Chapter 9 #2
Joey sleeps like the dead—he always has—so I roll over to study him in the dark.
My brain still finds it hard to believe I have the freedom to touch him now, to look at him, to simply want him after almost twenty years of doing it all in secret.
I reach out slowly to rest my hand over one of his bare shoulder blades.
The scar from falling off his bike when we were teenagers is still there, although not as pronounced as it used to be.
I rub my finger over it gently, committing the feeling to memory.
His skin is warm, and when I shift closer, he smells like he always smells.
Like Joey. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, committing that usual Joey scent to memory too.
“Are you smelling me?” Joey asks, voice rough and deep from sleep.
My cheeks warm and I dip my face to hide from him, pressing my forehead to his curved bicep. “No.”
“Thought it was kinda cute if you were. Come here,” Joey says before wrapping his arm around me and then tugging me closer until he’s lying half on top of me, his face pressed against my neck. “You smell good too.”
“Want some coffee?”
“I’ll make you tea and we can watch the sun come up,” Joey amends, wanting to take care of me like usual.
“Can we hold hands?”
“Yes, you dope.” Joey presses a hummingbird kiss to my neck, there and gone, then sighs happily while squeezing me tight. “God, I’ll never get sick of this. Ever.”
“Don’t say never. Maybe in twenty years—”
Joey slaps his hand over my mouth. “Shut the fuck up. We’ll be eighty-five in a nursing home and I’m gonna want your ass. You’re my man now.”
“Oh.”
“Get used to it.”
“I’ll try,” I whisper, a little embarrassed at it all.
Joey knows me so well at this point that he stays quiet, just rolling out of bed without a word.
He tugs me up by my hand, and we do our morning ablutions beside each other in the bathroom, then wander into the kitchen in our hastily pulled-on sweatpants.
Feeling disconnected from my body, I watch Joey fill the electric kettle with water and grab a tea he keeps tucked away in my cupboard.
This one is peppermint, the one he usually makes me when my stomach hurts.
I think of all the teas over our lifetime as friends and wonder how I never realized that maybe, just maybe, he felt more for me than simply friendship.
“You really just… never realized?” I ask in the comfortable silence of the kitchen.
Joey turns around, pressing his palms against the edge of the counter.
His eyes are sleepy soft still, brows a little furrowed as he thinks over my question.
“I mean, looking back… maybe I should’ve known.
I guess it never felt like an option. You’re my best friend.
I just thought that’s the way it was supposed to be.
” Joey rubs a tired hand down his face and sighs.
“Maybe… I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t ready to see it.
But it’s probably always been you.” He sends a gorgeous Joey smile my way, dimples popping and making my knees go weak.
“I’ve never made love like that in my life. ”
“Oh.” I send him a shy smile, feeling warm all over when it seems to make his own smile grown ten times larger. “I’ve never made love either, so we’re even.”
“You’ve never dated,” Joey points out, succinct as always.
“Nah, like I said the other night, it felt wrong. I couldn’t do that to someone.
Not when you were my last thought every night.
I guess I was hoping one day it would go away.
The next time you got married and that stuck, maybe you’d forget me, let me live.
” I shrug even as Joey’s smile turns into a frown. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Joey’s quiet as he turns around and pours the tea for each of us.
His shoulders are curved in slightly, and I can see the tension my words brought him.
I immediately feel bad and want to make it better, to ease that ache that Joey has because of me—an old, learned response from the trauma of growing up with a drunk father who liked to hit when he imagined everything that went wrong with his life was my fault.
“It’s okay, Joey.”
Joey turns back around and walks toward me at the other counter, setting the steaming teas beside me so he can cup his warm hands around my hips, pressing in close to me until the warmth of him settles that weird feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“I don’t wanna spend the rest of our lives apologizing for it, but I’ll spend the rest of our lives making sure you know that it’s only you I want going forward, forever. Okay?”
“All right,” I mutter, tilting my head to avoid his earnest gaze.
Joey uses a finger to tilt my face up. He smiles, soft and warm, eyes glittering a little in the darkness of my kitchen. “I love you, Andrew Bradley. I want to take you out on a date real soon. Wednesday night? Maybe Beau and Trevor can babysit Savannah for us.”
“No, let’s do something with her. We can save the weekends for us.”
Joey’s eyes grow even mistier at my words.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but Savannah is just as much a part of our relationship as we are to each other.
He’s kissing me before I can even realize it.
His lips are supple, sliding against mine in a decadent sort of way that reminds me of the first bite of chocolate cake.
I want to melt into him, kiss him until my lips are bruised.
But Joey keeps the kiss soft, despite commanding every moment of it.
All the kisses before Joey meant nothing.
My universe narrows down to the slide of his lips against mine, until only we exist in the world.
I chase Joey’s mouth when he pulls away and he chuckles, squeezing my hips hard enough to make my eyes widen as I take in the glorious sight of him.
“We can have dinner here with her, ease her into it. Okay?”
“If you’re sure.”
“Lee.” Joey shakes his head as if I’m the silliest man on earth. “I’m sure. Get used to it.”
“How’s the restaurant going? Beau hasn’t mentioned it in a while.” I desperately need the topic to change before I melt into a puddle at Joey’s feet.
Joey sends me a look like he’s onto me. “Good. I think it might be done by August, in time for fall. Good time.”
“And how’s Benji doing?”
“Kid has a lot of sense in the kitchen for never having attended culinary school. He’s teachable.”
“Good.”
Joey grabs our teas and turns toward the back porch.
I follow him out into the dark that’s starting to lighten from the impending sunrise.
We sit side by side on the steps, bare feet in the grass, wet from the morning dew.
Everything inside me settles. Joey hands me the tea, which seems to be cool enough now.
He then grabs the ends of the tea bags and carefully lifts them, setting them beside him on the deck.
“Drink,” Joey says before taking a sip of his own tea.
It’s warm and minty, and my stomach instantly settles.
We sit quietly together and watch as the sunrise breaks over the tree line.
The birds sing good morning as the sky continues to lighten, and I’m overwhelmed by the urge to kiss Joey again just to reaffirm I really am awake.
This is my life now. I set the mug of tea down and lean over to kiss his cheek.
When I pull away, I stay close enough so that he can turn his head to slide his mouth over mine.
We share a good morning, hello, I’ve missed you, I love you sort of kiss that says more than any letter or declaration ever can.
I’m sweaty and rumpled by the time I’m done with my morning tasks at the farm.
The sun is high in the sky, air thick with humidity for the end of May.
It’s going to be a hot summer. Tonight, Joey and Savannah are coming over for dinner for the millionth time.
It feels like nothing, but also everything has changed all at once.
I’m simultaneously excited and nervous as hell.
Mostly because Joey and I being together is literally Savannah’s greatest dream.
She wishes on dandelions nonstop for it to happen, or so she’s told me.
Maybe those wishes held weight with the universe. Who knows.
The front office is blessedly cool when I step inside after knocking my boots off by the front door.
“Hey!” Amber Lynn greets from the front desk. “Hot as hell out, huh?”
I grunt but offer her a smile. “Gonna be a hot summer. Any news from Hector?”
Amber’s smile grows. “He called and said he got released for light duty.”
“Thank god. Can you send his family another grocery order? Get with his wife about it.”
“Will do,” Amber says quickly. She then leans forward and whispers, “There’s someone in your office for you.”
“Huh?”
Amber wiggles her eyebrows. “Go on.”
It must be Beau.
I trudge down the hallway toward my small office that they gave me when I was promoted.
I push the door open, expecting Beau, but I grin at the sight of Joey sitting at my desk, his feet propped up on the windowsill.
He tilts his head to look over his shoulder and grins back, all dimples and five-o’clock shadow. Fuck me, I’m so in love.
I close the door behind me and lean against it. “What’re you doing here?”
“I brought you lunch,” Joey says without missing a beat. He spins around in the chair to open a to-go container, revealing kettle-cooked chips and the brie-and-blueberry grilled cheese that’s nicknamed the Harper’s Special. My mouth waters at the sight.
“Come eat,” he says.
I go to take a seat in the chair across from my desk, but Joey shakes his head. “No, come sit on the desk right here and eat.”