Chapter 15 #2
Lift the couch.
The answer was always lift the couch.
Except if I lifted the couch, there would’ve been glitter everywhere.
But then I would’ve gotten back to the pancakes and the house wouldn’t be on fire.
The alarms stop, and I realize Heath’s sprayed my chocolate chip pancakes with a fire extinguisher and knocked the whole smoke alarm off the ceiling.
With what?
He’s not that tall, is he?
Maybe he is.
“Lavender. It’s okay. Fire’s out,” he says. “Go outside and wait for me. You know where to go. We’ve practiced this.”
She lets go of me and dashes for the front door.
“Cricket. Get in here,” Heath orders, his voice deadly calm.
He has his back to me, so all I can see is his chiseled ass and his broad back and the thick trunks of his thighs and water sluicing down his spine.
And the side profile of his face as he watches me gape at his naked body.
Fuck.
“Fluffy had a glitter accident.” Wake up, Cricket. Wake. Up.
This is a nightmare.
This has to be a nightmare.
I have not been in charge of this household today while a glittered cat distracted me while I was cooking on the stove.
It’s not real.
“Are you okay?” he asks, still in that deadly calm voice.
I swipe at my cheeks and stifle a sob. “Yes,” I force out.
He stares at me, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
And I snap.
This man who has patience for everyone has run out of it with me, and rightfully so.
“No,” I say, my voice rising. “No, I’m not okay. I’m a fucking menace who can’t watch a cat and make pancakes at the same time, and now I’m also a green glitter goblin.”
My hands flex and then clench into fists, over and over again.
And I keep going, my voice hitting a pitch where I’m yelling.
“I ran my clothes through the dryer with a red crayon that came from god-only-knows-where, and Mabel had to give me another all-new wardrobe. My parents called again to tell me I’m a complete failure and disappointment, especially compared to my sisters.
And I got rejections from a dozen different online news sites that I applied to last week because they all know who I am and they don’t even want me writing fluff pieces under a pseudonym.
My life is a disaster and everything I touch turns to glitter-covered shit and I am not okay. ”
My shoulders are up by my ears.
My fingernails press into my palms.
I’m actively sobbing harder than I’ve let myself sob, even when my video went viral.
Dots dance in my vision like I’m about to pass out.
And suddenly I’m being pulled into a cold, wet, tight hug by this man whose morning I have completely ruined.
Whose daughter I’ve traumatized.
Whose cat is still covered in glitter and stuck under a couch.
And whose house will sparkle with that glitter for months—possibly years—to come.
Burning it down will be the only solution.
“I’m such a disaster,” I sob into his skin, which is warming by the second. “I thought I was getting better, but I’m still a disaster.”
“We haven’t evolved enough as a species to have unfettered access to the internet,” he murmurs back. “It breaks our brains and then every other part of our lives too.”
I laugh, choke on it, and sob again.
“Also, you’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs into my hair. “How’s your head?”
My head.
I forgot I hit my forehead on his chin when I ran toward the kitchen.
“It hurts,” I whimper as I realize it is, indeed, throbbing.
Could be the collision with Heath’s face.
Could be the sobbing.
Could be my life in general.
I was getting better.
I was getting better.
“More or less than when you slipped in the bathtub?”
The fact that he can even ask that question… “Less.”
“That’s good. That’s real good. Can you go outside with Lav and sit with her while I set the cat loose and throw on some clothes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thank you. That’s very helpful.”
“My p-pleasure.”
He doesn’t move.
I don’t move.
I need to let go of him. I don’t even know when I gripped him back in this hug, but I’m clinging to him like plastic wrap clings to itself and nothing else. “How are you always so patient and kind?”
“Good role models.”
“Can I trade mine for yours?”
He strokes my hair and presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “Absolutely not.”
I start to laugh again, but it ends in another sob.
This, my heart whispers.
This is what I want.
A home.
Compassion.
Understanding.
Support.
Hugs and forehead kisses.
Laughter.
Love.
Complete with a naked man who’s been my friend that I’m trying to keep at arm’s length because I’m positive he thinks of me as a sister while I—
While I think about him every morning and every night and every moment in between, wishing he’d look at me with even a quarter as much of the growing reverence and affection and attraction that I feel for him.
“I haven’t been this klutzy since seventh grade,” I whisper. “It’s like—it’s like I don’t know how to use my body anymore, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
He rubs my back. “With help. Time and help.”
“Thank you for—for being my friend right now.”
This time, he doesn’t answer.
Instead, he squeezes me harder.
His heart thumps faster under my ear.
And something pokes me in my belly.
Something hard and unmistakable.
The kind of hard and unmistakable that I haven’t had pressed against me since my last foray onto the dating apps.
It’s morning wood, I tell myself as the rest of him stiffens against me too. He’s not attracted to you. He’s just a real man with a real penis that can be unpredictable.
If I were a man with a penis, I’d be mortified right now.
Maybe he is.
Maybe that’s what his speeding heartbeat means.
That he’s mortified.
And here I am, clinging to him.
Move, dammit, I order myself, and finally—finally—I shake myself off of him.
“Thank you for—for understanding. I’ll—I’ll go help Lav.”
“Cricket—”
“No, it’s okay. It’s—it’s been one of those mornings, and things happen, and you’re still—you’re still probably the best man I’ve ever met in my entire life.
A really good dad. A good friend. I don’t know—I don’t know anyone else who could live with this many women and not lose his mind.
You’re a good person, Heath. Thank you.”
With that, I flee.
I flee and leave him to clean up my mess while I try to pretend nothing’s wrong and put on a brave face for his daughter, who’s crying softly and rocking herself under a young birch tree out in the yard.
Nothing is wrong.
I don’t have a crush on him.
He didn’t get a hard-on while hugging me.
If he did, I didn’t like it.
He definitely didn’t like it.
That’s how it has to be.