CHAPTER SEVEN #2
We reach the steps leading out of the sand and toward the small parking lot we left my truck in and linger for a bit longer.
Following the rhythmic crashing of the waves, he sways me back and forth until we’re full-on slow dancing on the beach.
Quietly, he sings to me, the tender rasp of his deep voice meant only for my ears does a number on my heart, making it swell in my chest until I feel the most beautiful ache.
This is what it feels like when ‘your cup runneth over’.
When we finally make it back to my truck, he slips the keys from my hand. “I’ll drive. You rest so you can be your best for the hounds.” He winks, then clicks the key fab unlocking the doors before he opens the passenger side for me.
“You don’t even know where you’re going,” I point out but still climb in. I have a feeling as soon as I sit, my body will remember that it hasn’t slept since yesterday.
“True,” he admits. “But I’m really great at following the little voice on my map app.” He hands me his phone. “Set me up, would ya?” Then he smacks a lighthearted kiss on my lips before he closes the door and hurries around the hood to the driver’s side.
For a second, I just stare at his phone in my hands.
I lived with my ex for over a decade, and he never even left his phone where I could see it, let alone hold it.
When I tap the screen and find no signs of a lock on it, I’m even more thrown by the differences.
So, this is what it’s like when a man isn’t cagey. Interesting.
“You know what’s weird,” I say when he opens the driver’s side door and joins me inside the cab.
“Babe, I see hundreds of people from all walks of life, most of them drunk, night after night. I know a lot of shit that’s weird.” He chuckles. “Narrow it down for me.”
I hold up his phone. “You’re not hiding anything from me.”
For a moment he looks like maybe I’m trying to trick him. “Are you not going to tell me where you live? Are you literally going to hide from me?” he asks, apparently having decided to try and sort the trick out for himself.
I laugh. “How would that even work? What, you think I’m going to blink like I’m Jeannie and zap myself back to my house while you’re left behind in the parking lot without my address?
” Despite the benefits of magic, we both agreed we wouldn’t have been happy in that sitcom.
Sexism aside, I’m not a fan of pink, so wearing that outfit day after day would have put me in a mood real quick.
I’d have been using my powers for bad in no time.
And Knox wasn’t down with all that secret keeping.
“Then I got nothing,” he admits, laughing too. “What the hell are we talking about?”
“My ex always had a lock on his phone. And even when he knew I couldn’t get into it, not that I wanted to, he was always deleting all his messages, never left a trace of any conversation behind.
Plus, he’d put people, and by people, I mean women, under fake male names in his contacts,” I rattle off the first examples that spring to mind. “He was shady as shit about it all.”
“Again, he sounds like a douchebag. Where does this get weird?”
“Oh, he totally is,” I confirm. “And it gets weird when I tell you that I only just now realized that he made me feel like I’m the one who wasn’t trustworthy.
Like, he had to lock it and keep it out of my reach because I couldn’t be trusted to respect his privacy.
” I wave his phone back and forth. “And I realized all of this because you handed me your phone, told me to go into it and open shit up and add information, and my first thought was, ‘he trusts me’ not, ‘oh hey, he’s trustworthy’ ,” I end my rant and take a breath. “Weird, right?”
I’m less convinced it’s weird by the time I’ve heard it all out loud. Maybe it’s just sad. A little pathetic even.
“Kenley,” his voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I realize I was spiraling. I really am tired.
I look up from staring at the phone still resting in my hand. “Yeah?”
“Wanna know what’s even weirder?”
I nod. “Yes, please.”
“I totally understood all of that.” His eyes have a bittersweet look to them when he goes on, “and I didn’t even realize I knew the feeling until I heard you spell it out.”
“Shady gaslighters suck.” I make a face and the weight in his eyes lifts again.
“Fuck yeah, they do.” Then he turns on the engine and nods at his phone. “Now, can you do something with that thing other than stare at it and psychoanalyze us bo
th? The dogs need us.”
I grin. It feels goofy and completely uncontainable. “For the dogs.” And then, like it’s nothing at all, I tap his screen again and scroll through his phone until I find the app I’m looking for.
Thankfully, for us and my dogs, my place is a straight shot inland with next to empty roads this time of day. The drive will be quick, but I have just enough time to text Arizona.
Life check.
I hit send.
She reads it within seconds. Then she’s typing back.
Two hours from home. On the bus. Winston insisted on towing my car with their hitch thingy. I was sleeping. In Knox’s bed. He better be in yours!
I try to stifle my laugh, but Knox notices.
“Arizona?” he surmises on his own.
“Yep.”
You’re clearly sleep-deprived and talking crazy. Text me when you’re home.
Then I put my phone away, just in time to look up and see we’re pulling into my driveway.
“You can go ahead and just park right there next to the SUV,” I tell him, unbuckling to get out.
“How many people live here, exactly?” he asks, and I notice him checking out the car lot my parents keep in their front yard. Not literally, but it certainly gives that impression.
“My parents live in the main house,” I explain. “And my stepfather collects sportscars,” I answer the real question in his inquiry.
He parks the truck and turns off the engine. “Where do you stay?”
Meanwhile, I’m already opening the door to hop out.
“You’ll see.” Now that we’re here, I’m having second thoughts about it.
Not true. I had second thoughts on the way already.
I pushed them aside. I’m onto third thoughts.
Fourth if you count the bout of hesitation I had before I ever even suggested we come here for coffee.
If it hadn’t been for the dogs, I’m sure I would have opted to go elsewhere for a cup of joe.
Though admittedly, there are few places I find deliver the same satisfying brew I can make in my own kitchen.
Regardless, here we are, and Knox has gotten out of the truck to find my side again, the leather backpack he brought with his essentials slung over his shoulder, hand reaching for mine without any obvious thought or doubt on his end.
“Lead the way,” he says under his breath, keenly aware I’m sure, that my parents’ house is still pitch black and we are the only ones awake and about at this hour.
I don’t say anything, I just start walking, past the garage and around to the small gate in the fence separating our two homes. At this point, he can definitely make out the structure we’re headed for. Still, he walks along in silence, waiting for me to make the next move.
Which I do when we round the corner of the old barn, which has since been converted into a makeshift guest house and arrive at the front door. “Welcome to Frieda.”
“Frieda,” he muses. “That’s a good name.”
“It’s short for freedom.” At least in my head. I’m not sure I ever told Sloan that when I came up with it.
“I like it. Why freedom?” he asks.
“Because this was my way out,” I say, placing my hand on the doorhandle.
“And because no one controls any aspect of my life here, but me.” I drop my hand again.
Maybe we’re not ready to go in. Maybe I’m not ready.
“I realize this probably seems a bit strange, a grown woman living in her parents’ guest house.
It’s certainly not where I envisioned raising my daughter or where I hope to live long term.
But,” I pause. I’m almost positive I’m about to overshare by a long shot, but I commit to doing it anyway, “Two years into my marriage, I lost every asset I’d acquired on my own.
Shortly after, I realized I was never going to have access to anything he built while we were together, and I started looking for ways to create my own income.
Some years I did well, others I didn’t. In the end, when the moment to leave showed up, I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be, but I couldn’t risk missing my chance.
I walked away from everything. So Sloan could walk away with me.
” I glance up at Frieda and the chapter of our lives we’ve spent here.
“I’m starting over, Knox. From scratch. And it may look pathetic to have wound up here, but it’s so much better than where I left. ”
He takes a step toward me, closing in any distance left between us.
“I need you to do me a favor,” he growls softly.
“Stop trying to assume you know what I see when I look at you. Because you’re getting it all wrong every time you try.
” He presses his lips to mine and instantly I feel the tension I was holding captive in my body melt away.
“Now, can I please come inside and meet your dogs?”
I nod, feeling the smile return to my face. “Yes.”
One last deep breath, this one on account of the noise we’re about to encounter, and then, I open the door and we step inside.