She let out a chuckle. Progress. But then she moved out of my arms and stood up. Damn it. I wasn’t ready to let go of her, and now she was probably going to tell me she needed to leave even if she wouldn’t use the excuse of getting to work this time.
“Bathroom,” she mumbled as she headed that direction, tripping over the skinny jeans that were still hanging off a single leg. She made it a few steps, but then she actually tripped herself and took a tumble.
“Shit, are you all right?” I was off the bed and at her side in a hurry, helping her up.
But instead of crying, she was laughing. Hard. So hard that I couldn’t help but follow suit.
“We really should’ve taken these all the way off,” she said once she caught her breath, giving the denim another tug. “Now they’re all sweaty and stuck in place and gross.”
“Let me help you.” I sat on the floor and tugged while she leaned the other direction. Eventually they came free, and we both fell backward, laughing even harder than before. Once I could breathe again, I pointed to her T-shirt and the bra still shoved up around her shoulders. “Give me those things, too, and I can put it all in the wash if you want. I mean, if you’re not in a hurry to get out of here…” I left that hanging between us, hoping she’d agree but resigned to the fact that she probably wouldn’t.
She was still laughing as she dragged them both overhead and passed them over to me.
I wasn’t laughing any longer. Because now I could see the marks on her upper arm from where she’d cut herself—a meticulous row of angry red lines, evenly spaced. The sight hit me like a punch to the gut.
“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious and wrapping her arms in front of her.
My tongue was thick and my mouth had gone dry. I cleared my throat, debating exactly what to say and how to say it. But nothing seemed right, so I just spit it out. “When you said you cut yourself, I assumed you meant past tense. A long time ago. Not now.”
She sat there on the hardwood floor of my bedroom, completely naked and vulnerable, staring at me. But a bit at a time, her mask settled back into place.
Fucking hell.
THE LAUGHTER HAD all fizzled away. So had any lingering sexiness. All that remained was a crap-ton of uncomfortable silence.
Combine that with the way Drew was looking at me—some odd combination of sadness, pity, and curiosity—and all I wanted to do was grab my clothes out of his hands, throw them on, and get the hell out of his house.
I didn’t even care if I had to walk all the way back to the community center to get my car. It might take me the rest of the day to get there, but a good, long walk would do wonders for my state of mind. It’d give me plenty of time to think through all the things racing through my head, if nothing else.
But that would be running away. Again. Seemed like all I had done for the last year or so was run away from things instead of facing them. Actually, I’d been running a lot longer than that. I’d run away with Jax back when I was only fourteen years old.
Getting the hell out of whatever shitty situation I found myself in by fleeing was apparently my MO. I couldn’t keep going like that forever. At some point, I had to grow up. Dig in my heels. Confront life instead of letting it crush me.
So instead of giving in to that urge, I swallowed hard and nodded in his direction, indicating my clothes in his hands. “I’d absolutely appreciate it if you’d go wash those, like you suggested.”
He took such a deep breath it made me think he’d been holding on to it for a while. But he nodded and got up. Before leaving the bedroom, he stepped into his closet for a moment. When he came out again, he’d pulled on some ratty, old sweatpants, and he tossed a T-shirt and a pair of boxers in my direction. “They’re way too big for you, but it’s better than nothing.” Then he ducked out of the bedroom and disappeared.
It was a hell of a lot better than nothing. Offering to wash my clothes and then giving me something to cover up with was incredibly thoughtful. And kind. It was something a good guy would do, if good guys actually existed.
I wasn’t sure what to do with Drew. What box in my mind was he supposed to fill?
I carried the clothes into the bathroom with me, where I took care of my business and cleaned myself up. I took another longing look at that enormous tub. My apartment didn’t even have a bathtub. Just a tiny, cramped shower. I hadn’t had a good bath in so long I almost didn’t even remember what it felt like to climb in and soak my muscles. But Drew didn’t bring me here so I could indulge in his bathtub, so I needed to just get that out of my head.
I tugged his clothes into place. The boxers wouldn’t stay up unless I was sitting, and the T-shirt hung down almost to my knees, but they were softer to the touch than anything in my closet.
I’d never understand why women’s T-shirts couldn’t be made out of the same super-comfy fabric as men’s T-shirts. Like the T-shirt I’d worn today. It was one of Rick’s, originally, but he’d given it to me several years ago one night when I’d needed a place to crash and ended up at his house. Why did women have to get the short end of the stick all the time?
When I left the bathroom, Drew still hadn’t returned to his bedroom. Plenty of time had passed for him to start a load of laundry. I’d never been one to go snooping around someone else’s house, and he hadn’t exactly taken me on the grand tour before. Both times I’d been here, we’d had a single purpose in mind, and the only room required to accomplish our goals had been the bedroom.
I took a seat on the edge of the bed to wait for him to come back, but after a minute or two, I got the sense he wasn’t planning to. That sense turned to absolute surety a couple of minutes later when I heard banging coming from the direction of the kitchen and smelled something distinctly like garlic and onions.
Well, then. It was the middle of the day, and since my clothes were in the wash, there wasn’t much chance of us going somewhere else. It made sense that he would need to eat, but damn if it didn’t make me uncomfortable to think that he probably intended to feed me, too. Walking with an awkward Hop-Along-Cassidy gait in order to keep his boxers up, I followed my nose to join him.
“You like pasta?” he asked, popping his head up when I emerged from the hallway. He flashed me a knockout grin.
Good lord, he was too sexy by half. Never mind the fact that he’d just given me a wild, sweaty orgasm; my girly bits were already coming back to life.
“You don’t have to feed me,” I reminded him. Which was probably bitchy of me. No, it was definitely bitchy of me. Whether it was an act or not, he was trying to do something nice for me, and I was acting like he was trying to pay me for sex.
He kept chopping stuff and tossing it into a skillet, though, and didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t know how to behave when someone treated me with kindness. “I know I don’t have to feed you, but unless you want me to pass out later when I should be driving you back to your car, I do need to feed me. And it’s easier to cook for two than it is to cook for one. So… Pasta? Yes or no? I’ve got some potatoes I could do something with instead if you’d rather. Oh, wait.” He set down the knife and looked up at me, raising a brow. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you? Because I was planning to sauté some shrimp to throw in there. But if you don’t—”
“Shrimp is fine,” I cut in, fighting off the bitchy urge once again. “Pasta is, too.”
He winked with a wide smile. I could get used to him smiling at me like that if I allowed myself. Scary thought.
“You look hot in my clothes, by the way,” he said.
Then it was my turn to grin. “I feel like I need a belt to keep the shorts up.”
“You could lose them if you want. The shirt covers enough. And even if it didn’t…” He waggled his brows.
He was right about the shirt, and I’d never been much of a prude about my body. Seemed like a good plan to me, so I shimmied out of them.
“Just toss them in the hamper in my closet,” he said, focusing on the task of cooking ag
ain.
I did as he suggested, but on my way back into the main part of the house, the doorbell rang. I froze, panicking. Did he have guests coming over? But maybe it was just someone selling things door to door. People still did that, right?
Drew didn’t seem anywhere near as concerned as I was. He set down the knife, gave the stuff in the skillet a quick toss, and headed toward the door. I did my best to find a corner of the living room to disappear into, somewhere I wouldn’t be seen. Short of literally ducking behind a piece of furniture or hiding in another room, there weren’t any good options. I settled for taking a seat on the chair closest to his bedroom, where I could make a hasty escape if needed.
“Hi, Drew!” a little boy shouted. A dog’s bark punctuated his greeting. Actually—it sounded more like a puppy than a fully grown dog.
“Hi,” Drew replied, sounding confused.
Without another word, the boy and puppy raced inside, heading straight for the living room. Where I was. Holy shit. I was so freaked out that they were in front of me that my muscles decided not to work. I couldn’t get up and run off to hide in another room. All I could do was hope they didn’t see me.
Yeah, no luck with that. Not when you have purple dreads and tattoos on nearly every available patch of skin. I tried to sink further into the background because I was only wearing one of Drew’s T-shirts. And because, whoever they were, they didn’t know me. And…well…why on earth was I here? I hadn’t been counting on this at all, and at the moment, there was nowhere I wanted to be less than where I was.
The little boy, who might be six or seven, had dark brown hair and an impish grin. He was wearing swim trunks and had already-inflated floaties secured around his biceps and bright orange sunglasses falling off his nose. The yellow lab puppy couldn’t be more than about six weeks old, based on how tiny it was and how it seemed to be moving faster than its feet could keep up, causing it to run at a sideways angle.
Apparently, I hadn’t done a good enough job of hiding myself. The boy skidded to a stop in the middle of the living room and grinned at me. “Did you have a sleepover?”
I could only blink in response, shock and embarrassment keeping me tongue-tied.
“I’m Carter,” he said. “And that’s Snoopy.” The puppy yapped a few times, running circles around him before racing toward me. The next thing I knew, I had an overly excited puppy in my arms, licking my face and wiggling like crazy.
I’d never spent much time around animals before. Definitely not around puppies. Even though I was more than just a little bit freaked out, I also kind of liked it. This puppy had never seen me before, but he was already showering me with more affection than I knew what to do with.
“I’m Ravyn,” I managed to say without getting puppy tongue in my mouth. But barely.
Carter giggled. “I want purple hair, too.” Then he crossed over to me and petted Snoopy on the back. He nodded, a serious look in his dark brown eyes. “He likes it when you rub his ears. Like this.” Taking one of my hands in his, he closed my thumb and forefinger over one of Snoopy’s floppy ears and gently rubbed.
I’d only thought Drew’s T-shirt was soft before. This puppy’s ear? I’d never felt anything softer in my life. It was like velvet against my skin. I rubbed again.
That puppy damned near let out a sigh of contentment before squirming to get closer to me. I honestly couldn’t figure out how I’d ended up nearly naked in Drew’s house with a little boy teaching me how to rub a puppy’s ears. But despite myself, I liked it. What the hell was going on in my life?
“Sorry,” another man said, still in the hall, his Canadian accent thick in the way he pronounced the single word. “Trying to get everything moved in today, but it’s not easy to do with these two underfoot. I tried Razor first, but he’s got a thing with Tori’s little ballerinas this afternoon. He suggested dropping them off here since you’re closest. Said maybe you’d let them swim while I unload the truck? It’ll just be a couple of hours.”
“You didn’t think about calling first?” Drew said, but he didn’t sound all that upset. “I don’t know what to do with kids. Or puppies.”
“You’ve got nieces,” the other man said.
“Yeah, but I’ve never been alone with them.”
“Just keep these two outside, where they can’t ruin anything.” Whoever he was, I didn’t miss the fact that he hadn’t apologized for not calling first. He’d just brought a kid and puppy over and assumed it would be all right.
Was that how things worked in Drew’s world? I’d never experienced anything like that before. My life had always been far too complicated for someone to just drop in with no warning. Probably because I was always dropping out before they got close enough for that.
“I brought mac and cheese and Kool-Aid,” the other man continued. “He doesn’t normally get to eat that stuff, so between that and the pool… I’m hoping he won’t be too much hassle for you.”
The men kept talking in the hall for a few minutes, and I tried to carefully tug Drew’s T-shirt down so it wouldn’t reveal quite so much while I sat here with Carter and Snoopy. Especially because I still didn’t know who, exactly, they were.
“Why does your hair look like rope?” Carter asked me, reaching out a sticky hand to touch one. He giggled again. “It tickles.”
“They’re dreadlocks.”
He nodded solemnly. “You gotta get the key, then.”
“The key?”
“To unlock it.”
“Ah,” I said. Not that I understood. Not in the least. And I was too busy studying his small hand and memorizing the velvet-soft feel of the puppy’s ears to try to make sense of it, even if a small smile was working its way to my lips.
Carter climbed up onto my lap, like there was nowhere else he should be. He kept toying with my hair while he told me how they’d found Snoopy in a black garbage bag on the side of the road, and his dad told him they could keep him, and he was going to have to leave Snoopy here with his dad when he went back to Minnesota in a couple of weeks because his mom was allergic to dogs, but none of it registered in my mind. Because all I could think about was how soft the puppy’s ears were and how trusting the little boy was, and how I hoped that somewhere, right now, my son was curled up on someone’s lap just like this, with a puppy of his very own.
And then my chest clenched, and I thought I might cry.
The front door closed, and Drew came back down the hall. He looked over at the three of us, a grocery bag in his hands and a sheepish expression on his face. “Sorry about that,” he said, grinning again as he tossed the bag on the counter and stirred the food in the skillet. “One of my teammates. Everyone’s coming back into town for preseason. Looks like it’s not just the two of us this afternoon. Hope you don’t mind?”
I didn’t have it in me to mind. I shook my head, still in a daze at how fast everything was happening.
“You feel like having some mac and cheese before we head out to the pool, little man?” he asked.
Carter leaped down from my lap, nodded, and ran into the kitchen. “I like mac and cheese.” He reached into the bag on the counter and took out the blue box. “Can I help?”
He left Snoopy with me, probably because the puppy was about to fall asleep in my arms. The pup was all tuckered out, and rubbing his ears seemed to have helped him relax into a much-needed nap.
“How about you help by sitting down at the table and drinking your Kool-Aid while I take care of the hot stuff?” Drew suggested. “Looks like your dad put a coloring book in here for you, even.” He might not think he knew what to do with puppies and kids, but it seemed to me he was a natural. But he had said something about nieces, and it seemed natural that at least some of his teammates would have kids he’d be around sometimes. Could things like that rub off on a person?
Drew got Carter settled at the table with his drink and the coloring book. Then he checked on everything on the stove again before coming into the living room and sitting on the arm of
my chair. With a finger, he stroked the puppy’s forehead. Not too long ago, he’d been stroking me in much the same way, only in a far more intimate spot. Damn if I hadn’t melted into his touch exactly like Snoopy was now, too.
“Cute little guy, isn’t he?” Drew asked me.
“Snoopy or Carter?”
He shrugged. “Both, I guess. Sorry. I didn’t know they were coming over.”
“You do realize I’m sitting here practically naked, right?” I hissed. “With a small child right there.”
“Trust me, I’m aware.” Drew chuckled softly, but Carter was completely focused on his coloring book and oblivious to us. “But what his father doesn’t know won’t hurt me. I’ll check on the laundry. Maybe I can move your things into the dryer now. And I’ll see if I can find you something better to wear while we wait. Can’t scar the kid by flashing your bits around. I’d never hear the end of it, because there’d be no chance he wouldn’t blab it to his father first chance he got.”
He headed off into the laundry room, and all I could think was that I should’ve run away after all. This was feeling entirely too domestic for my sense of comfort.
Especially because I liked it.
ALL THE PUBLIC pools had closed for the season after Labor Day yesterday, but the weather was still plenty warm enough to take a swim. All summer long, I’d spent more time in my pool than I should, particularly since we were in a drought, and I never had a problem with any of the guys coming over to join me if they were in town. Not too many of them stuck around Tulsa over the off-season, anyway, so it wasn’t like they were throwing a massive party at my place every night or anything.
Having Ethan “Huggy Bear” Higgins drop off his kid and a puppy I didn’t even know they owned for a swim date was a first, though.
I didn’t exactly mind. Or at least I wouldn’t under normal circumstances. But today wasn’t normal, and this wasn’t quite how I’d seen the afternoon going.
I’d been hoping to get Ravyn in the shower with me after lunch, for one thing…and then if we’d ended up back in bed afterward, all the better. I was starting to learn that she was a lot more willing to share bits and pieces of herself with me when she was sexually sated, so that seemed like a good plan for getting to know her better. More than anything, I wanted to learn more about this whole cutting business. Why she did it. What she thought she could do instead that wouldn’t cause her physical harm.
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