Chapter Eight #2
“Yeah. I was the one who cleaned up and did laundry and got myself and my brother up for school in the morning. Made our lunches. Helped him with homework. Took on a lot of my mom’s emotional burden. She wasn’t a bad mom. Just an immature one who didn’t know what she was doing.”
“That’s too much for a kid.”
I shrugged at that.
It probably was.
But it was all I knew.
“I got breaks when we were with my grandparents in the summer.”
“Where?”
“In Shady Valley. I grew up in San Bernardino.”
“Different world from Shady Valley.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“What’d your mom do?”
“She worked for an accountant.”
“No shit. That how you got the idea?”
“Yeah. Her boss was this badass woman who had all the finest things in life. Sometimes, when school was closed, my mom would bring us to work with her. And her boss would talk to me about accounting, colleges, and career trajectories. I was good with numbers. When I was old enough, she let me intern. Then helped me apply to colleges.”
“So, instead of going to basement parties, getting wasted, and playing spin-the-bottle with kids your own age, you spent your teens interning and planning your future.”
“To be fair, basement parties sounded as appealing to me then as they do now.”
“So, when was the last time you swung on a swing?”
“I don’t remember,” I admitted. I had some vague memories of it, but they were blurry around the edges.
“Well, tomorrow you can say ‘yesterday,’ then,” he said, pushing off the ground and pumping his legs.
Right.
That was how you did it.
Taking my cue from him, I pushed off, pumped, and then leaned back.
I wasn’t prepared for the free-fall sensation in my stomach—an intoxicating thing that made me pump my legs harder, then lean further back to feel it more intensely.
I couldn’t tell you how long we did that—swinging like little kids—but I can say that it was the most free and light I’d felt in a really long time.
Eventually, though, my growling stomach had me slowing down, then moving to stand.
“Weird being on your feet again, huh?”
“Kind of like stepping off a treadmill after a long time,” I agreed, following him on awkward legs back to the table.
There we ate and talked mostly about Raff’s other adventures on the road.
Which included being tattooed by a seventeen-year-old son of a tattoo shop owner, accidentally stumbling into a women’s-only wellness retreat, and joining a spicy book club when he’d been stranded in a town for a few weeks because the car needed some serious work.
After that, we cleaned up and made our way back to our rooms, where I finally decided to climb into the cold tub water, washing away the sweat and sand from all day in the high-desert.
I was still in said tub when I heard Raff in my room.
“Knock knock.”
“Out here,” I called back.
His mouth opened like he was about to say something when he stepped into the doorway, but a sigh escaped him instead as he looked at me.
Turning back, he set whatever was in his hands down, then reached for his phone instead. “Trust me, you’re gonna want this,” he assured me, taking a few pictures before tucking his phone away.
When he came back, he had a towel and two steaming cups.
“Hot chocolate,” he told me. “Made with water, not milk. We’re gonna look at the stars.”
“Oh, are we?” I asked, but I was already climbing out of the tub.
The lazy smile on Raff’s mouth dropped as he fell back against the wall and let out a small “fuck.”
Sure, he’d seen me in the suit before.
But the water was cold, the material was thin, and there were no weird-ass lizards to distract him this time.
His gaze went hooded as his breathing quickened and went shallow.
I’m not proud of the fact that I took an exaggeratedly deep breath and enjoyed watching the way his gaze lasered in on my chest.
He closed his eyes, shook his head, then pushed off the wall to walk toward me with the towel spread open.
“I’m gonna need you to put this on,” he said, his voice taking on a gravelly edge. “Because it would be embarrassing as fuck to come in my pants at my big age.”
A surprised laugh burst out of me but was short-lived as Raff’s arms went around me and tucked the towel at the side of one of my breasts.
I could only be thankful that the shiver that moved through me was internal.
With that, he grabbed the hot chocolate mugs, moved over to the stargazing bed, and tapped the space beside him.
I was exhausted, but so far, Raff hadn’t led me wrong when it came to experiences, so I dropped down beside him, took my mug, and sipped as he used a remote to cut the lights on the patio, blanketing us in darkness—save for the stars.
“Wow,” I said, taking a deep breath and letting it go.
“Shady Valley is home. But there is something to be said for experiencing everything else too.”
“I don’t think I’ve let myself slow down and really take in beauty as much as I should.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “Every day in the mirror.”
“That was cheesy.” But I was charmed.
We sat sipping our hot chocolate as I became increasingly amazed by how not quiet the desert was at night.
It wasn’t just the wind whistling through the sagebrush, the occasional hoot of an owl, or the yips of coyote pups, but this strange popping noise I couldn’t place.
“What is that?” I asked as Raff placed our empty cups on the ground and moved to lie flat, patting the space beside him.
“What’s what?” he asked.
I moved down beside him, our bodies brushing from shoulder to ankle, and I was suddenly acutely aware of every inch of him.
“That popping sound.” I was going to pretend I didn’t hear the way my voice went a little airy.
“The temperature dropped. The rocks expand and contract with it. They make popping or cracking sounds.”
“Interesting.” Almost as interesting as the way my heart was hammering in my chest. And every cell in my body wanted me to turn onto my side, to climb over him, to—
No.
Nope.
I wasn’t letting my mind go there.
So, instead, I listened to Raff and followed his finger as it traced constellations in the sky.
Eventually, a lifetime of working too hard caught up with me, and I passed out.