at Bilbee’s.”
Not wanting the moment to end, Colleen leaned against him. “I love hearing you laugh like that.”
“You do?”
“When he’s here, you relax more, but it usually takes longer than this. The first two days Jordy’s uptight and mean to you, but then he unclenches. This time, it’s so different.”
Moore nodded. “Something’s changed in him. I’m worried he’s people pleasing.”
“Worried? Don’t you mean thrilled?”
“If it’s how he’s meant to grow, sure. But if he’s acting like this because he thinks he needs to please everyone in order to be accepted here, then that’s a concern.
Hearing him talk about being used as a free babysitter for Soria for all those hours really troubles me.
I know he loves her, but no kid should have to do all that. I want him to be a kid himself.”
“You really are a great father.”
“Sure,” he said. “Fourteen percent of the time.”
“It’s not your fault that’s all the courts give you.”
He smiled down at her.
“How can so many good things all happen at once? I want to go public with you. Want to tell Cammie to shove it and have Jordy move in. Want to hang out at Bilbee’s and play darts and eat that new fried zucchini Rider’s selling with the garlic and chive dip.”
“We can do all of that. Just not all of it at once.”
“How do you think Jordy’s going to handle us being together?” he asked, worry making the line between his eyebrows deepen.
“Short term? I have no idea. Long term? He’ll be fine.”
“He was pretty adamant at dinner last night.”
“He’s fifteen. He’s adamant about which microphone to use when he casts a League game.”
“I have no idea what that means, but you sure are sexy when you say it.”
“It means…” she whispered, kissing his cheek, nuzzling it as she inhaled, taking in his scent. The heat from his body made her remember being under the covers with him, back in the cabin after the accident.
Not the part where he saved her life by getting naked.
The part where he made her night by being naked.
“It means...”
“I miss you,” he rasped against her ear, his knee sliding up between her legs, his meaning very, very clear.
“I miss you, too. So much.”
“Just because we’re not being public doesn’t mean we can’t be together.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“I can’t invite you to my place. Not now.”
“And if I bring you to my place, the entire family will gather on the porch and have a watch party.”
“Or Luke will show up with a shotgun,” Moore muttered.
“More like both.”
His sigh warmed her cheek, the beautiful push of his tall form against her so appealing, so enticing. “We have to figure this out.”
“We will.”
His hips pressed against her. “I mean it.”
“Oh, you do have a torturous problem there, don’t you?”
“It’s a medical condition called frustrationitis. I really, really need a nurse.”
“This is so bad, looks like you might need a head nurse.”
The way he looked at her stirred so much inside, every want, every visceral yearning, every pulsing part of her drawn to be as close as possible, as naked as possible, and as uninhibited as could be.
Sex at her place had been phenomenal, but between her work schedule, a trip Moore had made to New York City, and constant interruptions from her family, they hadn’t had the time to spend all weekend in bed, lazy and bare, reveling in each other and only each other.
Right now, though, she’d settle for a quickie.
Bzzz
Just as Moore groaned, the sound of footsteps on gravel made her pull away. She was on shift, after all, and they were still keeping their relationship secret.
Doc Blythe appeared, wearing his thick down coat and a guilty expression.
Because he was holding a cigarette.
“DOC!” she shrieked, forcing Moore to step back, clearly stunned by her reaction. “What are you doing?”
A frustrated sound rushed out of the old man.
“Trying to have a smoke in peace.”
His glare made Colleen feel like she was nine again, with a BB in her knee, the one she put there herself by accident while trying to shoot Luke in the butt.
Hmm. Maybe she was onto something back then, and not the knee part.
“You can’t smoke on hospital grounds!”
“I can if no one catches me,” he snarked back, but the hand holding his red lighter didn’t move.
“Hey, Doc,” Moore said with a two-finger salute.
“Moore. How’s that bursitis in your shoulder?”
“Fine. Fine the last time you asked me, and the year before that.”
“You’re the kind of patient I like, then. I fix you once and you stay fixed.”
“How long,” Colleen interrupted, “have you been sneaking smokes out here like this?”
“Since before you were born, young lady.” He peered at her over the tops of his glasses, looking more like an aging walrus than a human. “What are you two doing out here?”
“Getting advice from her on how to talk to my son,” Moore said with his trademark aw-shucks grin.
“Bribing her with Greta’s?”
“Something like that.”
Doc Blythe wasn’t fooled, Colleen could tell, but he wasn’t one of the wagging tongues in town. No worries there.
“And why would you ask a childless woman for advice on raising your teenager?”
The word childless hung in the air like a bad fart.
“Because she’s practically best friends with him. They game together every day.”
“That online gaming thing? Where the kids wear those huge headphones and have microphones nicer than professional DJs?”
Colleen gave Doc an impressed look.
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“My granddaughter. Built her own gaming computer when she was eleven, from parts she ordered in the mail. Now she’s off at a small college in Pennsylvania. Full-ride scholarship playing those games.”
“WOW!” Moore and Colleen said.
“This is David’s girl?” she followed up. Doc nodded.
“Yes, Ivy.”
“Full ride, huh?” Moore said with a gleam in his eye. “Maybe I should encourage Jordy to play more if it can save me tuition money.”
“See? eSports is totally worth it.”
Doc nodded. “That’s what it’s called, eSports. Ivy has to play on three different teams and barely has time for her studies, but she really enjoys it. I never know how to describe it to people, but I’m proud of her for being good at something she loves.”
The look on Moore’s face was contemplative and pained, as if he yearned for something Doc was talking about, or maybe aspired to it. Putting a mental pin in the moment, Colleen told herself she’d come back to this.
Moore was hers now. Hers to kiss. Hers to sleep with. Hers to care about, and care for.
This new landscape they navigated meant rethinking every single premise upon which their dynamic was built and realigning. Reading his signals as a friend and being supportive was one part of this.
“Proud. Right.”
Bzzz
Moore’s phone interrupted the moment. He read the message and groaned.
“This time, it’s work. Joey.”
“Let me guess. A diamond broke.”
“Diamonds can’t break.” Moore scowled in confusion.
“That was a joke.”