Chapter 24
Afterward, I get up, go to the bathroom, close the door, and a few minutes later, find myself still hesitating there.
Now that it’s over and I’m not in bed with him anymore, I turn .
.. sheepish or something—about letting down my guard down so much, even about .
.. how comfortable I got with my own body.
He made me feel beautiful, but that was in the dark.
The partial dark, at least. In the light of day, or even just in lamplight, how much more noticeable might my scars seem?
The outside scars. Or maybe the inside ones, too.
I suddenly feel my nakedness in the bathroom light.
“You comin’ back?” Matt finally calls.
I purse my lips, try to formulate a reply. “I might take a shower.”
“Want some company?” he offers. And when I don’t answer right away, he catches on quick, adding, “Or ... want me to leave?”
“That might be best,” I say from the other side of the door. “Save us from feeling awkward in the morning.”
“And just makes it awkward right now,” he points out ever so bluntly.
I blow out a breath and try to be honest. “Afraid I’m not very good at the morning-after stuff.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says from the bed, “but you’re not great with the five-minutes-after stuff, either.”
I grab a towel, wrap it around me, and holding it together in front, open the door. “Look,” I tell him, “this is actually the nicest thing to happen to me in a while, but I’ll be leaving soon, you know? So maybe it’s easier not to make a big deal of it.”
Our eyes meet in the dimness as he says, “Suppose I shoulda seen this comin’.”
Honestly, I expected more of an argument and am surprised when he pushes the covers back, stands up, and reaches for his underwear on the opposite side of the bed.
Unfortunately, his butt is undeniably attractive and I can’t help noticing.
I bite my lip, waiting silently as he pulls on his jeans and tee.
Afterward, he walks over to where I’m still standing in the towel. Catching sight of the stain on his chest, I say, “Sorry about your shirt.”
“Totally worth it,” he says, then cups my cheek in one warm hand, kissing the other. Despite myself, a fresh burst of desire blossoms inside me, that fast. From a cheek kiss.
But he’s already walking across the room to the door. As he passes the bedside table, he tosses a glance at my teddy bear, now illuminated in the glow of the bathroom light, and gives a terse nod of acknowledgment. “Growlington.”
As he walks away, I can’t help but smile.
When I wake up the next morning to find only Edgar by my side, I’m relieved. I made the right call. It’s nice to lie there not caring what I look like or how the early-morning light might change things or if I’m supposed to offer him breakfast.
Though as I eat a bowl of cereal with a toasted English muffin a few minutes later, I can’t deny that as I gaze out the window, I’m wondering if he slept well, if I made him sad or mad or none of the above, if he’s awake or still asleep, and if he thought the sex was as good as I did.
Well, that last part is mostly a lie—I know he did.
The sex was great; we were totally in sync.
I bite my lip, though, remembering how much I let myself go at certain moments.
Honestly, that’s the thing I hate about sex.
For it to be any good, you have to really let yourself go, but the letting go leaves me embarrassed afterward.
I told Sydney that once and she said, “It didn’t make you feel embarrassed—it made you feel vulnerable. Two different things.”
I didn’t argue the point and just said, “Well, whatever it is, I don’t like it.
” Frankly, I don’t even like the word “vulnerable.” Some people act like it’s a good thing—that it means you’re all open and unafraid.
To me, though, it’s always had a more negative connotation: You’re unprotected and therefore in danger.
Young girls hitchhiking are vulnerable. Zebras on the Serengeti are vulnerable.
People with low immune systems are vulnerable.
Nope, to me, there’s nothing good about vulnerability.
In the same conversation, Sydney said she thought my lack of vulnerability was the whole reason I never really end up in lasting relationships.
But in my opinion, armor has served me well in life, and that’s just who I am, a woman who takes care of herself.
So well, in fact, that it took cancer and some bigoted station managers to finally get the best of me for a little while.
So I’m good with how things ended last night. And I hope Matt is, too. Whether or not we officially labeled it, it was exactly what I told him: casual, FWBs.
An hour later I’m out working in my snapdragons when the man himself strolls over in his police uniform. And an unsettling thing happens. Inside me. When I see him crossing the lawn in my direction, my impulse is to go to him, slide my arms around his neck, and pull him into a kiss.
Whoa. What the hell is that about?
I don’t really have time for analysis, though. I only know I sent him away. Because I don’t want to form any weird attachments. So I look up at him like we are indeed still just a couple of pals and say, “Hey.”
His grin acknowledges my lack of acknowledgment that we had hot, grinding, steamy sex last night. “Hey.” Then he asks, “How’d you sleep?”
“Well, thanks. And you?”
“Little lonely, actually. But I’ll survive. Thank God Goldie’s a good cuddler.”
So I’ve been replaced by a Yorkie. But it’s my own fault, so I don’t go there. I just keep fiddling with the Martian heads on a clump of bright coral-colored flowers.
“Busy tonight?” he asks. “Or ... is it too soon and you’d rather me keep my distance?”
I actually love that he’s just upfront about it—and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also love that he already wants to see me again. I mean, at breakfast I was feeling cool and detached, but now I’m a little more caught off guard with the suddenly-wanting-to-kiss-him thing.
See, this is what happens, how simple relationships get complicated.
You have sex with your neighbor and now you want to kiss him when you see him.
And you have to wonder if he thinks you’re gonna have sex with him all the time.
And you have to decide what you want. I have no idea what I want.
This is why I like deadheading snapdragons—it’s such a simple task, no consequences other than new blooms.
So I’m just honest. “Unless someone suddenly brings the internet to Lost Valley today, under which circumstances I would have a whole lot of TV to catch up on, I’m probably free. What did you have in mind?”
“Steak,” he says.
Which is different than sex. But maybe doesn’t exclude sex. The answer feels cryptic. “Steak?”
“I have some rib eyes. I was thinkin’ we could invite Grace over and grill out.”
Despite myself, I think it sounds like a lovely evening. Even if it is maybe too soon. But the Grace buffer will help. “I suspect Grace would love that,” I tell him. “I’ll go over and invite her a little later.”
He smiles. “Great.”
“Anything else we should add?” I ask. “I need to run to Mr. Freeman’s anyway.”
He thinks a minute. “I’ve got some potatoes we can bake on the grill, and some corn on the cob. But he had a bin of nice-lookin’ watermelons out yesterday.”
I nod. “I’ll pick one up. And I’ll get some pie, too.”
“Sounds good,” he says, and our eyes meet. And ... crap. I feel it between my legs. It’s so much more than an eye meeting was just yesterday. I’ve gone from detached to let-me-get-us-some-dessert in a heartbeat. In fact, I barely recognize myself.
I try to quash it all down as I tell him, “Have a good day out catching all the big criminals of Lost and Found.”
Though I’ve never seen Grace use a walker at her house, just like on the Fourth of July, she’s planting one before her with every step as she makes her way to my back porch. Uneven ground, I guess. Matt escorts her, making sure she gets where she’s going.
“Oh my,” she says, pausing to peer out over the lake. A hawk glides low across the water. “I always forget what a nice view ya got here. I mean, I got my own view, but this is good, too.”
“You should come over more often,” I tell her, suddenly feeling shortsighted not to have invited her before now.
She’s just always struck me as a homebody and has even acknowledged as much.
But maybe these days it’s partly because she’s reached a stage in life when it’s not easy to go out.
I know she still drives sometimes, but that Mr. Freeman brings her groceries out to her car.
And now I notice the silent effort it takes for her to get up onto the porch.
Food sizzles on the grill—Chef Matt made me promise not to touch anything with the tongs while he was gone, so I resisted the urge—and it all smells delicious.
In addition to making a tall pitcher of iced tea, I’ve cut slabs of watermelon and arranged them on a plate, and as we sit down to eat at the small back porch table a little while later, I can’t deny it’s a lovely summer night.
If I were back in Cincinnati, what would I be doing?
Could be anything. After getting home from delivering the news, I might change into leggings and take a walk around the neighborhood, I might have something DoorDashed for dinner, or I could be out with Sydney at a patio restaurant a few blocks from home.
But all things considered, this feels just as good as any of that—only in a different, more secluded way.
“You look nice,” Matt says to me across the table. “Never seen ya in a dress before.”