Chapter Nine
LAUREN WAS SITTING at the dining table nursing a cup of coffee and reading a book on her iPad when Grey wandered into the salon just after dawn the next morning.
Hair still damp from her shower and wearing a pair of short white shorts and a faded red Lifeguard t-shirt, Grey looked relaxed and rested, and Lauren smiled when the brunette’s gaze traveled from the waffle machine on the counter in the galley to her.
“Good morning,” she murmured, being careful to keep her voice down since everyone else was still sleeping.
“You’re really making waffles,” Grey said, her voice tinged with excitement as she made her way into the galley to make herself a cup of coffee.
“I told you I would. I’m going to fancy them up a bit and make cinnamon roll waffles, but if you’d prefer them plain, I can just not add the swirl and stuff to yours.”
Grey shook her head. “You don’t need to make anything special for me.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Lauren assured her. “It’s just the toppings that would be different.”
“Nah, what you’re planning on doing sounds great.” The coffee machine shut down with a hiss and a splutter, and Grey smiled shyly at Lauren as she picked up her mug. “I just really like waffles.”
Lauren chuckled and smiled as she leaned back in her seat. “Yeah, I got that.”
The playful twinkle in Lauren’s eyes made Grey’s stomach flutter, and she ran a hand through her hair as she looked at her.
A good night’s sleep had done little to shed any light on why, exactly, she felt so at ease around Lauren, but she had decided while she was in the shower to just go with it.
There was something about Lauren that drew her in, and the more she thought about Lauren, the harder it became to even think about avoiding her.
Grey cleared her throat softly and hitched a thumb toward the back deck. “Would you, maybe, want to come up to the bridge and watch the sunrise?”
Pleased that the détente they had reached the night before still seemed to be holding, Lauren nodded. “Sure. That sounds great.”
The early morning air was cool but not uncomfortably so, and Lauren could not help but smile as she sat down on the sunbathing mat that was laid out in front of the helm up on the bridge.
The sky along the horizon was streaked with orange and gold, while the space above clung stubbornly to the darker shades of night in the face of the rising sun.
The air stirred with the ever-present trade winds blowing out of the east, and gulls swooped majestically overhead, their excited cries ringing in the new day as they dove for their breakfast.
“Not bad, huh?” Grey asked as she sat down on the opposite end of the red mat from Lauren.
“Not at all.” Lauren nodded and sipped at her coffee.
She looked out at the horizon and smiled.
“I used to go out with my dad on our boat when I was a kid to watch the sunrise. The mornings were usually cooler than this, and a lake in Minnesota obviously has nothing on the Caribbean, but I’ve always loved this time of day where everything is new and fresh and quiet. ”
“You probably don’t get a lot of quiet in New York.”
“You can find it,” Lauren murmured, her eyes still trained on the horizon. “Not easily, of course, but if you go into the middle of Central Park early in the morning like this, you can almost forget that you’re on an island with over a million and a half other people.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t do living in a big city like that.” Grey shook her head. “I need space.”
Lauren tipped her head at their surroundings and hummed softly under her breath. “Well, you’ve got plenty of that here.”
Grey nodded and sipped at her coffee. “Yeah.”
They watched the sun inch incrementally higher in a relaxed silence that was reminiscent of the one that had surrounded them the night before, each of them comfortable to simply enjoy the moment.
It was a gift, Grey knew, to find somebody who knew how to let go and just exist in the moment without having to fill the air with meaningless words.
Kip could do it for a short amount of time, but Grey always knew that her friend was struggling to keep quiet.
In fact, besides her father, and now Lauren, she had only ever found one person who would just sit with her like this and not say a word.
Sitting up on the bridge watching the sunrise while nursing her first cup of coffee on the day had been part of her daily routine with Emily, and she was surprised to find that she did not resent Lauren for reminding her.
She had spent the last few years remembering the happier times they had shared, the big moments that marked their years together, but she had forgotten about this.
Had forgotten about how they would just sit up here and watch the sunrise.
It was one of the little things that seemed insignificant, a simple routine that did not mean much in the grand scheme of things—but looking back on it now, Grey realized that it was the little things that meant the most.
She swallowed around a lump in her throat and shook her head. How could I have forgotten about this?
Lauren had no idea what made her turn to look at Grey, but the absolutely shattered look in the brunette’s eyes rocked her to her core. “Grey?”
“I’m fine,” Grey murmured, closing her eyes and scrubbing a hand over her face. “I’m fine.”
Grey was obviously anything but fine, but Lauren accepted the lie at face value, not wanting to push. “Right, well…I’m getting hungry. You wanna help me go make some waffles?” she asked, offering Grey both a distraction and an opportunity to be alone, depending on what she needed.
Having something else to focus on sounded like a godsend, and Grey drew a shaky breath as she ran a hand through her hair. “Making waffles sounds great.”
“Good.” Lauren nodded and pushed herself to her feet. “You can be my sous chef.”
Grey smiled in spite of the pain that was radiating through her chest. “Oh, I can, can I?”
“Absolutely.” Lauren winked at Grey. “Besides, everybody who loves waffles needs to know how to make these. They’re orgasmic.”
“Orgasmic, huh?” Grey absently pressed her free hand to her chest, trying to ease the feeling of aching loss that threatened to cripple her.
Lauren nodded. “Bet your ass.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Grey pointed out as she dropped her hand to her side.
“Well, yeah,” Lauren scoffed as she turned and headed down the stairs. “I mean, I am pretty awesome.”
Grey shook her head and followed Lauren into the galley, and she smiled when the redhead threw an apron at her. “You’re seriously going to make me cook?”
“I am.” Lauren arched a brow challengingly at Grey.
Grey slipped the apron over her head and tying the strings around her waist and gave Lauren a disbelieving look. “I could have sworn that I was paying you to cook the food.”
Lauren pulled a large glass mixing bowl full of batter from the fridge and set it down beside the waffle machine. “Come on. Orgasmic waffles do not cook themselves.”
“What does orgasmic mean?” a little voice piped up, making both Grey and Lauren jump.
Reid wiggled himself up onto one of the barstools and looked at the two women expectantly.
“It, um…” Grey muttered, shooting Lauren a desperate look begging for help.
“It means really good,” Lauren explained, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “But, you should probably just say ‘really good’.”
“Okay.” Reid folded his arms on the counter and looked interestedly at the waffle machine. “Can I have a really good waffle?”
“Absolutely, buddy.” Grey smiled and plugged in the waffle machine. She turned to look at Lauren, whose shoulders were trembling with silent laughter, and shook her head as she muttered, “Way to teach the kid new vocabulary words, Murphy.”
Lauren finally lost it at that, and started laughing as she grabbed the squeeze bottle full of the melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon mixture she would use for the cinnamon roll swirls and set it by the batter.
“I know!” she hissed, glancing sideways at Grey.
She laughed harder at the playful smirk Grey was giving her and shook her head.
“Just…get ready to make some really good waffles, Wells.”
“Right, because I’m paying you to put me to work,” Grey said, nodding sagely.
Lauren grinned and slapped a ladle into Grey’s hand. “Exactly. Now, check the waffle machine and see if it’s hot enough to start cooking.”