Chapter 11 #4
“That’s because you have no idea how much more amazing I am in bed without the cast.”
“I can’t wait to find out.” He was on his back, eyes on his screen, double-thumbing texts to Jordy.
Settling back down, she tucked her head into his shoulder, her good hand on his chest. The way her palm fit just so against his breastbone made her sigh, releasing layers of tension she didn’t know were still in her.
“Is this real?”
Moore set his phone down, then picked up the covers, looking under them at their entwined, naked bodies. “Sure looks like it.”
“COLLEEN!”
They both jolted at the sound of Kell’s bellowing voice outside. Colleen’s little yelp of surprise made Sandwich hiss, something tipping over in the bathroom. The cat shot across the room and under the dresser.
“The joy of living so close to my family,” she muttered.
“I live above the shop,” he said with sympathy. “I get it.”
“Why did I leave my nice, cozy, private little place to move here?” she grumbled, covering her head with the sheet. “If I hide here, he won’t find me, right?”
“HEY! COLLEEN? You have more primer? I ran out in the lodge office.”
With one eye peeking out, she saw Kell outside. Within seconds, he was banging on her front door.
Then her phone buzzed with a text.
Freezing in place, she shushed Moore, who looked like he was about to say something. With wide eyes, she made a series of nonverbal gestures and facial expressions designed to get him to be quiet.
He ducked under the covers, planting kisses along her collarbone.
Then her breast bone.
Her navel.
Her–
The gasp she let out turned into a moan she had to suppress as Kell knocked one more time, made an exasperated sound, and finally stomped off. Threading her fingers through Moore’s hair, she–
“COLLEEN!”
Moore made his own frustrated sound.
Both their phones buzzed, the cat knocked something else over in the kitchen, and the Discord notification system on her computer dinged.
“The universe is telling us something.”
“Yeah. Family and technology suck.”
Laughter shook the bed, Moore’s body above her now, his kiss soft and sensual. While she normally adored her family, living this new life with all of them right here took some getting used to.
Especially when she was keeping a secret.
“We can’t keep hiding this,” she said, Moore suspended over her, looking down with a complicated expression that mirrored her own complex feelings.
“Agreed.”
“And yet, once we tell people, they’ll give us so much flak.”
“Flak up to our eyeballs.”
“And then there’s Luke, acting all weird.”
Moore’s head dipped down, mouth kissing her nipple. He rolled onto his side and cuddled up to her.
“I know why he’s being a jerk.”
“Because he’s Luke. Duh.”
“No. Because I–because he made me promise not to date you. Years and years ago.”
“He what?”
“Yeah. When I was fourteen.”
“And you said yes?”
“I was fourteen! I never imagined I had a chance with you. And he was so weird about it.”
“Luke’s always been weird.”
“This was extra weird.”
“You’re telling me my stupid little brother made you promise you wouldn’t make a move on me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You can’t tell him I told you. And I’m sorry. I should have said something. Should have made a move anyway. It’s my fault we wasted all those years.”
Guilt decided to pick a chord inside her and start strumming a melody.
“If I hadn’t let Luke get in my head like that, who knows?” he mused.
“It sure explains why he was so angry at the cabin. And the Love Committee meeting.”
“Yeah.”
“Immature, though.”
“He’s got a stick up him about this. And I shouldn’t have let it affect me like that. We’re both grown-ups. Whatever people said to us in our youth shouldn’t have so much power.”
That acoustic chord had turned into a heavy metal electric guitar solo.
“Uh, Moore?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not just you and Luke.”
“Luke said something to you to keep you away from me?”
“Not Luke. Cammie.” Hating the sound of her name in the heady, sex-filled air, she said it nonetheless. If they were going to confess old truths to each other, she had to come clean, too.
“Cammie? What do you mean, Cammie?”
“Cammie told me to stay away from you.”
“She WHAT?”
“Shhh. Kell might hear you.”
“I don’t care!” Moore sat up, shoving both hands through his hair, giving her a look that was so raw, so immediate. As his mouth tensed, his forehead muscles pulled back, anger dominating his handsome face. “Cammie told you to stay away from me?”
“It gets worse.”
“How much worse?”
“She–she–”
Instantly more vulnerable than she’d ever felt, her nude state not helping, she prepared to finally tell Moore what she’d been holding back for years.
Jordy was old enough now that it wouldn’t matter.
Finally.
“Colleen. Did she threaten you? I wouldn’t put it past her. She was wicked jealous and she has sharp claws.”
“Not physically. No.”
“Then what? What could she possibly hold over you? She had no power over you.”
“Um, well… it’s more like she thought I had power over her.”
“What kind of power?”
“Remember the first few years of Jordy’s life? How I babysat a lot?”
“I know you helped out here and there.”
“Is that what Cammie told you?”
“What–what are you saying?”
Colleen sighed. “When Jordy was a few months old, I went to your apartment in your parent’s basement. He was screaming, in the crib, and wet as could be. Cammie was on the couch, bawling. I picked up the baby, got him cleaned up, started feeding him a bottle, and Cammie was so grateful.”
“Okay.”
“She–she asked if she could leave. I said of course. Normally, she’d be gone for a couple hours, or take a shower. She wasn’t working then.”
He made a sour face. “She never really worked. Ever. She ‘did paperwork’ for her cousins’ handyman company.”
“I know. But… after that, she started staying out longer. Pretty soon, she left as soon as I arrived, and came home about fifteen minutes before you did. Then she acted like she did most of the childcare.”
His jaw dropped open. “What?”
“I was watching him three or four days a week while you were gone, for… until she disappeared.”
“You never said a word.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Of course you could!”
“I couldn’t because she said if I told you, she’d never let me see Jordy again.”
The breath left his body as if Colleen had just shocked him to death.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“I believe it.”
He muttered a string of curses Colleen usually only heard from severely injured farmers or nurses on hour nineteen of an unexpected eighteen-hour shift because of a colleague’s call-off.
His eyebrows knitted together, face full of so many emotions that had to take fleeting turns, his hand fisting the sheet into a twisted, angry mess.
“But what does that have to do with never telling me how you feel about me?” he pursued.
“Right before she took Jordy and disappeared, she said she knew you and I were sleeping together.”
“We weren’t!”
“I know that. You know that. I think she was looking for a reason to leave. Told me if she ever heard even a whiff of a rumor that we were together, she’d make sure no one in town ever saw Jordy again. That she’d take him to California to live their dream life.”
“Oh, Colleen.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry.” Sandwich poked her little head out from under the dresser, catching Colleen’s eye. “I should have told you.”
“I should have told you about Luke, but now your story makes mine look as juvenile as it was.”
“Cammie was twenty-one when this happened. Took her two more years before she disappeared with Jordy.”
“You never said anything when she took off.”
Shame washed over her.
“I wasn’t sure if she left because of me.”
“Colleen.”
“I know! I know. I just… everything about you has been nothing but overthinking for me. Once I realized I liked you, and put it out of my mind that we could ever be together, it’s like everything involving you splits my mind into two different realities.
I had to live in the actual world with you and make sure I never showed my true feelings to you or anyone else. And then there was my inner reality.”
“Which was?”
Reaching up, she caressed his jaw, the closely trimmed beard so soft. Every time she looked at him, she saw all the other ages he’d once been, from toddler to now. The sense of depth in their relationship made her feel more complete.
At the same time, the need to say everything made her realize some things were still incomplete.
“I was afraid to ask for what I wanted and be told no. How could I face you after that? Be around you, interact at family gatherings? Run into you at Greta’s? Feel the t–”
“Tension,” he said, just as she whispered the word. Their eyes were on each other, truly seeing each other, Moore acting as a mirror, a doppelg?nger, a parallel self.
“We both felt the same way,” he said in awe. “And I think I turned my pinkie promise to Luke into an easy–and stupid–justification for not asking you out.”
“Me, too, with Cammie. The stakes were too high.”
“What she said to you is just so…” He kissed her gently, then looked out the window toward where Kell had just been. Sandwich jumped up on the bed again, walking between them as if they were the interlopers.
It was Colleen who got the view of her butthole.
“Colleen,” Moore said, gently pushing the cat aside.
Sandwich, refusing to take no for an answer, curled up against his calves.
“I don’t know how we live with our eclectic past. We’ve been friends for so long–I’ve known you since before I had a memory.
You have a better relationship with my own son than I do.
Cammie mistreated us both. Now we’re telling each other we wanted more than friendship for half our lives but didn’t say anything.
That car accident kickstarted our life together. ”
Our life together.
Her heart shot out of her chest as if it could fling itself into his arms.
“I don’t want to hide anymore. Not my feelings for you. Not our relationship. We need to be open with everyone, no matter what happens.”
“But if Cammie finds out, will she..?”
Moore made a sound of disgust.
“She has no power over us. Jordy’s old enough to have his opinion taken into consideration. In fact, this makes me want to take her back to court to renegotiate the custody arrangement.”
“What?”
“I’m capped at fifty days a year because her bulldog lawyer pulled off a miracle nine years ago in California and I didn’t fight back as hard as I should have.
But now she lives in Minnesota. Different judge, different laws.
And Jordy’s coming to visit soon. The new theater program is going to entice him. ”
“Living with you should be enticement enough.”
“Not me. But you’re part of the draw for him. Imagine how he’ll feel if we’re together.”
Sheer joy filled every cell in her.
“He’s so wonderful.”
“So are you. And he’ll be excited about us.”
“I don’t know about excited. Fifteen-year-old boys don’t normally care about their parents’ partners.”
“He cares about you.”
“You’re right!”
“Public it is.” Moore frowned. “But… let’s wait until he’s here.”
“Wait?”
“I wouldn’t want word to get out before I tell my own son. If Jordy comes back and gets blindsided, that wouldn’t be fair.”
“Good point. It’ll be best if he hears it directly from us.”
“Us? I was thinking I’d tell him.”
“If we both do, it’ll go better.”
“He won’t be here for two weeks. Can you wait that long before we go public?”
She kissed him again, full and hard.
“We waited all these years. What’s a couple of weeks in the grand scheme of things?”