Chapter 22
EVERETT
“Close your eyes. No peeking!”
Quinn giggles from her twin bed. She’s perched atop her comforter, fresh out of a bath, fingers splayed over her eyes.
I point at her. “Hey! I saw that!”
She tucks them in tight and squeals with glee.
“I mean it, young lady.”
Summer backs into the room with Millie cradled in her arms. You’d think she gave her a sedative compared to the version I carried in earlier. At least my shirt and shoulder stayed intact this time. She must be warming up to me.
“Okay, here comes the surprise!”
Summer plops her cat in Quinn’s lap.
“Titty!” She launches her arms around Millie’s neck.
Summer and I fight to contain our smiles.
“We’ll work on it,” I say. Tomorrow, I think.
Quinn’s evaluation results came back. I met with Sue on Friday to discuss them—a meeting I thought would be difficult to face—but it wasn’t such a shock this time.
I felt prepared for the expressive language disorder label they want to use in place of the potential APD one that could come later in her life.
“Might need to start with the letter k,” Summer jokes.
“Tum see!” Quinn coos as Millie flops on her back and rolls from side to side amongst a pile of stuffed animals.
Summer runs her hand up Millie’s tail. “She likes you.”
“Show Mommy?”
I freeze. This is the first time Quinn has asked for her in a couple of weeks. I expect Summer to look to me for help, but she confidently answers all on her own.
“Your mommy is right here.” She places her palm over Quinn’s heart, then presses Bunny against her cheek. “I think she likes Millie too.”
There’s never a moment when I’m not impressed by Summer. In awe of her ease with Quinn. Like she’s done this parent thing before when I know she hasn’t. I wish that kind of intuition came easy to me.
Quinn smiles so big I can barely make out her pupils from tiny slits. After months of adding to my journal—hundreds of things I’ve done wrong as her dad—I finally feel like I did something right today.
Quinn taps on Summer’s arm. “Weed?”
This time Summer looks to me for confirmation.
“I did promise you’d read her a book.”
Summer tucks her arm around Quinn. “I’d love to.”
Quinn wriggles free. She scoots to the edge of the bed and slides off the comforter, racing for the old magazine rack that became a bookshelf when we moved in.
Without her snuggle partner, Millie’s enchantment with Quinn’s bed ends. She springs from the mattress to the floor, sauntering my way.
“I guess we’ll be going now.” I watch her tail swish through the exit.
“Don’t have too much fun,” Summer teases.
“Come on. That’s all Millie and I have.” I bend down to give Quinn a squeeze, and she drops her books for our nightly ritual—a kiss on the forehead. “Love you.”
I don’t make it very far when I find myself leaning in the shadow outside the doorway.
Summer is sprawled on the bed, Quinn tucked up under her arm beside her.
I chuckle at the stack of books ten deep in Summer’s lap.
Poor thing doesn’t know how this game works.
If you don’t give Quinn a two-book limit, she’ll grab the whole shelf.
“Dis one,” Quinn says, pulling on the spine of a blue paperback until it frees from the center of the pile.
“Ooo, the fish? Okay.”
Quinn leans in closer, snuggling against Summer’s chest. The sight makes me feel something I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel again. Settled. Like there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than right here. A foreign concept I’ve never felt in my childhood home until now.
The adorable display morphs into pure entertainment the moment Summer begins reading The Pout-Pout Fish. Inflection dances in her tone and her face twists into expressions I could never attempt. Quinn is kicking her feet and eating it up.
I’ve read this book to her before. I know what’s coming. But nothing prepares me for the repetitive part when Summer pooches out her lips and her voice drowns to a sad, pathetic tone. She pauses and says, “Hey! This book is about your dad!”
Quinn giggles simply because Summer does. And me? I’m crouched on the floor, my face stuffed in the sleeve of my shirt to drown out my cackle. It’s doing a decent job of muffling because neither one of them looks over here.
Somewhere between the last few pages Quinn slumps against Summer’s lap. I watch her transfer Quinn’s head to her pillow and tuck the covers up around her shoulders. She buries Bunny by Quinn’s neck, turns off her lamp, and tiptoes toward me.
I stand as her proximity backs me farther into the hallway. When she sees me, she worries at her bottom lip. “How much of that did you hear?”
I smirk. “Enough to know you think I’m a pout pout fish.”
She snorts. “Well, if the face fits.”
“I’ll have you know, I’m a lot more self-aware than that grumpy aquatic creature.”
“Are you?” she teases, but Summer loses her smile when my gaze lands on her mouth.
“I don’t need anyone to come along and tell me what will make me feel better.”
Tension coils and crackles in a vortex around us. I know I built a wall of mixed signals. I told her our kiss meant nothing. Made her believe all I cared about was her help with Quinn. My penance for that should be keeping my hands to myself. Too bad there’s nothing I want less.
An impulse drives me forward, backing her into the wall.
She yelps when her shoulder blades meet the plaster.
I smother the sound with my mouth, drawing out the perfect pressure from the push and pull of our lips.
Heat trickles in a steady stream down my spine and spreads to every cell in my body.
I’m nothing but sensation and want. A need to be as close to her as possible.
One hand threads through her hair, the other squeezes her waist. This kiss is everything that I wanted to feel from the first one that was over before it started.
The desire to stop hasn’t even crossed my mind when she pulls away.
Right, left, right, left, her eyes flit. The longer she studies me, the more I question what she’s thinking.
“Feel better?” she whispers.
I press my forehead against hers and shake my head. More like utterly destroyed. “Not even close.”
She giggles, then clears her throat. “Well, um… I should… probably…”
When I pull back she’s pointing at the guest bedroom door. It’s only eight o’clock, but with dinner and a game of hide and seek, it didn’t leave much time for anything else. I’m sure she was hoping to unpack her things.
“Yeah,” I finally get out, dragging a hand through my hair.
“See you in the morning?” She offers me a smile while taking backward steps. I nod, then she dips behind the door.
“The morning,” I repeat to the silence. An exhale puffs out my cheeks as I cage both hands behind my neck and tip my head to the ceiling.
Since when did kissing a woman have to be followed by a million unknowns?
The one I’m stuck on is if she’ll always retreat to her room after Quinn goes to sleep.
I hadn’t thought about this part of the evening until now.
I’ve been perfectly content to watch TV or mess around on my phone by myself most nights, but my desire to be alone has vanished.
An hour goes by flopped on my mattress, then two.
Even after removing my shirt and slipping on sweats, I’m still hot, uncomfortable, and restless.
Sleep feels miles away at this point, so I give up, grabbing my glasses off the nightstand.
I’m tempted to stop at Summer’s door, but it’s dark when I pass it.
I’ve acclimated to the creaks and groans of this older home, but not the sound of running water in the middle of the night. It has me rushing down the stairs and startling a very awake Summer making coffee in my kitchen.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone else was up.” She tugs at the hem of her T-shirt that’s three sizes too big.
I smirk at the outline of my face screen-printed on the front. She bought it like that on purpose.
“Nice pajamas.”
Summer crosses her arms, bunching the fabric a good couple inches higher. “My Chris Stapleton one was dirty.”
The chuckle that works its way up my throat sounds husky. “I’m sure.”
My team had to have picked the thinnest possible blend of cotton for that shirt line with the way her panties and lack of bra are showing right through it.
“You wear glasses,” she comments.
Moonlight is leaking through the window and causing her lidded gaze to glow. She likes them.
“When I have to. Do you always drink caffeine at one in the morning? That would explain the boundless energy.”
“It’s decaf, smart-ass. Do you want any?”
The coffee machine beeps, and she spins around.
All words and their meaning leave me when she opens the cupboard above her head and stands on her tiptoes, causing her shirt to ride a few inches higher than before.
The utter definition in her legs punches the air from my lungs.
A stiffening cock reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve had this reaction.
I almost forgot she asked me a question by the time I’m a foot away from her.
“No, thanks. I’m already hot.” From this room but also that shirt.
“Sometimes a warm drink helps me sleep,” she whispers.
Unless she’s giving that sugar from the cupboard a go, there’s no way she’s drinking that. Creamer is at the top of my grocery list, and I planned to go to the store before anyone woke up.
Has she been up all this time? I can’t read her face with her still turned around—not that it’s done me a lot of good up to this point. She tips the coffee pot over her mug as I cage her against the counter. A splash misses the rim and puddles on the granite with her gasp.
“Everett, about earlier—”