Chapter 33 #2
"Yeah, well." I reach for a shirt that I already folded, then do it again. "Domestic seems to be my thing lately."
She moves toward the couch. Not fast. Deliberate.
Come on. Sit down. Please just—
She sits. Not quite touching me but close enough that I can smell her. Vanilla and something floral. Shampoo from my shower. Our shower. The one where I washed her hair and she leaned back against my chest and I thought I could do this every day for the rest of my life.
Laine picks up one of Reid's t-shirts from the pile. Smooths out a wrinkle with her thumb. The gesture is small. Careful. Like she's giving her hands something to do while her brain catches up.
"You don't have to fold his stuff," she says.
"I don't mind."
She nods. Picks up another shirt. Starts folding.
We work in silence for a minute. Her hands are smaller than mine, more deliberate with the creases. She folds Reid's work shirts the way he likes them — sleeves tucked just so.
She knows how he likes them. Reid doesn’t give a shit about wrinkles, except for his work clothes.
I stop folding. Just stand there holding one of his undershirts like an idiot.
Because she's here, in this house, folding his laundry like it's the most natural thing in the world.
And it is. For her. She just stepped into the gap I've been white-knuckling my way around for months and filled it like she was always supposed to be standing there.
"I can help," she says. "With all of it. If you'll let me."
She's not talking about laundry.
"Yeah." My voice comes out thick. Stupid. I clear my throat. "Yeah, I'd like that."
Reid settles into his chair across from us. Leans back. Eyes half-closed like he's resting, but I can tell he's listening. He's always listening.
"I was a little freaked out this morning," Laine says after a while. Quietly. Like she's testing the words.
There it is.
My hands keep folding. Automatic. But my chest tightens and the voice in my head is already—
Here it comes. The part where she says it was too much. Too fast. Too—
"I lied a little bit," she continues. "About having plans with Jamila. I didn't. I just needed to talk to someone who wasn't you or Reid."
"That's okay." I mean it. Even though part of me wanted to be the person she talked to. Even though part of me is jealous of her friend. "You should have people."
"I was scared." She sets down a half-folded pair of jeans. Looks at me directly and I have to force myself not to look away because her eyes are so goddamn honest it hurts. "Not of you. Not of this. I was scared I was going to mess it up. That I already had."
"You didn't."
"You looked pretty worried when I left."
Worried. Yeah. That's one word for standing at a window for fifteen minutes calculating the odds that you'd never come back.
"I was—" Terrified. Gutted. Convinced you'd figured out I'm poison and decided to save yourself. "—concerned."
"Concerned," she repeats. A small smile. She heard everything I didn't say.
Reid opens his eyes. "We were both a little freaked out," he admits. "Thought maybe we'd pushed too hard. Last night."
"The couch," I say quietly. Because someone has to name it.
Laine's cheeks flush pink. "Yeah."
"Was it too much?"
She considers this. Head tilted.
"No. Not too much." She picks the jeans back up. Folds them slowly. "Just new. Really new."
"Good new or bad new?"
"Good new." She pauses. "Scary new. Both."
I reach for her hand. Can't help it. I always want to touch her — hold her, pull her close, put myself between her and whatever's making her afraid. Even when the thing she's afraid of might be me.
Her fingers are cold. I wrap mine around them.
"Jamila told me something," Laine says. "About showing up. About how that's the whole thing — just being there. Even when it's hard."
"Smart woman."
"She is." Laine looks down at our hands. "So I'm here. I'm going to keep being here. I might freak out and run to diners occasionally to eat pancakes and have emotional breakdowns with my friends. But I'm not going anywhere."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She squeezes my hand. "I mean it, Blake."
I bring her hand to my mouth. Press my lips against her knuckles. Close my eyes.
She came back. She said home. She's here.
The voice in my head — the one that catalogs disasters, that insists I'll destroy everything I touch — it doesn't shut up.
It never shuts up completely. But right now, with her hand against my mouth and Reid pretending to sleep in the chair and a pile of warm laundry between us, it's quieter than it's been in a long time.
Don't fuck this up, Moore.
Not a spiral. More like a prayer.
Reid shifts in his chair. "So what did you and Jamila actually talk about? Besides how great we are?"
Laine laughs. "Bold assumption."
"I'm a bold guy. It's part of my charm."
"She told me I was overthinking things. That it's okay to be scared as long as I'm scared for the right reasons."
"What are the right reasons?" I ask.
"Being afraid of messing up something good." She leans into my shoulder. Just slightly. Testing the weight. I hold still so she knows it's solid. That I'm solid. "Being afraid of not knowing how to do this. Being afraid of hurting one of you."
"And the wrong reasons?"
"Worrying about what people think. Whether it's normal. Whether my parents—" She stops. Takes a breath. "We can talk about that one later."
The parents thing. Right. Missionaries. I file it away. Another conversation for another day when she's ready.
"Sounds like Jamila earned her pancakes," Reid says.
"She really did." Laine settles more firmly against my shoulder, letting me take more of her weight.
Reid grabs the mismatched socks from the table and leaves the room muttering.
Laine tips her head up to look at me.
"Hi," she says softly.
"Hi."
"I'm sorry I ran this morning."
"You don't have to apologize for needing space."
"I know. But I'm sorry you worried."
Worried. There's that word again. Doing a lot of heavy lifting.
"I worry," I tell her. "That's what I do. Don't apologize for it."
"What if I apologize for not texting sooner?"
"Accepted."
She smiles. Tucks herself back against my shoulder.
We sit like that for a while. Quiet. The house settling around us. I should finish the laundry but I don't want to move. Don't want to break whatever this is — this fragile, warm thing that feels like it could shatter if I breathe wrong.
It won't. She's here. She said home.
Don't fuck this up.
Laine reaches for the last pile — the finished stack I set aside earlier. She's tidying. Organizing. Doing the thing she does when her hands need to catch up to her brain.
She stops.
Pulls her purple sweater from the top of the pile. Holds it up. Looks at it.
Then looks at me.
"This was in your load?"
"Must've gotten mixed in." I keep my voice flat. Reach for a shirt that doesn't need folding.
"Blake."
"What?"
"This was in my bag. In the guest room. Zipped up."
Shit.
"Huh." I fold the shirt. Precise creases. Very focused on the creases. "Weird."
"You put my sweater in your laundry."
"It needed washing."
"It was clean."
I've got nothing. I'm sitting here with a perfectly folded shirt in my hands and no defense and she's looking at me with those eyes — not angry, not confused, something worse. Something soft and knowing and devastating.
"You wanted something of mine in there," she says. Not a question.
My jaw works. I look at the shirt. At the pile. At my own stupid hands.
"Yeah," I manage. "I did."
She doesn't say anything. Just presses the sweater against her chest and leans into me. Her nose against my collarbone. Her breath warm through my shirt.
Okay. So she knows I'm a lunatic. And she's still here.
From the laundry room, a crash. Then Reid's voice:
"WHERE IS IT."
Laine lifts her head. "What—"
Another crash. The dryer door banging open. Something metallic hitting the floor.
"My sock." Reid appears in the doorway, wild-eyed, holding up a single black sock with a gray toe. "My GOOD sock. The left one. It's gone. Blake, did you see a black sock with a gray toe?"
"No."
"It was IN the dryer. I put it in the dryer MYSELF. Matched pair. Two socks. Now there's one sock." He shakes the orphan at us like evidence. "This is the third time this month."
"Maybe check behind—"
"I CHECKED behind the drum. I checked the lint trap. I checked the floor." He's pacing now. Full Reid spiral. "There's something happening in that dryer, Blake. Something sinister. Socks don't just vanish."
"It's a sock, Reid."
"It's not JUST a sock. It's the good sock. The one without the weird seam that digs into my toe." He turns to Laine. "Tell him. Tell him that socks matter."
Laine's shaking against my shoulder. Trying not to laugh. Failing.
"Socks matter," she manages. Barely.
"Thank you." Reid points at her, then at me. "She gets it."
He disappears back into the laundry room. More banging. The dryer drum spinning. A muffled "HA" followed by silence, followed by a defeated "no. That's a dryer sheet."
Laine buries her face in my chest. Her whole body vibrating with suppressed laughter. The purple sweater bunched between us.
I rest my chin on top of her head.
From the laundry room: "I'm filing a complaint. With the dryer. And with God."
"You do that," I call back.
Laine's laughing so hard she's making no sound. Just shaking. Her fingers curled into my shirt.
This. Right here.
Her sweater in my laundry. Reid losing his mind over a sock. Sunday afternoon. Nothing special. Everything special.
"Found it!" Reid yells. "It was in a PILLOWCASE. How does a sock get inside a pillowcase? That's PREMEDITATED."
"Congratulations," I say.
He comes back into the living room, triumphant, holding up both socks like a trophy. Sees Laine curled against me, still shaking. Sees the purple sweater.
His face softens for just a second. Then he grins.
"Did he tell you about the sweater thing?"
"Go away, Reid."
"He washed your clean sweater on purpose. I watched him take it out of your bag."
"I will end you."
"He SNIFFED it first."
"I did not—" I look down at Laine. She's looking up at me. Eyebrows raised. Grinning.
"You sniffed my sweater?"
"I'm not answering that."
"Blake."
"This conversation is over."
Reid drops into his chair, matched socks draped over his shoulder like a medal. "For the record, he absolutely sniffed it."
Laine presses her face back into my chest. I can feel her smile through my shirt.