Chapter 16 Nap Time
NAP TIME
BANKS
After I grab coffees for both of us, we snag a table in the back in a quiet nook, away from morning crowds. She lifts her cup and takes a sip, her eyes going thoughtful, her tone open. “I didn’t think you’d be such a yoga pro.”
“I’ve done it for a few years now,” I say.
“So I gathered from your upside-downward-dog-snake-in-the-chair pose.”
I smile as I lift my cup. “Wait till you see my crow pose.”
“I don’t even want to know what that is,” she says, stretching her neck from side to side, something she did yesterday at the farm. “Unless it can make my neck not hurt.”
“Probably not. It’s just an arm balance thing,” I say.
“And I’m guessing like the yoga, and sensing my whereabouts at any second of the day, it’s just another thing you can do obscenely well?”
“Glad you’ve noticed some of my skills.”
She sets her chin in her hand. “What are you not good at?”
Relaxing. Letting go. Unwinding.
I smirk. “Not much really.” But since she asked the question not with sarcasm but real interest, I try to answer her in kind. “Except…communication.” I offer a sympathetic smile.
She gives me one in return—a forgiving one, and I’m damn grateful for that.
“It’s all good, Banks,” she says, then takes another sip of her coffee, her guard still down as she says, “I guess it was obvious it was my first yoga class?”
I’m a little surprised she relented and admitted something that’s hard for her. But it’s a good surprise. I hold up my thumb and forefinger. “Just a little.” Because it was hard for her, the last thing I want is for her to feel embarrassed or foolish. “But you did great. Seriously.”
She scoffs. “I barely could figure out the poses. I was twenty steps behind. Honestly, I was just making it up most of the time.”
I lift my cup in a toast to her. “Even so, you burst into an intermediate class guns blazing and didn’t fall on your ass. That’s impressive.”
“Or stupid,” she says, and hell, this is cute too—this self-deprecating side of her, this forthright side.
“Sometimes they’re the same,” I say with a shrug.
She sighs, like she’s letting go of the running act she tried to pull this morning. “Look, I don’t love being…babysat,” she says, but it’s not a sassy retort. It’s more a quiet admission.
“I know,” I say gently. She’s not my first client who didn’t want close protection.
“And I get it’s for my own good and everything,” she says. “It’s just…hard for me.”
I flash back to her comments the night we met—feeling overwhelmed but wanting something badly too. Then to what Tabitha told me in earlier calls—the sister was taking on a lot of work prepping the farm. Finally, to what Lila said last night—Ripley doesn’t stop.
“You’re used to calling the shots,” I say, hoping to understand her reticence better. The more I understand her, the better the job I can do. At least that’s what I tell myself as I get to know her better.
“Yes.”
“Now, you feel like I call the shots?”
She gives me a look. “Well, you are, Banks.”
“You don’t like that? Someone else being in control?” I ask.
She’s quiet for a long beat, and in those breath-held seconds, as her eyes lock with mine, it’s like she’s saying she’d want that in other ways.
Maybe in bed.
Or could be that’s my hopeful imagination. My dirty wishes. Since she’d look fantastic taking orders. I’d love to give them to her. To tell her to clasp her wrists behind her back so I could tie them together.
She meets my eyes. “Not in my daily life,” she says, and I hear a distinction. Perhaps she likes it at nighttime. Maybe. “So I’m just struggling.”
Before I can think the better of it, I say, “That makes two of us.”
Her brow knits, like she’s replaying the words I just said, till she finds the meaning—it’s a struggle for me to work with you when I want you. But maybe that’s expecting her to read too much into something.
With a heavy sigh, she says, “I just feel I need to take care of everyone and everything. The farm, my employees, Grandma, my sister, and her dreams… I want to be able to still do that while you’re…”
“By your side every day?”
“More like every second,” she says.
“I don’t want to get in the way. And I noticed you like that—taking care of everything,” I say, but I do wonder…who takes care of her?
“I do,” she says with a crisp nod, then takes a long swallow of her coffee. “I like to.” There’s a pause. “Maybe I need to. And I want the freedom to keep doing that.”
“I hear you. I want you to have that freedom too, but I also want you to understand that your life is going to be a little more complicated for the next few weeks,” I say, leaning forward. “Your photo did show up this morning.”
Nerves flash in her eyes. “It did?”
I take my phone from my pocket to show her. There’s the shot of her on the street, and a caption that says, “Haven Addison’s in town early just like Chris Carlisle. Is there a secret meet-up in the script in Darling Springs? We’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”
Ripley winces. Then shudders. “That’s…kind of gross. They don’t care if they took my pic or Haven’s.”
“Exactly. They just wanted the clicks. They’ll get in your face for them.
Possibly they’ll figure out you’re Ripley and your sister’s Haven, but from a distance, when they’re chasing that supposed first-kiss shot of Carlisle and his alleged new girlfriend, they won’t care.
They’ll shoot first and ask questions later. ”
Her gaze is serious as she nods in understanding. “I get it.”
“But I heard you yesterday. You want to run your business and go about your life as best you can,” I add, speaking with total sincerity.
She asked me to give her space, but we were both still worked up during that conversation.
I want her to know I listened to her then, and I’m definitely listening to her now.
And I want to prove myself to her. “Let me show you today that you can still do that with me around.”
She lifts a doubtful brow. “Yeah?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Okay then.” She extends a hand across the table to shake. I take it, and when I let go, she reaches a hand behind her neck and rubs. “My neck is both stiffer and looser at the same time. How is that possible after yoga?”
“Yoga makes us move our bodies in different ways than we’re used to,” I say, then try to focus on the positive. “You seemed like you enjoyed the end of the class though?”
“Yes. Can I just do the slowing down part?” she asks with a spark in her voice, and there’s that flirty, fun side from the night I met her. “I’d like to go to a class where someone tells me to lie down on a mat, and close my eyes, and then bam, I’m asleep.”
That sounds awful to me, but I do like that she’s talking to me rather than running from me. “So basically, nap time?”
“Yes. I would like a nap class.”
“Do they have those, too, at the community center? Pole dancing and nap classes?”
“A girl can dream,” she says.
I shudder.
She points at me like she’s caught me on a technicality. “Ah, so you don’t like pole dancing.”
“Actually, you have me there. I probably suck at pole dancing. Never done it before, but I’m pretty sure I cannot rock a pole,” I say.
She thrusts her arms in the air. “And he is human after all.” After she takes a victorious sip of her coffee, her brow furrows, like she’s clearly rewinding something in her head.
“Wait. You shuddered when I mentioned naps and pole dancing, but you never did pole dancing. Banks,” she says, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, “do you hate naps?”
“With a deep and ferocious passion.”
She looks at me like I’m nuts. “Who are you? A robot? Wait. I might believe that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Of course you would,” she says, rolling her eyes, but more playfully this time. Then, she holds up a wait a second finger. “Did you not even do the sleepy pose?”
“Shavasana,” I supply.
“I saw you didn’t close your eyes.”
“You were checking me out,” I say, deflecting.
“Is there room in the shop for you and your ego?”
I look around the café. “We both seem to fit comfortably. Now tell me more about how you were keeping an eye on me during sleepy pose?”
“Banks,” she chides, and it’s clear she’s trying to understand me rather than trip me up. “You really don’t like napping?”
Ah, hell. She opened up to me. The least I can do is give her some of the same. I relent. “I…don’t like relaxing.”
She flinches, like that does not compute. “That’s like not liking sunshine. Or music. Or a night out with friends.”
“I like all of the above.”
“But not relaxing?”
No, because what if that leads to napping at other times?
Like on the job? No way. I won’t leave my charges unprotected while I’m on shift, so I won’t risk napping.
Shavasana is something I don’t do. “I don’t sleep on planes.
Or buses. Or park benches. Or yoga studios.
I like…control,” I admit, then pick up a paper menu on the table listing the coffee drinks.
“But in the Marines—you were in the Marines, right?”
“Yes.” I furrow my brow, folding it into a triangle. “How did you know? Did Lila tell you?”
She laughs, shaking her head. “Just something Haven said, but even if she hadn’t, I’d have guessed. Just like you guessed I’d try to ditch you on two wheels.”
Damn. She’s good. “Impressive.”
“So when you were in the Marines, you probably had to sleep anywhere?”
After I fold the bottom right of the paper to the top, I stop and lift a finger. “I can sleep anywhere. Now that I don’t have to—I choose not to.”
“Huh.”
I brace myself for a barb as I flip the paper over. That’s what we do, after all, this woman and me. We fire sarcasm-dipped arrows at each other. But Ripley is surprisingly quiet, thoughtful even, as she nods. “I can see that—for someone who likes control, that pose would be hard.”
“Yes. Exactly,” I say.
“Is that why you do origami too? Control?”