Chapter 4 Clover
Clover
I wake up to a good-morning text from my mom and Bennett’s leg slung over my hip.
The wall of pillows I’d erected before I fell asleep has been shoved to the foot of the bed and my back is snug against his bare chest. Shallow breaths tickle the back of my neck, warm with the smell of scotch.
He shifts closer to me and something … stiff is pressed against my ass.
Oh god.
The wall of pillows is no longer erect, but Bennett certainly is.
Okay, this is normal, I tell myself. Morning wood is biological, but that was why I built the Great Wall of Pillows.
“You have five seconds for your boner to sever contact with my ass,” I announce.
But he doesn’t even startle. All Bennett does in response is grumble into my ear and band his arm around my waist. “Your breath reeks,” I tell him.
He nuzzles into my neck, sending a slight chill down my spine.
I’m going to get out of this bed and I’m going to kill him.
I just have to decide if it’s better or worse if I wait for him to become conscious.
I push back against him and not so accidentally kick him in the shins as I pry myself free from the dead weight of his arm.
“Fuck,” he yowls, as I practically fall out of the bed. “You have zero bedside manner.”
I already have my notebook and pen in hand to scribble down the next rule. “No. Cuddling,” I tell him, and then toss it onto the bed for him to see.
He grunts in response as I search through the pile of yet to be organized items on my desk to find my toiletry bag and knockoff Crocs—lovingly referred to by Marianne as frocs.
Three years ago, I would have cut my own bangs before being caught dead in a pair, but they’re just so comfortable to wear at the diner.
“What happened to the Great Wall of Pillows?” I ask.
“It got too hot with all the pillows.” He rolls over to my side of the bed and burrows his face into the silk pillowcase I brought from home and have held on to for three years. Now it’s going to have oils on it from his dumb face. “Mmm, smells nice.”
“So, you then searched out my body heat?”
“Well, then I got cold.” With great effort, he hurls his body upright and holds his head in his hands, elbows braced against his knees as he sits on the edge of the bed.
The hard lines of his back stretch as his spine curves into an arch and something pops. “Fuck, I slept like a rock.”
“I know,” I tell him. “That wasn’t the only rock-like thing in bed this morning.”
“That’s just a natural response,” he says, and when he stands up, I have to consciously avert my eyes to avoid his half-mast boner that is very much visible in his black boxer briefs. Or maybe that’s just his starting line, and he’s not hard at all. Oh god, I have got to stop thinking about his—
“Clo?” he asks. “You there? You look like you’re concentrating hard enough to pop a blood vessel.”
“I’m just—I’m just wondering why the hell you can’t sleep in pajamas like a normal person. Do you have no sense of modesty?”
He shrugs. “What do I have to be modest about? We ran around in our underwear all the time when we were kids. Sometimes even buck-ass naked.”
“Kids,” I remind him.
“So just my underwear, then? That’s what’s got you so anxious.” He shakes his fingers through his bed head, and my eyes wander to the familiar, faint scar bisecting his chest—which is defined in ways that I don’t recall—from when he had open-heart surgery as a baby to correct a defect.
“It’s not just your underwear. It’s—” My hands flap senselessly. “Never mind. I guess I’m nervous about classes and this work-study program I signed up for. And I’m antsy about my Intro to Pottery class. My adviser bullied me into signing up for an elective.”
“Work-study?” he asks. “Where are you working? How do you plan on having time for a job?”
I check the time on my phone as I run a brush through my hair.
I should have done a trial walk over to my buildings yesterday.
“Either I make time or I’m broke. I know that’s a novel concept for you.
And not that it’s your business, but I’m just working a few night shifts as a library clerk.
Plus, I’m picking up catering shifts when I can.
” Marianne’s brother is the head waiter for the university’s contracted catering company, and she said I can take a few shifts with her when they need extra bodies.
“The night shift? Catering?”
“Is that a problem?” I ask as I gather up the stack of clothing I’d set out last night while I had the room to myself. “Don’t tell me you take issue with your wife working, Bennett.”
He scoffs. “No, of course not. I just know that holding on to a scholarship is a full-time job.” He rifles through the dresser on his side of the room and yanks on a white T-shirt.
When he turns back to me, I notice the discreet H for Hermès embroidered on the pocket.
His steady blue eyes watch me from across our bed, and he makes no effort to hide the way he takes in my bare legs and my chest. I’d yanked my bra off after he fell asleep and dropped it off the side of the bed.
Which I totally forgot about until this very moment when I realize that the shape of my nipples is definitely visible.
I press the pile of clothes to my chest and begin to gather up the rest of my things. “How … how long does it take to walk over to Mariner Hall from here?”
A lazy smile curls along his lips. “A good twenty minutes unless you’ve figured out the campus buses.”
“Fuck!” I don’t have time to go wait for a stall in the bathrooms to change clothes and I’m also pretty sure it will look a little suspicious if I’m constantly leaving the room I share with my husband to get changed.
I take the yellow lacy bra from the pile of clothes and pull it through the sleeve of my baggy sleep T-shirt.
Bennett stands there, watching me like I’ve just started walking around on my hands.
“Are you just going to stare?”
He bites down on his lower lip, dimples just barely present. “Yeah, if that’s okay. Besides, you’ve seen me in my underwear.”
“That was your doing,” I remind him as I pull the straps of my bra over my shoulders and then shimmy out of my shorts.
His eyes widen as they hit the ground and his nostrils flare when my panties follow.
The perk of barely skimming five foot one is that most T-shirts come down past the middle of my thighs.
I am most definitely not Bennett’s type, but if he’s going to walk around our room with a boner the size of an elephant trunk, then I can at least take pleasure in watching him squirm.
“A matching set?” he asks, his brow hiked at my yellow lace panties as I pull them up my thighs.
“I like to match. Especially on the first day of school,” I explain. “It makes me feel prepared and it’s good luck.”
“I, for one, am feeling very lucky, Clo.” His gaze is hot and intent.
“Clover.” I make a spinning motion with my hand, and Bennett begrudgingly turns around so that I can put on my plaid dress. “Okay, it’s safe to turn back around.”
He still stands there in a T-shirt and boxer briefs, and I find myself asking, “Don’t you have classes to get to?”
With far too much grace, he flops back down on the bed, lying on his side with his head propped up in his hand. “Class before ten in the morning is a rookie first-year move, my darling girl.”
“Can we not with the pet names?” I pull on an oversize Stella McCartney cardigan that I copped from my mom.
The thing about money is that it can’t buy you fancy clothes when you’re a plus size.
You just sort of buy the best stuff you can find and occasionally stumble upon something like this cardigan that is meant to hang off waiflike models.
“No, I think we will with the pet names.”
Hurriedly, I step into my untied combat boots before throwing my toothpaste and toothbrush in my bag. “You are insufferable. I’m adding pet names to the list when I get home.”
“Have a good first day, my sweetheart! You are the sun and the moon!” he calls after me loud enough to elicit an awwww from Daisy, who is curling her hair across the hall with the door open.
“You two are so lucky to have each other,” she croons.
I hit the down button on the elevator at least seven times and stride forward without looking up when the door opens on a ding.
“Excuse me!” says the human-shaped wall I’ve just walked into.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell them as I stick my foot out to hold the door for them to exit.
“Clover? Clover Walsh?”
I look up, eyes still bleary with sleep, and I’m face-to-face with Madeline Linch, the assistant director of housing and the woman who first called to inform me I had lost my housing scholarship.
“Um, yeah. Hi, Miss Linch.”
Madeline is a young but stern woman who is even more intimidating in person than she is in her no-nonsense headshot on the university website.
When Bennett sent in his last-minute married housing application with me listed as his spouse, she called to congratulate me in the most non-congratulatory tone of all time and then proceeded to say It seems that love has very fortuitous timing for you, doesn’t it?
I was then given an earful about how she’s happy that the university is offering these options for married students this semester, despite the concerns that the accommodations might be taken advantage of.
When I hung up the phone, I was visibly sweaty.
“I was actually just coming to check in on a few of our nontraditional students to pass along some information and see if their accommodations are sufficient.”
“Oh!” The elevator door begins to ding, angry with me for holding it open for so long. “Yeah, of course. It’s great. Quite the love nest.” Why the fuck did I say that?
“Charming.” Her voice is not charmed at all as she steps off the elevator.
“I did want to mention that the student life center in partnership with the housing department has organized date night mixers for married couples living on campus.” She hands me one of the papers she carries.
“I’d like to meet your husband if I could—”
“He’s sleeping!” I practically shout. I can’t count on Bennett not to give us away. “He pulled an all-nighter.”
“In preparation for his first day of classes?” she asks.
“My hubby is a real overachiever,” I tell her, the smile brittle on my lips.
“Lucky you,” she says, but her voice is flat. “Have a good first day, Mrs. Walsh. Or is it Mrs. Graves?”
“Still Walsh for now.” I hold my painfully wide smile until the moment the doors close on my floor and I spend my entire walk to class muttering a chorus of fucks.