Chapter 25
Andi
“Salazar, I can’t believe you don’t know which way a toilet paper roll is supposed to go.”
I pause with plates and flatware in my hands. “Mahoney, I can’t believe you think there’s only one way. Or that you even care. What do you want to drink?”
It’s a Tuesday evening and we have just spent an hour examining every inch of the cottage, making note of every electrical outlet, every long cord or breakable item, every corner or pointy, sharp thing, to get some idea of what needs to be done to babyproof this place. Now Kevin’s standing in the bathroom doorway, drying his hands on a guest towel and looking at me with an expression I can’t completely place.
“Don’t change the subject. This is upsetting to me, coming on the heels of you not liking marshmallows in your cocoa. And not being able to see constellations when I’m right there pointing them out to you.” He ducks back into the bathroom and comes out without the towel. “Got any milk? If not, water’s good. Wait, I take that back. Water is absolutely not as good as milk, and don’t even try to tell me it is. Every decent household—every household with sensible people in it—should be well stocked with milk at all times. If they can afford it. And aren’t lactose intolerant.” He joins me at the table and reaches into a paper bag to unload some of the goodies we’ve brought from Ahmed’s hot bar for dinner. “And I’m not talking about that watery blue skim stuff. No self-respecting milk drinker wants to be able to see through their beverage. Give me the thick, creamy stuff or nothing.”
I peel back the lid of the foil container of samosa chaat I’ve been craving all day. It smells heavenly. “What in the world has gotten into you?”
“These are important issues we should be on the same page about.” He hops up from the table, goes into the kitchen, and comes back with three serving spoons. Dips one into the chicken karahi, holding it over my plate and raising his eyebrows to ask if I want some.
“Just a little, please.” I put a piece of paratha on each of our plates. “Is it possible you’re trying to pick a fight?”
He’s got his face back in the bag, but I hear him grumble, “I certainly have grounds for doing so. As I have just illustrated.”
“On account of…milk? And marshmallows? And my inability to distinguish one faint dot from another in a giant dark sky full of the damn things?” I go to the refrigerator and bring back the milk carton and two glasses. Pour for both of us. Probably won’t hurt Baby and me to get a little more calcium. “Mahoney…is it possible that you like arguing with me?”
He pulls his head out of the bag and looks at me, brown eyes wide. “Um…”
“Ha! I’m onto something, aren’t I? What’s this about?”
“Well…I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked. But…yeah, maybe you are onto something.” He takes the milk carton from me, his fingers brushing lightly over the back of my hand, making me shiver, and returns it to the fridge.
“You miss having people to argue with, is that it? All your favorite people to gripe at are back in Nebraska?” Because I can totally drag you to the bedroom and have it out with you good. Make you forget all about other states. My energy levels are coming back to normal and every touch, every smile of his, lights me up like a Christmas tree.
“Noooo…” He settles into his seat next to me, not looking at me, focusing instead on opening his napkin.
“Then what?”
“I…maybe…have never really argued with anybody?” There are those big brown eyes again. He looks every bit as surprised to hear it as I am.
“ What? ”
“Don’t peace-shame me, Salazar. Look, I think it’s maybe been part of my MO, okay? Get along. Go along. Make everybody happy.”
I lay my hand on his ropy forearm, resisting the urge to trace whatever tendon or muscle that is under my fingertips. “But arguing can be fun. ”
“So I’m learning.” He turns his arm, squeezes my hand and gives me a bemused half smile.
“Belatedly.” I squeeze back.
“Belatedly.” He scoops up a big bite of food and pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Weird thing to add to my Likes list, though.”
That makes me smile. “Yeah. You are a unique guy, that’s for sure.” Uniquely sweet. Uniquely sexy. Uniquely thoughtful. A unique gentle giant…so far.
He takes his bite and stares at me, unblinking, the whole time he chews it. When finally he swallows, he says, “You are the first person to think so in my entire life.”
***
Kevin
“How’s your girlfriend?” is the first thing CeCe says when I answer her call.
“My friend is just fine.” Spectacularly fine. Bare-faced, barefoot, her thick braid coming loose and her boxy jacket nowhere to be found. She’s beautiful, standing in my kitchen in some kind of loose wraparound dress, slicing mushrooms and peppers for stir-fry, sunset from the window gilding her hair and the curves of her shoulders and breasts and bottom so that my free hand forms itself into the same shapes just from looking at her across the room. My whole body feels her pull.
At my words, Andi glances up with a little smile and a tiny, almost too-fast-to-see wink.
“I want to see a picture,” CeCe says. “You can tell a lot by a picture. Take a selfie with her. I want to see how she looks at you.”
CeCe’s bossy and perceptive and I miss her dearly. But what does it say about me as a full-grown man that my barely teenage niece feels the need to protect me?
“You’re not the boss of me,” I say belatedly, and Andi snorts from over near the stove.
“CeCe, stop badgering your uncle. Hand me the phone. Let me badger him.” My mom’s voice in the background and then directly in my ear. “How are you doing, honey? How’s school going?”
“Hi, Mom. Great. Everything’s good.” True. Things are going really well. “How’s everybody there?”
“Fine, fine. Listen, honey, I’d like to send a card to your friend to invite her myself. Maybe that will help her feel more comfortable coming with you. Do you have her address handy?”
I have some reservations about this but no good reason to say no. “Okay, but don’t push.”
“I promise.”
Andi glances over again, eyebrows raised when I rattle off her address.
I get off the call as soon as I can and face her. “Is that okay? My mom wants to send you an invitation to Thanksgiving.” I cross to her and my hands go straight to her hips before my brain can stop them. “And CeCe wants me to send her a picture of us. Says she’ll be able to tell a lot by the way you look at me.”
I’m bracing for resistance but Andi says, “Let’s do it.” She sets aside her knife, plucks the phone from my hand, makes a terrifying face at me, and snaps our photo.
“Geez, Andi.” I’ve wrestled the phone away from her, not trying very hard because the wrestling is so fun, especially when I get tantalizing glimpses down the front of her dress and feel her all soft and squirmy up against me. But the picture is truly hideous. “How’d you even get your pretty face to do that? You look like a gargoyle.”
She laughs and peers over my arm. “Yep. My work here is done. Send it.”
I do and then we both watch the phone screen. Three dots appear next to CeCe’s name in the chat box. Then they disappear. Appear, disappear, over and over for a full two minutes before finally a reply comes through.
CeCe: jesus uncle kev
CeCe: not to scare you, but do you have any holy water?
Andi bursts out laughing. “I love that girl, sight unseen.”
I type back see? she likes me to CeCe, toss the phone on the counter, and wrap my arms around Andi. Can’t help it. She’s right here, back in her gorgeous human persona, so warm and lovely I physically can’t not touch her.
I mean yeah, if she was just pretty, I could keep my hands off of her. But she’s so fun . So easy to be around. I might as well face the facts: my resistance plan has failed. I’m hers, mind, body, heart, and probably soul.
I nudge her chin up with my thumbs and gaze into her eyes.
She gazes back.
Here I go, breaking my own rule, but I can’t not do it. I tilt my head down slowly, slowly, and taste her. Just lightly at first, but what the hell was I thinking? That’s not going to be enough. As her arms come up around my neck, I press her against the counter and take the kiss deeper. Slide one hand into her hair, the other into her dress to cover her breast, the growl I’ve been holding back breaking free at the firm, full, heavy weight of her, at her nipple tightening against my palm, even with the cloth of her bra separating our skin.
She presses her breast deeper into my hand. Receives my growl into her sweet mouth, her lips curving up under mine, her hum of pleasure vibrating between us. Then she takes a handful of my hair, tugging my head back so we can see each other. “You know what you said the other day? About holding back from sex to try to keep yourself from falling too fast?”
“Yeahhh…” My voice sounds like sandpaper.
“It’s okay if you fall for me a little. I’m falling for you too.” Her eyes are intent. Serious. “So…here we are.”
Here we sure as hell are. There’s my growl again, and I am reaching behind her, cupping her big beautiful ass, lifting her to sit on the countertop and then stepping between her legs, letting her heat me, sliding my hands up her thick strong thighs, teasing her skin with barely controlled fingers as my teeth graze the side of her neck.
So be it. I’m not fighting this anymore. “Salazar.” I take her earlobe between my teeth and nip at it.
“Mmm?” She’s clutching my shoulders, her eyes closed.
My fingers find the flimsy lace high up on her hips—she’s going to be the death of me—and tug downward. She helps, shifting from side to side so I can pull those pretty panties off. Seems a shame to drop them on the floor, so I shove them in my back pocket.
“I’m going to kiss you here now.” I push her skirt back up and stroke my fingers through the wetness between her legs. “You got anything you want to say to that?”
“Mmm, please? Thank you?”
“Glad to see you’re not being difficult about this, at least.”
She laughs, her breath catching as I tilt her back and tuck her legs up over my shoulders.
She stops laughing when my mouth finds her. Her hand comes to the back of my head as I nibble and stroke and explore, finding all the places and touches that make her sigh and moan, letting her little pleasure sounds be my guide, her soft skin and her taste and her scent my world.