22. Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
It was dark when we parked at Huxley’s house, so I didn’t get to see as much of The Landings as I wanted. It was never going to be my thing — an organized community like this made me itchy just thinking about it — but I was curious. A little curiosity never hurt anybody.
Except the cat, apparently. That was what they said anyway.
I wanted to see everything. He promised that we would have time over our three-day weekend. Still, I went to sleep feeling mildly dissatisfied. Not with Huxley or anything, he was weirdly good at the romance thing. Just with not being able to see the property.
I woke up wide-eyed and ready to go the next morning.
“Up!” I ordered after using the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face before pouncing on him. “I want to see everything!”
He made a disgruntled sound and tried to pull the covers over his head.
“Up!” I repeated.
“Wylie,” he groaned and reached for my waist.
I managed to wriggle away. “You promised I could see this place, and it was too dark when we came in last night.”
“We have three days. I promise you won’t miss a thing.”
I stared down at him. “Up!” I said again, hoping the third time would be the charm.
This time, he did manage to grab me around the waist. He was fast when flipping me to the mattress, and all of the oxygen escaped my lungs.
“Shh,” he whispered into my neck as he wrestled me down. “It’s quiet time.”
He was warm against me, soft and pliable. When he slept, he looked like an angel. “Fine,” I grumbled. I pretended to give in long enough that he relaxed. Then I rolled fast and escaped from him.
“What are you doing?” he complained. “We didn’t get in until late last night. We should still be asleep.”
“I’m too excited.”
He made a noise that might have been words. It might have been something else, too.
“Fine,” I said to him on a sigh. “Stay in bed. I’m going to shower and have some coffee.”
“Okay. Everything you need is in the kitchen. I should be up about the time you have the coffee made.”
I left him to sleep. In truth, I wasn’t irritated because he wanted to sleep. I was too excited to see The Landings to worry about anything else.
His shower was nicer than mine. It had a raindrop shower head. I’d never seen one before and instantly fell in love with it. I left my hair to air dry, only putting a bit of product in to tame the waves. Then I jumped into a pair of comfortable capris and a simple gray V-neck T-shirt.
His coffee maker looked complicated, but once I figured out the process to steam the almond milk — did he always have almond milk or had he bought it simply in case I stayed overnight with him? — I filled one of his travel mugs and headed outside.
He had a lovely sunroom with a huge, comfortable couch. I couldn’t wait to try it out. I’d heard so much about Bree’s “enhancements” to the yard, however, that I wanted to focus on them. I found Gertrude almost immediately.
“Wow,” was all I could say as I stood in front of her. I tilted my head. Her boobs were enormous. “I guess Bree wasn’t kidding when she bought you, was she?”
“No, Bree was not,” a familiar voice said from behind me.
I turned quickly, sloshing coffee on my hand — thankfully, not on my shirt — and found Bree idling in a Barbie pink golf cart. Her hair was wet too, and she had Bronte strapped in a car seat next to her.
“Is it legal to have a baby in a golf cart?” I asked, honestly curious.
She shrugged. “We’re not that far away from here. I go slow.”
“Aren’t you worried about the other drivers?”
“Here, the other drivers are almost always in golf carts. It’s fine.
” Bree parked the cart on Huxley’s lawn — I had no idea if it was the sort of thing that would frustrate him — and unfastened Bronte from her car seat.
With the sort of effortless cool I admired, she lodged the baby on her hip before coming over to join my perusal of Gertrude.
“Magnificent, isn’t she?”
I didn’t know if laughing would be considered rude. There was no stopping me, though. “She seems … nice,” was all I could manage after several seconds.
“She’s tacky as hell,” Bree replied. “She drives the members of the HOA crazy, though. I don’t care how tacky she is. She’s family now.” She inclined her head toward the swing that was under a huge Weeping Willow. “Come on. If I’m moving, Bronte won’t put up as much of a fuss.”
I followed her, frowning when I got closer to the swing and saw the carvings. “Are those … ?” I didn’t finish the question.
“Twigs and berries?” she prodded. “Why, yes, they are.”
“I wasn’t going to say twigs and berries.” I gave her another once-over. “Does Huxley know there are carvings of penises and scrotums on his swing?”
“Scrotums.” She laughed at my word choice. “Who says scrotum?”
“What would you call it?” I raised a hand before she could answer. “Actually, I don’t want to know what you would call it.”
She smirked as I sat next to her. “Let him figure it out himself. It will be funny.”
“I’m not sure Huxley will find it funny.”
“I would have agreed with you a few weeks ago.” She pushed off with a foot to start an easy swinging motion. “He’s lightened up quite a bit since I first met him, though.”
“Do you think?”
She bobbed her head. “Yup, and I know why.”
“Why?” I honestly wanted to hear her answer.
She looked at me sideways. “Do you not know?”
“Know what? Is he taking edibles? They might be a good relaxant for him.”
She laughed, then shook her head. “He’s unwinding because of you.”
Of all the things she could have said, that was the one thing I wasn’t expecting. “No. That’s not right.”
“Oh, it is.” She was adamant. “You’re making him relax.”
“How am I doing that?”
Now she looked frustrated as she regarded me. “Can you seriously not know the answer to that?”
I didn’t respond. I just waited her out.
“Wow,” she managed after a few seconds. “Bella said you had no self-awareness. I didn’t believe her. She was right, though. I guess I owe her 50 bucks.”
That brought up multiple questions. I went with the most worrisome one first. “Bella was talking about me?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Bree chided. “It wasn’t gossipy like high schoolers or anything.
” She seemed to reconsider. “Or maybe it was. It wasn’t bad, though.
I was telling her how pretty you were one day, and she said that you didn’t realize you were pretty.
I assumed she was joking, but she said that you have zero self-awareness when it comes to your looks … or how cool you are.”
I was oddly bad at taking compliments. “Oh, um … hmm.”
She laughed again. “You don’t have to twist yourself in knots.
It’s okay to look at yourself and say, ‘I’m hot,’ because you’re really hot.
You have one of those bodies that is naturally thin.
I have to count my calories to keep from getting thick in the thighs.
It’s been a struggle to lose weight since Bronte came on the scene.
You, however, are one of those people who will never get heavy no matter what you eat. ”
This conversation was definitely making me uncomfortable. “I was awkward when I was younger,” I explained. “I had braces. I didn’t get breasts until I was almost 18, I swear.”
“You were a late bloomer,” she mused. “I can see that.”
“That’s what Eleanor and my mother used to say about me.” I was rueful.
“Eleanor Ambrose, you mean?”
I nodded, and I felt a knot tightening in my stomach. “We’re going to have to tell our moms. At first, I thought there was a chance this might not work out because … well … I had a crush on him when I was 16. Who gets their teenage crush?”
“Apparently you do,” she replied. “I take it things are going well.”
“I didn’t know a relationship could go this well,” I admitted as I sipped my latte. “Other than the fact that he’s still in there sleeping and not giving me a tour, they’re perfect.”
“Be careful with that,” she warned. “Nothing is perfect. You guys seem perfect for each other, though. He needs to lighten up, and you need somebody to stand tall with you. You fit.”
“I think we do, too.” I hadn’t said it to anybody else, not that way at least. Even admitting it now was hard. There would be harder things in our future, though. “What are we supposed to do about our moms?”
“They’re adults. They should just suck it up. Their choices don’t have to affect your choices.”
“That would be nice.” I reached for a smile, but talk of my mother — and Huxley’s mother, for that matter — had caused it to go into hiding.
“What is it, exactly, that you think they’re going to do?” she asked, sounding utterly reasonable.
“I think Eleanor will pretend to have a heart attack, and my mother will go passive-aggressive. She’ll say things like ‘you’re an adult, and you know what’s right and wrong,’ and all the while she’ll be sending me subliminal messages about what’s right and wrong.”
“Okay, that sounds annoying, but it’s not the end of the world.” Bree nudged my wrist to get me to look at her. “Your mothers can’t keep the two of you apart. All you guys have to do is live your lives. They’re the ones who are going to have to come around.”
“What if they don’t, though?”
“They will.”
“How can you be sure?”
Bree held up the baby, who smiled at me, showing off a few new teeth.
She didn’t have a full mouth yet, but she was certainly getting much closer.
“I’ll let you borrow Bronte when you tell them.
If you have a baby on your hip, they’re going to have no choice but to think long and hard about what they would be giving up if they tried to force you to make a choice. ”
The baby clapped, as if agreeing with her mother’s diabolical plan.
“I guess maybe that would work,” I said after a beat. “My mother has asked a few times if I plan on having kids. I think she might be worried.”
“Do you want kids? It’s okay if you don’t,” she added hurriedly. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted them at first. Then I realized I did, but only after I hooked up with Brody.”
“Is that one of those things you only discover when you find the right person?”
“I think so.”