Chapter 14 #2
“It was. But you guys helped. Getting to stash clothes over at your house helped. It was cigarette smoke, it wasn’t like it was spoiled food or rotting carcasses or anything.
But there was just so much of it. And it seeped into everything.
So now I like to control all of that. I imagine it’s kinda the same for you, even if it looks a little different.
You can put kittens in your bathroom if you want to, because it’s your place. ”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “That is true.”
“It’s why Walker has all that nice stuff, don’t you think?”
“Oh, I know that. Money... That’s really important to him.”
“Not as important to you?”
“To be totally fair, I don’t think I felt the poverty as deeply as Cody and Walker did. They protected me from that. I’m certainly scarred by some things, but I don’t think that got me quite as badly. They made me feel secure. They were the ones that were out stealing food.”
“Yeah. Fair enough.”
“You too.” She looked down, then back up.
“You really did take care of me. And the only reason I started being a brat to you is because I thought... I was attracted to you, and I didn’t know what to do.
And, apparently, I never got any more mature from the time I was fifteen on.
And I saw you making out with that other girl, and I was just so jealous. ”
“You were a kid, Lila. There was no way for anything—”
“God, Nolan, I know that. But that made it worse, don’t you get it?
I knew that I was a kid. I knew that I was basically like a sister.
I knew that I didn’t have a chance. And I knew that I wouldn’t even want one, because if you were to have looked at me then, straight to jail.
That would be prison, not a happy ending. ”
He chuckled. “That is true.”
“And because of that,” she said. “I just... I don’t know, I was just mean.
I didn’t want anything to happen, I just didn’t want to feel the things that I did, and I didn’t want you to know that I felt them.
So I was doing my best to push them away.
Doing my best to pretend that it wasn’t happening.
But my best was very poorly. I confess. And I made things weird in our relationship.
And I made it difficult. I know that I did. And I’m sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to be sorry about anything.”
“Yeah. Well, I am. But not about last night.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“God, you’re hot.”
He laughed. Lila dug through all of her clothes, and then got dressed in front of him, and then the two of them headed back to the truck.
Just as Cody was pulling into the driveway.
“Fuck.”
It was completely fine and normal that he’d be here at this hour, particularly because they were legitimately headed out for work later, but Lila’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, and that was weird.
But given Cody had about a hundred things on his mind, maybe the positioning of his sister’s vehicle wouldn’t be paramount and at the forefront of his mind.
The other extremely awkward part about this was that, well, everything that had just happened.
The fact that he was still on fire with what had happened between him and Lila, and now Cody was there.
“Hey, I was hoping I would catch you,” Cody said, rolling down the window of the truck. “Thanks so much for the party.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said.
Lila looked green around the gills.
“Of course,” Lila said. “But you know that it was Addison’s idea.”
“I know. But you all put a lot into it. And you helped with the whole surprise bit. Which was pretty cool.”
“Well, we are very cool,” Lila said.
Nolan looked at her. “Very cool. Cool. Cool.”
“Great. And progress is continuing as expected.” He could not look at Lila right now. “Better than expected,” he said.
“Different than expected,” Lila said.
“In what way?”
He did look at Lila now, and she blinked slowly and blandly. “Oh, we decided to make a couple of access points down to the river. So I guess not earth-shattering or anything.”
“I thought it was pretty earth-shattering,” Nolan said.
“Yeah. Well, you would.”
“Great. I’m just glad that you haven’t killed each other. I consider it a win. Anyway. I’ll see you guys later. You interested in coming over for dinner tonight?”
“Can’t,” Lila said. “We’re out in the woods for the next three days.”
“Three days?”
“Yeah. We’re getting in there pretty deep.”
“Very deep,” Nolan said.
“Okay. Well, enjoy your... wilderness retreat, I guess. See you guys when you get back.”
“See you.”
Cody rolled his window back up and continued on back down the road.
“That was practically a comedy routine,” Lila said.
“Yeah, you could have backed off a little bit.”
“So could you have.”
“But you kept teeing up double entendres.”
“Well. He was oblivious.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not,” Nolan said. “And I feel like shit.”
“Why?”
“Because he trusts me with you.”
“And do you think anything you did was something that... should violate that trust given that I am a grown woman?”
“No. In that sense, I don’t. But I do know that Cody is going to feel some kind of way if he finds out about it. And he’d have a right to. Not just because you’re his sister, not just because of the position that I’ve had in your life for a long time, but because he wouldn’t like not knowing.”
“Except, my sex life is really not his business. Because he’s my brother. And I get that puts you in a weird middle spot...”
“I’m not suggesting that he needs to be told, Lila. I was thinking about it. I think that this is a good arrangement for the two of us. We’re here on the ranch, we see each other all the time. We have chemistry.”
She looked pleased about that. “You think so?”
“Yeah, I don’t really think that’s up for debate. We had chemistry, and it might be good to have somebody on the ranch that... you know.”
“Are you suggesting that I could be your fuck buddy?”
“I wasn’t going to put it that way, but it’s not a bad idea.”
She looked as if she was trying to decide how offended she was, and then decided not to be offended. “All right. But if you have other fuck buddies at any time during our... association, I need to know. Because I let you... you know, without a condom, and you can’t be doing that with anybody else.”
“I’ve never done that with anybody else,” he said.
She smiled. “Really?”
“Yes. I practice very safe sex, generally speaking. I only did that with you. I only will do that with you. I promise.”
And it warmed his heart that she believed him. Immediately and instantly.
“Okay. Well, I guess that does make sense.”
“The horse is out of the barn. It has jumped the fence, it’s running down the road, it’s practically in town, there’s really no going back, is there?”
“No. I guess not. You’re being very practical about this.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But I’m not really sure what the other alternative is. I mean, we could try to pretend that we’re not going to do it again, but that’s exactly what it would be. Pretense. And not a very good one.”
“True. I bet our sleeping bags can zip together.”
She skipped past him then, and got into the truck.
He rolled his eyes, and got into the driver’s side. “Yes, it can be done.”
“Oh, good.”
They got out onto the dirt road, and were silent as they went to the trailhead. Then again as they suited up and began the trek.
“You know,” she said. “When I was a kid, I really felt like my attraction to you was apocalyptic. Biblical. I was seriously considering plucking out my own eyeballs because I had looked at you with lust.”
He barked a laugh, shock working its way through him. “You are kidding.”
“I’m actually not.”
“Well, I’m damn glad that you kept your eyeballs, Lila.”
“Me too. If I didn’t have my eyeballs, I would never have been able to see you naked.”
“That would have been a tragedy.”
She grinned. “It would have been.”
It was that she meant that that shifted something inside of him.
And one thing he knew right then was that he couldn’t mess this up. He had spent his whole life taking care of Lila in some capacity. Being a safe space for her.
And this was the most high-stakes, dangerous version of that.
He just couldn’t afford to mess it up.