26. Solomon
TWENTY-SIX
SOLOMON
The day after the concert, I wake up to Cecelia in my bed. I don’t remember how we got home, but I’m not complaining. Not when I can pull her warm, sleepy body close to me and bury my face in her hair.
“Morning,” she mumbles into my chest.
“Morning.” I kiss the top of her head. “Please tell me Jay isn’t sleeping on my couch.”
She laughs. “Nope. We dropped him back at his place before we came here.”
“Did Em get home okay?” I feel like a jerk for getting so out of it that I don’t remember what happened to her.
But it had been such a stressful night. I’m not usually someone who parties a lot—a couple beers tend to be my limit.
But when Silas pulled out a joint and Jay gently cajoled me into joining them, I had barely hesitated.
The prospect of getting out of my head was way too tempting.
But I should have kept it together enough to check on Em, and guilt rushes through me.
“Jay was texting her as we left,” Cecelia tells me, and I feel relieved when the vague memory of their conversation seeps in—I had known she was okay after all.
Other things are coming back to me, though a lot of the night feels foggy still.
Meeting Cecelia’s parents. The way her oldest brothers had looked at me like I was dirt who didn’t deserve to be in the same vicinity as their sister.
Feeling so sappy about Cecelia when she came back over to find me at the end of the night.
“I probably said lots of embarrassing things,” I mutter, and she laughs softly.
“You were very sweet.”
I groan. “Sweet doesn’t mean not embarrassing.”
She presses a kiss against my chest but doesn’t respond.
I have no idea if I should take that as proof that I was embarrassing after all.
Before I can press her on it, she sits up and stretches.
I’m momentarily speechless at the sight of her.
She’s wearing one of my old high school soccer team t-shirts and something about that makes my mouth go dry.
It’s way oversized on her, so it doesn’t show off her shape, but I don’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful to me than she does right now, make-up free, hair tousled around her shoulders, wearing my shirt in my bed.
“Come back,” I grunt as she moves to swing her legs over the edge of the mattress. I grab her arm and pull her back to me. “Stay here.”
She grins, reaching over to take my glasses off the nightstand and placing them carefully on my face. I’ve been wearing them more often since San Jose, now that I know how she feels about them, especially when it’s just the two of us, alone at home together like this.
She kisses my cheek. “I need coffee.”
Coffee does sound pretty good. My mouth is dry and I still feel foggy—probably from the weed. Still, I would rather keep her here in my bed than face the day.
“Hurry up,” she says, smacking my hip. “I’ll let you make me breakfast.”
“Oh, you’ll let me, huh?”
She gives me a cheeky grin over her shoulder as she gets up and yup, I’d be damn lucky to make this woman breakfast for the rest of my life if she’d let me.
Cecelia gets the coffee going then cuts up fruit while I fry us a few eggs and prep an avocado for our toast. She directs the smart speaker in my kitchen to play classic rock while we work.
It all feels way better than it probably should, this simple act of making breakfast with her in my kitchen.
But there’s literally nowhere else I’d rather be.
So, when we bring our plates over to the beat-up dining table, I pull her into my lap.
She settles there without complaint and I eat my breakfast one handed so I can keep the other firmly banded around her waist.
We don’t talk much, letting the music make up most of the noise.
Sometimes I wonder if that bothers her, how much quieter life tends to be with me than the rest of her family and friends.
But she seems so relaxed right now, her body lose against mine, and I can actually believe that she gets something out of these quiet moments, the same way I do.
“Do you have stuff you have to do today?” I ask once we’re finished eating, already hating the idea of her going home.
“I should probably get a run in later,” she says, settling back against my chest. “Other than that, I’m all yours.”
I grin against her hair, loving her quiet assumption that we’ll be spending the rest of our day together. “I’ll go for a run with you whenever,” I tell her.
She grabs my other hand and pulls it around her, too, so she’s wrapped up in my arms. “I think we should be lazy,” she says. “Last night was kind of a lot, and it’s going to be a busy week coming up.”
“That’s true.” I have a paper due on Wednesday and I know she has a history exam she’s been worried about. Plus, there are two games on the schedule, both of them conference match-ups. Matches have been intensifying the last few weeks as we get closer to the end of the regular season.
My hand drifts down to her knee. “You still feeling good?”
“Better than ever,” she says, turning enough to kiss the side of my jaw. “Thanks to my amazing trainer.”
“See,” I say. “You should always listen to me.”
She laughs, the sound a sweet whisper over my lips. “And what would your instructions be for me now, Mr. Always Right?”
“My instructions would be that we should go back to bed,” I say, voice gruff, kissing down along the side of her face.
“I thought we said we were going to be lazy,” she argues. “That doesn’t sound very lazy.”
“You can be lazy,” I say. “I’ll do all the work.” I stand with her in my arms. She lets out a little yelp that turns into a laugh as I stride down the hall to my bedroom, and I swear I’ve never felt so entirely happy in my life.
It’s a perfect day. We make love in my bed, and then again in the shower.
Later, we watch an English Premier c match all tangled up together on my couch, and argue about whether American sports leagues should introduce a relegation system.
Eventually she starts begging me to order a pizza and I try to act like her trainer and remind her about her meal plan, which we both know is bullshit.
Of course I’m going to order her whatever she wants.
It probably shouldn’t surprise me that my father chooses that afternoon to call and fuck with my good mood.
I ignore the call, like I always do, only for him to call back immediately.
This time I pick up my phone and shoot off a message to my grandfather, asking him to please check and make sure there’s not some emergency so I don’t have to pick up my phone. He texts back five minutes later.
Talked to your dad, no emergency. He’d like to speak with you, but I told him you were busy with school.
I send Red a quick thanks in response. I should probably feel stupid, asking my grandfather to run interference for me, but I know if I try to talk to either of my parents, it will do more than ruin my day.
“Hey,” Cecelia says, her voice soft, and I look up to see her studying my face. I realize that I’ve been grimacing since the first unanswered call, and force my expression to relax. “Everything okay?” she asks.
I’m about to blow it off, but she takes my hand and something about the warm pressure of her palm against mine makes the lie stick in my throat.
“My dad has been calling,” I tell her. “I try not to talk to either of my parents unless I absolutely have to, so I asked my grandfather to check and make sure there wasn’t some emergency.” My smile turns self-deprecating. “I’m a chicken, I know.”
She scowls. “Don’t say that.” She looks so fierce, so pissed off on my behalf, that my forced smile becomes real.
“My grandfather is great,” I say instead. “I’m lucky to have him.”
She squeezes my hand, the fierce expression not lessening in the slightest. “I’m glad.” There’s a bit of silence before she speaks again, her voice more tentative. “You can talk to me about them, you know. Your parents. If you think it might help.”
I let out a long breath. Would it help? When I’m with Cecelia, it’s easy to pretend that none of the shit in my life exists.
But there’s always going to be something—a chance encounter with my mom in some random hotel, unanswered calls from my dad, loud parties and sticky punch soaking into my clothes.
How long can I try to pretend with her that nothing is wrong?
“I don’t have a good relationship with my parents,” I finally say.
Understatement of the fucking century. “They never had a lot of patience for me. They um, they’re kind of high profile in the business community in San Diego.
It didn’t work out too well for them having a kid that always froze up around crowds or said the wrong thing around their VIP colleagues.
” I shrug like it’s no big deal. “They sent me to live with my grandpa when I was fifteen. Things got a lot better for me after that.”
“Hang on.” She sits up fully, staring at me. “They sent you to live with your grandpa? Because…what? You didn’t like to go to their work events?”
It wasn’t just work events. It was their whole life.
Their careers were the only thing that mattered to them.
Even their so-called down time was all about networking.
Having a kid who couldn’t even manage to make small talk was a fucking nightmare for them.
And they made sure to demonstrate their displeasure every single day of my life until I finally got out of there.
But there’s no way I’m telling her about that.
“My personality wasn’t a good fit for them,” I say instead.
She shakes her head, looking pissed off and sad in equal measures.
I don’t like the idea of her being sad for me.
I don’t like that she’s upset at all, not when we’d been having such a nice day.
I pull her back against my chest and lay down once more.
“Seriously. It was better for me once I went to the ranch.”