Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RORY
I hadn’t even been home long enough to change out of my town hall clothes before my doorbell rang, and my pulse fluttered. It was probably too much to hope that it was Nash who stood on the other side of my door, but I still couldn’t stop the wish from coming.
I hadn’t seen him since the night he’d kind of, sort of asked me out on a date and I’d turned him down in not so many words—or any, really. I was a little nervous what that would mean for us and this pseudo-relationship we had. I wasn’t ready to move to the next level, but my chest ached at the thought of what we had ending.
The whole thing made my head hurt. I didn’t know enough about this stuff to have even an inkling of an idea of what I should do now. This was one of the times I wished I could talk to my sisters about it, because they sure as hell knew a lot more about dating and relationships than I did.
When I pulled open the front door, I couldn’t stop the smile from curving my lips. “Nash, hey.”
“I see you’re finally listenin’ to me and lockin’ your doors. ’Bout time.”
Actually, I’d come in through the back and hadn’t yet made it to the front to open it up, but I’d keep that tidbit to myself.
I hummed and leaned my shoulder against the doorjamb, propping open the screen door. “Weird how you happen to know the nights the girls are at their daddy’s.”
“Are they gone? Huh, imagine that.”
I nearly called him out, because I was almost certain he knew and that was exactly why he’d come by. This was the third time he’d shown up when Ava and Ella were at Sean’s, and that, combined with me having been home only minutes, told me there was more than just coincidence at play. But since I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, I kept my mouth shut. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Nash had been paying enough attention to me that he’d learned my schedule. And if he had, what did that mean?
“What’re you doin’ here?” I asked.
“Just came by to grab the measurements for the floating sink in your master bath so I can get that ordered.”
It was only then that I noticed he still wore his tool belt, which meant this was a business call and not personal. Well, now I just felt like an idiot and inwardly cursed myself for attempting to be flirty when all he’d come to do was write down some numbers and leave.
“Sure, of course. Come on in.” I stepped back as he walked over the threshold, attempting to hide any outward reaction when his biceps brushed across my breasts. “You need me back there?”
“Nah, I got it. Don’t wanna keep you from whatever you were doin’.” He strode down the hallway—the same one he’d carried me down a dozen times before—and didn’t look back.
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to sit around waiting for him as if I didn’t have anything else to do. Never mind that I didn’t. I’d planned to veg out on the couch all night and watch more of that hideous horror show he’d unknowingly gotten me hooked on. I was addicted now—though I could only watch one episode at a time, followed immediately by something light and cheery—but I couldn’t tell him that. Not after all the smack I’d talked about it.
To keep myself busy, I grabbed my mail and sorted through the bills, paid the ones that were due—while cringing at my ever-decreasing checking account balance—and planned a menu for the nights the girls would be home. I really should do it for when I was by myself too, because popcorn and a bottle of wine probably wasn’t technically considered a nutritious meal.
Fifteen minutes later, Nash strolled out of my bedroom, past the dining table where I sat, and…straight out the front door. My shoulders slumped, and knots tightened in my stomach. I knew I had no right to expect anything from him—certainly not a kiss or anything so couple-y—but didn’t I at least warrant a goodbye? Leaving without one was just plain rude.
Though maybe that was what I should expect. There was enough of an age gap between us that I still floundered to find common ground at times. Maybe walking straight out of someone’s home without so much as a wave was perfectly acceptable with his friends? Since he’d been inside me mere days before, I figured I deserved at least a bit of preferential treatment, but?—
Nash slipped in the front door sans tool belt, a grocery bag in one hand and a wine bottle—my favorite—in the other, with a six-pack tucked under his arm. He glanced up at me as he strolled straight into the kitchen, his eyebrow raised, no doubt at my dropped mouth. “You didn’t think I was leavin’, did you?”
“Course not.” The words burst out of me, too forceful and too fast, but he didn’t press me on it. Didn’t even give me a cocky grin in response.
He hummed and started unloading the bag he’d brought in—bread, deli ham, cheese, and a tomato all spread out on my counter.
“What’re you doin’?” I asked.
“Since I plan on keepin’ you busy most of the night—” he glanced up and winked, heaven help me “—I figured I’d be a gentleman and feed you first.”
My stomach did a somersault, images of exactly what he’d keep me busy with flitting through my mind. “You’re…cookin’? For me?”
“Well, I was hopin’ maybe you’d let me have a bite or two, but yeah. That okay?” He lifted his eyes to mine, eyebrows raised in question.
“Sure. Yeah, of course.” Okay? It was fan-freakin-tastic and just another first to have under my belt. I’d never had a man even help me cook, let alone do it for me.
I could sit there and watch him all day—how he moved with such confidence, even in a space that was foreign to him—but my momma didn’t raise me to be rude. I stepped up next to him as he sliced the tomato and rested my fingers on his back, resisting the urge to slip them under his T-shirt and feel all that hot, smooth skin. “What can I help with?”
He glanced down at me. “Nothing. Go on and sit down.”
“There must be something I can do.”
He set the knife on the cutting board and wrapped his fingers around my nape, pulling me to him and pressing his mouth against mine. When he slipped his tongue through my lips, I met him stroke for stroke, resting my hands on his chest and melting right into him. Didn’t matter how many times we’d done this or how long it’d been since we had, my knees went weak every single time.
When I was good and panting, he kissed his way to my ear and nipped my earlobe. “You can help by stayin’ outta my way and tellin’ me about your day.” He pulled back, turned me around, then swatted my bottom and shooed me toward the dining table.
While he made our grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, I filled him in on my hellish day at town hall, lamenting how boring my job was and how frustrating it was working for a man who had no respect for me or my time. He updated me on the appointments we’d scheduled—we were now booked out through December—and wondered if we needed to hire someone to handle the scheduling and front office stuff because of how busy we were becoming.
It didn’t go unnoticed that he hadn’t asked me to do it or just assumed I would. It was a near replica of what I did at town hall, but it wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I was good at. And I didn’t know what it said about my father that Nash recognized that about me without me having to say a word, but my flesh and blood hadn’t managed the same feat.
By the time Nash brought our plates over, my stomach was rumbling, and all manners had fled my body. I dug in with fervor, moaning at my first bite. It was a simple enough adaptation of a traditional grilled cheese, but it was delicious.
“You like it?”
I glanced over to find him staring at me, his eyes fixed on my mouth. My lips quirked up. “I think my moan probably told you that.”
“We both know when you’re really enjoyin’ something, you go silent.”
Warmth bloomed inside me, though not from embarrassment. He was so… aware of me—so much more so than anyone in my life had been previously. Not just intimately either. He noticed my moods, noticed when I was having a fantastic day or an utterly shit day. I couldn’t hide with him. Wasn’t even sure I wanted to. It was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
“I didn’t take you for a chef.”
“Grilled cheese with deli ham and a tomato is hardly gourmet.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not, but it’s amazing. Your daddy teach you how to cook?”
A harsh laugh burst from Nash. “The only thing my old man taught me was how not to cut off a finger while workin’ a rotary saw. Everything else, I learned on my own. Sorta had to figure shit out if I wanted something besides cereal for supper.”
I didn’t know a whole lot about Nash’s home life. Nat, of course, would know the most, but she’d certainly never shared anything with me. Rumors were, his momma had caught his daddy cheating on her and had left them both without looking back. Though rumors in Havenbrook were usually only partially rooted in reality.
But the Big Nash I knew…well, there were more than just rumors to substantiate the claims that got passed around. He went through women faster than underwear, and I’d witnessed it enough firsthand to know it wasn’t just a rumor. Was my Nash like that, too?
I wanted to ask so many things, but I worried I’d overstep some invisible boundary I was too na?ve to realize was there. Instead, I said, “I suppose he was busy workin’ to support y’all.”
Nash huffed out a laugh, though his face didn’t show any humor. “Something like that.”
I sensed that was as much as I was getting out of him, so I guided us to less sensitive subjects, touching briefly on a last-minute addition to my master bath I’d thought of. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real, grown-up conversation at supper, save for with my sisters, and I loved every second of it.
After I’d devoured the last bite of my sandwich, I grabbed our plates from the table, shooing away his hand when he tried to take them from me. “You cooked. I’ll clean up.”
“Fair enough.”
While I made quick work of our few dishes, he uncorked the wine bottle to top off my glass before grabbing another beer from the fridge for himself.
“I didn’t interrupt your plans tonight, did I?”
“Not really. I was just gonna veg out on the couch.” I bit my lip to stop the question from tumbling out, because I didn’t know if hanging out in my living room was part of our deal or not. We had sex—a lot of sex, at all hours of the day and night—but except for that first evening together, we hadn’t done anything quite so…mundane. He’d shown up here, though, had cooked me supper and asked about my day as if it’d been no big deal. I could treat this just the same. “You wanna Netflix and chill with me?”
“Why, Rory, that’s awful forward of you,” he teased.
My brow furrowed. What was so forward about hanging out on the couch and watching TV? I hadn’t told him we’d be doing it naked. “How so?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “What do you mean by ‘Netflix and chill’?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.”
“Humor me.”
I gestured toward my couch and TV, feeling stupid now for even asking him in the first place and wishing I could just take it back. If he didn’t want to do it, fine, but he didn’t have to balk at the suggestion. “Lounging around watchin’ Netflix.”
A low laugh rumbled out of him, and he set his beer bottle on the counter to his side, grabbed a handful of my dress, and pulled me right up against him.
He skimmed a hand under my skirt, his fingers grazing the outside of my thigh as he brushed his lips against my ear. “The only way it’d be Netflix and chillin’ is if I’m buried inside you while we watch.”
My body relaxed under his touch, so much so that I nearly missed his words. When they finally clicked in my brain, I jerked back, pushing against his chest to look up at him. “ What ?”
“I’m certainly not protestin’—to either, actually. Just wanna know what I’m gettin’ into is all.”
“Oh. My. Word. Nash !” I slapped his chest like he was my cause for embarrassment, when that honor lay solely on my shoulders. Groaning, I covered my face with my hands and banged my forehead against his chest.
Laughing low, he rubbed a hand along my back. “What’s the big deal? It’s just me.”
Without lifting my head from his chest, I shook my head. “’Fraid not.”
“What—” He broke off as his body rumbled beneath me when he finally seemed to get my meaning.
“Don’t laugh! This is mortifying . Do you have any idea how many people I’ve told I was doin’ that?”
“How many?”
I simply groaned in response, too humiliated to even calculate the number. Edna, for one thing. My momma. My freaking dentist the last time I’d been there for a checkup. The only thing keeping me from drowning in a pool of self-pity was the hope that maybe none of them had a clue either.
“I’m sorry,” he said through laughter.
“You are not, you liar.” I pinched his underarm, which only made him laugh harder. “It’s not funny!” Somehow, I managed to restrain myself from stomping my foot, but just barely. “How the hell was I supposed to know what it meant? Is there a class I can take for all the shit I missed out on?”
Nash’s chuckles died down then, and he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m sorry for laughin’. Sometimes you say things that remind me—” He cut himself off, but it didn’t take much to guess what he’d been about to say.
Sometimes I said things that reminded him exactly how many years were between us, especially when we’d lived vastly different lives. It would’ve been one thing if neither of us had been married with kids, or if both of us had. If either of those things had been the case, our age difference might not have seemed so drastic. But with the lives we’d both led, sometimes I felt twenty years older than him, not eight.
“You wanna Netflix and chill with me before we do some Netflix and chillin’?”
I smiled in spite of myself and nodded against his chest. “Only if you promise not to laugh at me anymore.”
“Ah, princess.” He wrapped me tighter in his arms and rocked us from side to side. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I hate you,” I said, but I couldn’t keep the laughter out of my voice. “Find us something to watch, and I’ll get our drinks.”
He nodded, dropped a quick kiss on my lips, and strolled into the living room. I stood in the kitchen for a minute, pressing my hands to my heated cheeks. In an effort to stifle my embarrassment, I swallowed the rest of my wine—if I were tipsy, I’d give exactly zero shits about it. Good heavens, why hadn’t I said that to my sisters first? Surely, they would’ve told me what a damn idiot I was. But noooo , it had to be the man sharing my bed.
“What’s this?” Nash called.
I leaned back to see into the living room where Nash was holding up a design magazine. A gorgeous canopy bed was circled in bright pink marker with little hearts all around it.
“Ava. She loves goin’ through my magazines. A little designer, that one. She wants that bed something fierce.” I laughed, remembering how I’d choked when I’d spotted the price. “She doesn’t quite understand that it costs more than all my monthly bills combined, bless her heart.”
Nash hummed and turned back around to study the magazine while I poured myself another glass of wine. After grabbing the beer he’d left on the counter, I carried our drinks into the living room. He lounged against the arm of the couch, one leg straight out in front of him on the cushions and the other bent and resting on the floor.
“Very interesting…” he said.
“What?”
“I seem to remember you calling this ‘nonsense’ when I tried to get you to watch it.”
I glanced at the screen and nearly froze when the familiar image for The Haunting of Hill House greeted me. Fortunately, I had enough wits about me not to give myself away that easily. “I did because it is.”
“I’d only watched through episode three when I was here.”
“And your point is?”
“You’re on episode seven.”
“I—” That time, I did freeze, right in the process of straightening after placing our drinks on the coffee table.
“So, you’ve been Netflix and chillin’ one of my favorites without me?” he asked in mock outrage, snagged me around the waist, and tugged until I tumbled into his lap.
I squeaked at the sudden movement and slapped his thigh. “You’re an ass, you know that?”
“I do, princess.” He tucked me right into the vee of his legs and pulled me back until I rested against his chest. “Now tell me how you’ve only watched three more episodes. You do understand the concept of bingeing, right? Do I need to give you a lesson on that?”
“You do understand that I can kick you outta my house, right? Or shall I give you a lesson in that ?”
He chuckled, his warm breath sweeping across my cheek. “Then explain to me how you’re only on episode seven?”
“I don’t sit around all day watchin’ TV, Nash. I have a job—two, actually—and a life. Our bookings have kept me crazy busy, designin’ at home when I’m not at a client’s house. Not to mention, I’m a mom and a sister and?—”
“Too scary to watch alone, huh?”
When I didn’t dignify that with a response—mostly because he was absolutely, one hundred percent correct—he pulled me even tighter against him. “Don’t worry, princess. I’ll make sure all the boogeymen don’t get you.”
Taken at face value, his words were easy to mistake for a taunt. But Nash said them with such sincerity, there was no stopping me swooning.
I was dead set on figuring out this new life on my own, on doing as much myself as I could because I’d never before been given—or taken—the chance. And, yeah, this was just a fictional show we were talking about, but I couldn’t stop the warmth from settling into my chest that he’d make sure I was safe—from any foes, fictional or otherwise.
But even with a big, muscly guy to watch over me, I still didn’t want to see more than one episode at a time of this terrifying show. “One of this and then one of The Great British Baking Show ?”
His cheek puffed against the side of my head as he smiled. “Whatever you want.”
Nash held me while we watched, his arm tucked just below my breasts and his permanently stubbled jaw pressed against my temple. He brushed his thumb up and down in a mindless rhythm, almost as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
About halfway through The Great British Baking Show episode, I was finally relaxed enough after the scarefest that my mind began to wander back to a couple weeks ago at my parents’. Namely, finding out that my youngest sister had no problem making time for everyone else but couldn’t seem to show me the same courtesy.
I’d been attempting to reach Nat since then. Had left a couple voice mails and even more texts—all of which had gone unanswered. Nat and I might not get along all that well—or at all —but I loved my gran more than almost anything. If Gran wanted my brat of a sister home, then I was going to make it happen, come hell or high water.
“Nash?”
He hummed in response, his fingers seeming to drift a tiny bit higher each passing minute.
“You talk to Nat much?”
After the briefest pause in his movements, he shrugged. “About once a week, more or less.”
I sat up straight and whipped around. “You too? What the hell ?”
“Me too, what?”
I knew it wasn’t fair to put him in the middle—between one of his best friends and the girl he was sleeping with—although I really, really wanted to. The old me wouldn’t have given it a second thought. This new, so-called improved me was irritating as hell.
Blowing out a defeated breath, I turned back around and sank into him. “Nothing. I’ve just been tryin’ to get ahold of her is all.”
“You text her?” He tucked his arms around me again. “She doesn’t always get great cell service, dependin’ on where in the world she is.”
“Yes, I tried textin’. I’ve tried callin’ and leavin’ messages, too, and she’s ignorin’ all of it.”
“Something goin’ on?”
I shrugged. “I decided to throw Gran a big party for her eightieth, and the only thing she wants for her birthday is to have Nat home. I’m tryin’ to make that happen as a surprise, but the little witch is makin’ it damn near impossible.”
“Maybe she’s just out of touch. Never knowin’ with Nat. She could be in a remote village in Africa right now. Has she posted any Snaps recently?”
I turned my head to look at him. “What the hell is a snap?”
He laughed. “Snapchat. Here, let me look.”
After a few seconds, he held up the phone for me to see. There was a pic of Nat in front of what looked like the Grand Canyon. Her hair was pink now—an ever-changing rainbow, that one—her smile was huge, and an ache tugged in my gut.
We didn’t get along on our best days—and nearly hated each other on our worst—but when it came right down to it, I missed my baby sister. Brat and all.
There hadn’t always been animosity between us. When Nat was born, I’d taken on a maternal role and had treated her like my own real-life baby doll. In those early years, we’d been close. Nearly as close as Will and Mac. But when Nat had hit about eight, something shifted. Shifted and changed…evolved into whatever chasm this was that was now between us. A chasm I wasn’t even sure was reparable.
“She’s stateside, at least,” Nash said. “Give her a couple days. I’m sure she’ll get back to you.”
I knew that wasn’t true because I’d given her a couple weeks , but I kept my mouth shut. I wouldn’t trash-talk one of his best friends to him. Even if I could give Nat years, it still wouldn’t be enough time. Whatever. I was getting her home one way or another, if it was the last thing I did. I just wasn’t sure how.
Nash set his phone on the coffee table, then wrapped his arms around me. This time, though, he didn’t stop below my breasts. He brought those large, callused palms up until they cupped me, his thumbs and forefingers teasing my nipples into tight points.
Against my ear, he said, “We done talkin’ about your sister now? I’d like to get to the true Netflix and chillin’ portion of the night.”
I could worry about how I was going to get my sister home later. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to forget everything but the feel of Nash’s skin against mine.