Chapter 17 — The House Was Awake
The House Was Awake
The house was awake before I was.
So was my body, technically, but only in the way a man was awake after Kiki Bishop had spent half the night making sure number thirty-five on her before-the-end-of-summer list counted hard enough to deserve its own tally mark.
She wasn't in bed anymore.
Her pillow still smelled like her. Sweet shampoo, warm skin, and the faint clean trace of whatever lotion she'd put on before climbing into my bed with that soft Kiki smile and absolutely no intention of letting me sleep at a reasonable hour.
The sheet was twisted around my hips. My back felt used.
My thighs felt worse. Every slow breath pulled a memory out of the room: Kiki's mouth at my neck, her hands in my hair, her body moving over mine with that sweet, devastating focus she brought to everything once she decided it mattered.
Coffee was running downstairs.
Of course it was.
Kiki had left the bed early to make coffee, because apparently the woman could wreck me until I forgot my own name and still wake up before the machine needed rescuing.
Other sounds let me know the house had awakened before me.
Not in the old way, where a bachelor house made noises because the ice maker hated peace or the air conditioner had developed opinions.
This was alive. Coffee running downstairs.
Bare feet on hardwood. A drawer opening, closing, opening again because someone had already decided my drawer system was a moral failure.
A low laugh from Shay. Tatum saying something too fast to be understood by anyone but maybe Tatum.
Kiki's soft voice answering her from the kitchen with the kind of patience that could make a man believe in organized civilization.
Eden was in there too.
That still hit.
Not because she was new. Not anymore. After Casino Night, after the black dress on my floor and Eden in my bed with her body wrapped around mine like she had been afraid to let go and then decided fear could go to hell, she wasn't the last woman waiting outside the circle.
She was in it. Fully. Loudly, in her own Eden way, which meant controlled until the exact second she chose not to be.
I lay there for a minute and let the sound of all six of them move through the house.
Then I got up.
By the time I made it downstairs, my kitchen had become a functioning ecosystem operated by women who had never once asked whether they were allowed to improve it.
Coffee sat in the pot. A grocery bag slumped open on the island.
A wet towel hung over the back of one chair.
A pair of sandals waited by the sliding door.
Someone had put a bowl of strawberries in the middle of the island like the house needed staging.
Kiki stood at the coffee maker in a loose tank top cut so wide at the sides that every small reach flashed the curve of her bare breast, golden hair twisted up with a pencil she had apparently found somewhere and weaponized into a hair accessory.
She was doing something to the machine that looked affectionate and corrective.
"Morning, baby," she said, and handed me a mug.
I took a sip.
It was perfect.
"You moved the filters," I said.
"I rescued the filters."
"They were fine."
Kiki looked at me with the sweet, devastating pity of a woman who loved me and had seen the cabinet where I kept protein powder, coffee filters, batteries, and one orphaned screwdriver in the same basket.
"Baby," she said, "they were living under a jar of trail mix from 2021."
"It was unopened."
"That's not the defense you think it's."
She rose on her toes and kissed my jaw. It was quick. Domestic. Casual. That was why it hit so deep. Kiki kissed me in my kitchen like my face was part of her morning now, like she didn't need a reason or a locked door or a promise of privacy.
I turned toward the toaster and stopped.
Shay's bikini top was hanging from the handle.
Red. Tiny. Gold hardware. Completely inappropriate for a toaster and somehow displayed with the authority of an installation piece.
"Shay."
"I know," she said from the island.
She was draped across one of the stools in sleep shorts and a tank top, dark hair wild, spoon in one hand, bowl of cereal in front of her, and a small ceramic frog facing the stove like it had been hired for security.
"Your bikini top is on the toaster."
"It was wet."
"That's not where wet things go."
She looked at the toaster, then at me, then at the frog. "The frog approved it."
"The frog doesn't get a vote."
"The frog represents the people."
Kiki made a sound into her coffee mug.
I lifted the bikini top by one strap and moved it to the dish rack.
Shay watched me do it with the bright satisfaction of a woman who had caused a problem and then supervised the solution.
"Better," she said.
"Glad the committee is satisfied."
"Don't get cocky. We're still evaluating your towel policy."
That was when Tatum appeared from the back porch with damp copper hair, a swimsuit under cutoffs, and a piece of cinnamon bread in each hand. She moved fast enough that the air around her seemed to make decisions after she had already passed.
"Luke," she said. "Emergency."
"Why are emergencies always carbs with you?"
"Because I know what matters."
She broke off a piece and held it up to my mouth. I opened my mouth because I wasn't an idiot. The bread was warm, sweet, and gone in two bites, and Tatum used the moment to step between my knees where I leaned against the counter.
Her bare thigh brushed mine.
Her smile went sunny and wicked at the same time.
"See?" she said. "Emergency handled."
"You fed me bread."
"And improved morale." She put one hand on my shoulder, hopped onto the counter beside me, and leaned her head against my arm as if the counter had been installed for that exact maneuver. "Also, you look good in morning."
"In morning?"
"The whole category."
"That's not grammar."
"That's desire, Luke. Keep up."
Penny came down the stairs in a white cover-up with her platinum hair twisted into a clip and a notepad in her hand. Of course she had a notepad. Penny Rourke could turn breakfast into infrastructure by the time most people found the spoons.
She paused at the edge of the kitchen, took in the towel, the grocery bag, the frog, the toaster bikini now drying on the rack, and Tatum on the counter with cinnamon sugar on her thumb.
"We need more towels," Penny said.
"Good morning to you too."
"It's a good morning. That's why we need towels that behave like adults." She set the notepad on the island. "The fluffy ones are decorative. The absorbent ones are functional. We need both, and no, those aren't the same thing."
"I feel like this is a test."
"It's."
"Then I pick whichever ones you want."
Penny smiled.
"Smart."
She passed behind me to reach the fridge, close enough that her hip brushed my ass with exactly enough pressure to be accidental if anyone wanted to lie. Her fingers touched the small of my back as she leaned past me, and I felt it under my skin.
No one commented.
No one had to.
Reese stood near the photo wall in the hall, wearing soft shorts and one of my old summer sweatshirts, sleeves pushed up, honey-brown hair loose over one shoulder.
She had one hand on the edge of a frame.
Not moving it. Just touching it. The photo was from years ago, all of them younger, the lake too bright behind us, my arm around Reese because back then I could pretend that meant nothing.
She looked over when she felt me watching.
Her smile was small and warm.
It said: I remember.
It said: I'm here now.
It said: this wall didn't turn us into family. It finally admitted what we were.
I couldn't answer that with words, so I lifted my mug toward her.
She lifted hers back.
Then Eden came in from her bedroom wearing the linen shirt I had been looking for since Tuesday.
Nothing under it that I could see. The hem hit high on her thighs, and the top three buttons were open, showing skin, shadow, and the kind of confidence that made my brain briefly give up on useful work.
She had my sunglasses pushed into her hair.
She also had my coffee travel mug.
"That's my shirt," I said.
"It was in my room."
"Your room?"
"Our house, your room, my shirt. Keep up."
Tatum pointed at me with cinnamon bread. "I told you. Morning category."
Eden slid close, one hand finding my hip as she reached past me for a strawberry. Her fingers stayed there a second too long. Her mouth curved like she knew exactly what that did to me and had no plans to apologize.
"You look overwhelmed," Eden said.
"I live with a frog now."
"The frog is stabilizing."
I looked around the kitchen again.
Kiki at the coffee maker practically topless wearing that tank top.
Shay's bikini top on the dish rack and her frog monitoring the stove.
Tatum on my counter with cinnamon sugar on her lips and her thigh against mine.
Penny's notepad, already turning my house into something more efficient and more visible.
Reese touching the photo wall like the house had finally learned how to tell the truth.
Eden in my shirt, my sunglasses, my space, no longer waiting for anything.
The house didn't feel invaded.
It felt claimed.
There were towels where towels didn't go, coffee made better than I made it, food I hadn't bought, hair ties on the windowsill, sandals by the door, six women moving through rooms like the rooms had been holding their breath for years and could finally exhale.
It wasn't six separate secrets.
It wasn't a rotation.
It wasn't a problem I was trying to solve.
It was home.
And home, apparently, needed more towels.
***
By afternoon, the house had moved outside.
That was the only way to describe it. The kitchen, the bedrooms, the photo wall, the towels, the food, the voices, the heat of all six women in my space, all of it spilled through the sliding doors and across the patio and into the pool until the backyard looked less like mine and more like a summer religion with better swimwear.