25. Claire
twenty-five
I textedNathan when I got home, and we haven’t stopped texting since. He kept me company while I schlepped my siblings to soccer and tumbling and playdates—all so that my parents could sleep off their Friday night hangovers and “catch up on things around the house.”
Plot twist: There aren’t things to catch up on, because yours truly has them handled already.
We texted all throughout the week, before and after the two basketball games that we both worked. This time, there was no denying the press of our legs beneath the table. I stayed late after both games, hanging out in Nathan’s office, just talking. About school, my siblings, and the books we’ve both read. He shared about his most recent documentaries, and I even found out that the most he uses his kitchen for is the ham and cheese sandwich he makes himself for lunch everyday—which is so on brand it almost hurts.
Almost, because the predictability is kind of nice.
It’s nice to have him to slow down my pace.
Nathan is straight to the point, something he showed when he invited me over this upcoming Saturday. Saturdays are typically full of funtivities for the kids, but this evening is pretty empty. Nathan offered to order in dinner, and the thought of Thai food in front of that massive fireplace while I dig into my Kindle? I almost salivated on the spot. Almost as much at the simple thought that he wants me there.
I awake at six-thirty out of habit. Taking care of my siblings has made me a light sleeper. I toss on a pair of Saturday sweats and a sports bra, throw my hair up into a claw clip, and head downstairs with a pep in my step. For the first time in a long time, I’m excited for plans. Excited for what the night holds with Nathan.
That time in his office is seared into my brain, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t touched myself to the memory of him since. I’d also be lying if I said I don’t want anything to happen between us tonight—in his home, on neutral ground, not in the backseat of a car in a secluded lot, or in his office where we might get caught. He showed me just a fraction of how he likes to take control, and I wonder what it will take to make the full picture come into view.
Of course, Saturday morning, a hammer is taken straight to my chest, shattering the progress that Nathan has made, and deepening those tender cracks altogether. As I enter the kitchen, I’m greeted by an unexpected sight.
My mother and father. Together. Sitting at the kitchen table with their own coffee already poured. Although this meeting was clearly meant for me, I can’t help but notice they didn’t bother to pour me a mug.
“Claire. Come, join us.”
No good morning or nice to see you. I’ve been set up for an intervention, and despite my twenty-five years, I still feel like they have the capability to ground me.
I take my sweet time brewing myself a fresh pot of coffee before I join them at the kitchen table—them on one side, me on the other. The ocean of the table divides us. But hasn’t it always been this way? Me and my cares out to sea while my parents are planted firmly on land where they have the freedoms to do whatever they please?
“Good morning,” I say as I curl up with my feet flat on the seat of the chair so that I can curl in on myself. I bring my coffee to my lips, not caring that I’ll probably burn my tongue. “What’s up?”
Mom and Dad sigh in tandem, then look at one another. Dad’s hair is greying at the temples, and Mom’s has thinned since having us, but they don’t look old. Hell, they’re both still in their forties. Dad adjusts his glasses and mom clasps her hands on the tabletop and eyes me like I’m in trouble.
“Claire.” The weight with which my dad says my name makes me think I’ve committed murder. “We asked you to join us today because we’re concerned.”
I laugh anxiously over the top of my coffee.
“Why do you have to make it sound like we’re in a board meeting, Dad?”
His expression turns stern. No age or amount of wisdom can ever take away the shame I feel beneath that stare.
“Your priorities have shifted lately, and we’re all taking a hit.”
It’s Mom’s turn, and quite frankly, her words don’t soften the blow.
“You mean, since I got a job, and have to do things for that job?”
“Yes. Exactly. We expected you to be independent as you got older, but the extracurriculars that come with the job, the late nights?—”
“You’re spending way too much time at school, and?—”
“Look at last night. You didn’t get home until after the kids were in bed?—”
“Is all of this basketball stuff even really necessary, Claire?”
The attack doesn’t end. They continue to speak over each other, at me, until I’m ready to throw up.
I know what I want to say.
So my wants and needs, my priorities, aren’t important, because they interfere with your ability to have as many kids as you want and still hold onto the social lives of your twenties?
But all that escapes is a sigh of defeat.
“So, we wanted to present you with a few options.”
I already know where this is going. It’s been coming for a while now. Like they “let me have my fun in college,” and now that I’m back, they’ve purchased the cage. I just didn’t think I’d see the day when they actually locked me into it.
I shouldn’t even be here.
But standing on Nathan’s front porch—the porch I can’t even salivate over because I’m so upset and angry—I knock four times and pray he doesn’t turn me away.
He wouldn’t. Right?
The concern in his knit brows as the door swings open, the stitching together that I see take place after only a quick moment of confusion that I’m here hours earlier than I said I would be—is the only indication I need.
“Claire? Is everything okay?”
I freeze. And not because of the cold.
I freeze because, in all of my years being the third wheel caregiver for my siblings, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that question.
I freeze because the way that my dad had said my name had placed a ten ton boulder inside my chest, and the way that Nathan says it in reverence and concern makes that weight sprout wings and take off so that I can breathe again.
And as soon as it comes out of Nathan, it’s like a million little versions of myself that needed to be cared for come crawling out of buried little tunnels inside of me.
I didn’t come here intending to cry. I came here to sit on his couch and read a book, and maybe once the sun went down I’d get the courage to crawl over to his lap. All of those plans smack into a brick wall of every insecurity I’ve buried away that suddenly floods over.
I crash into him. Whether it’s because I lunged at him or he cradled my head to his chest first, I don’t even care. I only care about his strong arms, ones that have transformed into a comfort, that cradle me as he lifts. I register him sitting, his thighs spreading wide, his hands readjusting so that he can hold me tighter as he runs his big hands over my hair and my back and my neck, whispering soothing sounds.
It doesn’t take long for me to detox. I sniffle the remaining tears and snot away, internally rolling my eyes at the fact that I definitely cried off my makeup—that I definitely did for myself and not for Nathan—and stand to go clean myself up, when he tugs me right back down.
The combination of strict, dominating Nathan Harding, with the sweet man who brought me hot cocoa and gave up his favorite chair so that I could read in front of his fireplace, is intoxicating. He is both soft and rough, and that heady combination makes me a little dizzy. I’m dizzier still when his mouth finally opens, those hard eyes demanding from behind his glasses when he asks, “Who hurt you?”
I should not be turned on in this moment, but well… here we are.
I shake my head.
“It’s… nothing I haven’t heard before. It’s probably an overreaction.”
“An overreaction that has you on my doorstep at eight in the morning on a Saturday?”
Shit. What if he was asleep?
Just the thought makes me swallow a laugh. He’s already dressed in his Saturday best—a crisp button-down that looks freshly ironed is tucked into dark wash jeans with the belt I definitely shucked onto his office floor once upon a time. But what if he had other plans? What if?—
“That came out wrong. I’m glad that you’re here early. I’m just worried about the why.”
I swallow, slipping onto the couch cushion beside him. He clenches his fists in his lap like he’s trying to give me space that he never wanted to offer, but his eyes don’t give me space at all.
“I had a fight with my parents,” I say, tucking the hair that has fallen from my claw clip behind my ears and playing with the ends. “It’s nothing new. We’ve exchanged the same words before. It was just…”
I blink up at Nathan, and his gaze is wholly unwavering, focused on me like I’m the center of the universe, and not the snotty, crying girl in his home on a Saturday morning.
“Having the same argument more than once doesn’t invalidate how it makes you feel. Do you want to talk about it, or would you like breakfast?”
I sit up a little straighter, my spine crackling with the effort.
“Breakfast?”
His smile. Oh, God, his smile. I thought I saw the sunrise over morning coffee and insults with my mom and dad. Nothing compares to the rays that wrinkle at the corners of his eyes, or the way his full lips unfold into a picture I’ve never seen before. It’s like Van Gogh’s Starry Night has transformed into morning and I’m the only audience for this masterpiece.
Why am I here again? What is happening?
“I’ll take that as your answer.”
He stands, taking my hand to lead me into the kitchen.
Where he immediately glances around nervously.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this man anything less than focused.
Granted, he looked pretty unfocused when you licked his?—
I crack my neck to both sides to dispel that particular image, and hop up onto a barstool.
“You don’t cook.” He told me that the first time I’d drooled over his kitchen. “What do you usually eat for breakfast?”
He blinks at me three times, and I stifle my giggle with the back of my hand.
“Wait, let me guess: Cereal? Protein bar? Or are you a black coffee and banana guy?”
His cheeks heat with crimson, that color dripping below his collar, and now my core is warm again.
“How about I make us breakfast?”
His brows knit together again, and he places both hands on the counter opposite me. Despite the fact that we have the whole island between us, the simple motion makes me feel deliciously caged.
“I wanted to do it for you. To comfort you?—”
“I promise, just the thought of you wanting to do something nice has already boosted my mood. Letting me cook you breakfast will also help. The kitchen is one of my happy places.”
It takes a ten second stare-down and the batting of my lashes to get him to concede. I hop off the stool and head to the walk-in pantry.
“What are you hungry for? I can whip up pretty much anything. I am the least picky person on the planet.” I scoff, looking around the pantry, scouring the shelves, drawers, and built-in countertops. “I guess the better question is, what do you have ingredients for?”
“Ham sandwiches. Microwaveable dinners.”
Blushing Nathan is starting to become one of my favorite pictures of him. I purse my lips to keep from teasing him, then get back to digging. In the end, I come up with enough supplies for pancakes.
“I’m surprised I could find all of this,” I say, depositing my spoils onto the island.
“Are you sassing me, Ms. Benson?”
He’s sitting so casually, with his forearms laid across the counter, his hands clasped in front of him. His shoulders have relaxed since I lunged across his doorway in tears. But the smoke in his eyes tells me that those words very well could be kindling.
“And what if I was?” I ask, cracking an egg into a prep bowl.
I remember what he’d looked like with his hand tangled in my hair. The raspy bite of his tone when he’d called me a good girl. I bite my bottom lip, hoping that he sees it as a concentration method for measuring out this cup of milk. He never responds. And honestly? That might be for the better.
As I’m whipping up the batter, he sneaks his way behind me. I wonder for a second if the hand on my hip, the shackle of his behind me, and the unmistakable bulge that presses into my ass is going to be his answer. I stiffen, and by the time I press backward, he’s already moved on, shuffling behind me to get into a cabinet.
I find out what he was up to when, as I’m pouring batter onto the stovetop skillet, a steaming mug is placed beside me.
“It’s herbal,” is all he says before taking his place at the island again.
I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not…
Okay, so I shuck a few tears discreetly as I flip the first batch. What’s it to you?
It’s just that, I take care of people. People don’t take care of me. And when Nathan asked what kind of tea I like best so that he could “stock up for next time,” I absolutely did not expect him to follow through. He has nothing in his pantry, and yet…
“My dad wants me to work for his company,” I say, lifting a pancake from the skillet onto a plate before reaching for the ladle to work some new batter into a circle on the piping surface. “He said that if I work for him, my hours will be better. But better just means that, since he’s the CEO, he has control over them. He can decide when I work, how long I work… I just know that means my schedule will revolve around all the time he and my mom need me at home.”
“You don’t want that.”
“No.”
The simple words I’ve never allowed myself to speak slip past my subconscious. In five simple words, Nathan Harding has busted open my psyche, and if I don’t catch it quick, it’s going to start running down his kitchen countertop like the pancake batter I just dripped onto the skillet.
“But I don’t even know what else to do. My long-term job is only through, like, February. I have a degree in psychology, and no concrete plans to use it. Dad already has a fast-tracked summer intensive to get me into the company so that it ‘doesn’t appear as nepotism,’ and then what? I’m twenty-five, living every aspect of my life for my mom and dad?”
Sizzling fills the silence, condensation rising from our breakfast to fog the space between us so that I can’t quite see him pondering and he can’t quite see me coming to the precipice of a mental breakdown.
What a breakfast menu: pancakes and menty b’s! The Claire Benson Specialty.
I have nowhere left to hide, I realize, as I plop the last pancake onto the plate. When the smoke clears and the sizzling disappears, I swallow, and lift my gaze to his.
Nathan is painted in that rock-hard poise again. Straight-backed, hands clasped beneath his chin. The picture of elegance until you look deeper, revealing the whites of his knuckles, the bulge of his eyes, and the straining vein in his forehead.
I plate two pancakes, dust them with cinnamon, and slide breakfast over to him before taking my time and making myself a plate. It isn’t until I’m at the stool next to him, my tea now cooled to the perfect temperature between my palms, that he finally responds.
“What do you want?”
I have to swallow a lump the size of a Mack truck in order to give him the answer that I’m afraid of. It comes out in a whisper, disappearing with the last of the vapor rising from the griddle.
“I don’t know.”