Chapter 23 #2
She pulled the glass closer and curled her fingers gracefully around the stem.
Then she lifted it, sitting down on the stool across from me.
“I don’t know if it ever stops being a thing.
Obviously, it’s worse when they’re babies, but kids tend to wake up sometimes during the night anyway.
They should be okay, though. They’re exhausted after today. ”
I nodded slowly, taking a sip of my wine before I sat down too. “I suppose you couldn’t let them know where you’d be sleeping because you didn’t know either. I’m sorry. I should’ve thought about that.”
She smiled. “You can’t think of everything, Zach. As it is, you’ve thought of way more than anyone else would’ve.”
I shrugged. “Just doing what needs to be done.”
She gave me a look across the counter, and it dawned on me then that we were alone. Really alone. The girls were asleep upstairs. Amber was in the guest house. Even Bear had retired for the night.
Memories of the last time we’d been alone at this time of night crashed into me like a wave. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but there was no stopping it. I’d been crazy for this girl back then. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically.
I hadn’t been able to keep my hands off her. Okay, so maybe I would’ve been able to if I tried, but I didn’t.
That same tension was suddenly brewing between us again now, that insane electricity I’d never felt with anyone else. It was weird that it was still as familiar as it was, but it was very much there, alive and well as those blue eyes held mine like she was remembering all the same things.
Her nails digging into my shoulders. Those soft, needy little moans interspersed between gasps of my name. That furrow between her eyebrows when she came.
Snap the fuck out of it.
I blinked hard and refocused. It was time to tell her goodnight. That would be the normal, responsible thing to do. It was better than letting unresolved feelings stalk me through a house in rural Wisconsin, anyway.
“Goodnight, Adeline.”
See? Simple.
Except she reached for her wine glass at the exact moment I reached for the last pizza box still sitting on the counter, and somehow, her elbow clipped the stem. The glass tipped and white wine splashed against the island, both of us lunging for it simultaneously.
Our heads nearly collided, and her hand hit mine reaching for the dish towel.
Suddenly, we were way too close again, her lips only inches away from mine.
My eyes dropped of their own accord, tracing the soft lines of her mouth for just a fraction of a second before I finally forced myself to grab the towel.
She tried to wipe the spill with a napkin that disintegrated in her hand as soon as it got wet. “Gosh, this really isn’t helping.”
“Paper products usually don’t win against liquids,” I teased lightly, hoping that if we just ignored this tension, it would go away, but it didn’t.
Soft laughter bubbled out of her like a fucking fountain I wanted to jump into. “I panicked.”
“I can see that.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for commentary.”
I laughed and reached farther across the counter just as she leaned the same direction.
She must have slipped a little or something, because the next thing I knew, she was falling toward me.
Instinct took over before I’d even considered what I was about to do and I caught her by the waist. Everything in me instantly ground to a hard stop the second she was in my arms.
It was intimate, a touch I still knew so well despite how long it had been. I knew the shape of her beneath my hands and the warmth of her body. I knew the soft gasp she sucked in when I pulled her against me.
It was all so terrifyingly familiar. Her eyes lifted to mine, still so devastating that she destroyed my entire nervous system with just one look.
The moment I’d steadied her, I cleared my throat and stepped back, forcing my hands to let go before I did something stupid. “We should go to bed. It’s been a long day and a long few weeks before that.”
She blinked a few times, like she was coming back to herself too. “You’re right.”
Neither of us moved immediately, though. A few long seconds stretched between us before she finally nodded and picked up what was left of her wine. “I’ll just finish this in my room. Goodnight, Zach.”
“Night.”
I watched her disappear upstairs, but it took me a solid thirty seconds before I could move too. After cleaning up the rest of the spill, I headed upstairs myself, but as soon as I got into bed, my brain betrayed me.
Memories could be cruel and the feeling of her waist beneath my hands replayed in a loop. As did the look she’d had in her eyes. The more I tried to stop thinking about it, the more insistent the memories became, not only of that incident downstairs but also further back.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, painfully aware of an issue developing south of the border as I remembered hot, sweaty summer nights and all the things we’d done together.
Groaning quietly into my pillow, I kept my hands above the sheets to resist temptation while my mind started a targeted psychological attack.
Eventually, I fell asleep, but I even dreamed about her writhing underneath me. By five the next morning, I was up and out of bed. Dawn painted the world outside in pale gold and I checked my phone, the forecast promising another brutally hot day.
Which means I’m going to have to get ahead of it if I want to squeeze in a run.
Frankly, it wasn’t even just a want at this point. It was a need. I needed to blow off some of this steam before spending a whole day with her and running was the only way I knew how. So I changed and headed downstairs, grabbing a banana for breakfast.
While I ate, I leaned against the kitchen island, scrolling absently through my running app and trying not to think about the fact Adeline was sleeping only one floor above me.
A tiny voice spoke up from the doorway. “You chew loud.”
I nearly launched the banana across the room, turning sharply to see Lu glaring at me. Holy shit. “How long have you been standing there?”
She shrugged. “Not long.”
“You scared the hell out of me.”
Her eyebrows hiked up, her expression unimpressed. “You said a bad word.”
“I said hell.”
“You still owe me twenty dollars,” she said, matter of fact. “If that deal you made with your brother still counts, and it won’t be fair if it doesn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly in thought, but she narrowed hers right back in challenge. I sighed. “Fine. I owe you twenty dollars. What are you doing awake this early?”
She crossed her arms, not moving from where she’d parked herself in the doorway. “What are you doing awake?”
“I’m going for a run before it gets too hot,” I said, hoping honesty would inspire the same thing in her. “Your turn.”
“I woke up.”
“Yeah, so did I, but why did you wake up so early? Don’t you want to sleep in a bit?”
She gave me another shrug, and in that moment, I realized that this kid was going to be my downfall.
We stared at each other across the kitchen in complete silence, both openly assessing the other, and it suddenly hit me that my relationship with Adeline wasn’t going to be the most complicated part of this arrangement.
Forging some kind of mutual friendship despite our history was going to be the least of my problems. The greatest challenge was going to be Lu.
Yeah, I need to do something about this. I blew out a breath, wracking my brain for a way to get this child to at least tolerate me. That would be a good start.
“Your scooter is still in the back of the Rolls,” I said when I remembered seeing it there. “Do you want to ride it with me while I run?”
Naturally, the suggestion was met with instant suspicion. “I’m faster than you.”
I snorted softly. “Do you want to bet? Twenty dollars?”
She arched one tiny eyebrow, still glaring at me with a genuinely impressive amount of hostility for someone wearing strawberry-print pajamas. Then she suddenly turned toward the stairs. “I’m going to put my shoes on.”
Okay. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all.