by LJ Evans
Wynn helped Lonnie get their gear up to the apartment. After he’d set everything down in the hallway, she pushed her bag back up on her shoulder.
“I’m gonna head home.”
“Wait. What?” Lonnie said, turning with surprise in his eyes.
“I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Wynn, we barely made it home without us both falling asleep on the drive. Just crash here tonight. I’ll only worry about you if you get back in the car.”
“It’s a ten minute drive. And we both need a mattress tonight. Our own beds.” Because she knew if she stayed, Lonnie would try to give her his bed and take the couch. Like he had every night she’d been at his place except the night she’d called him Leo.
The thing was, Wynn was also reluctant to leave. She’d been with him and Edie more than she’d been at her parents’ in the last few weeks. Her childhood home felt more like a place she visited than Lonnie’s apartment did these days. It was nerve-wracking that his place felt more like home than home did.
“We can both sleep in mine. I swear. I’m so tired, there is nothing I could do to you that you couldn’t fight off with a pinky,” Lonnie teased through his own weariness.
“I…” she trailed off. She was so tired. They both were. If she stayed, she could help him with Edie again in the morning. Plus, she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to Edie, and she almost always tried to do that so that Edie knew she wasn’t leaving without coming back.
He took three steps toward her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her down the hall to his room. He took her bag from her shoulder and set it on the floor. He grabbed a pair of sweats from a drawer, tossed them at her, and picked up a second pair for himself.
She turned away as he stripped down to his briefs. She could hear him, but she knew if she watched, her body would react. She’d want to touch him. And that wasn’t a good idea tonight…maybe never.
She pulled her own jeans off and slipped into his sweats, even though it would have been just as easy to grab her own from the suitcase in the hall. She debated leaving her bra on because she wasn’t sure how she felt about waking up next to Lonnie braless. Even though he’d gotten more than enough glimpses of her wet at Mia’s. Or at the lake. It was just different. But she hated sleeping in them, wires cutting into her skin, so she pulled it off from underneath the t-shirt in a practiced move.
When she turned around, Lonnie was watching her, eyes hooded. And she knew that this was a mistake. Crawling into bed together. But he was also right. They needed sleep. In a bed that felt like home.
She pulled back the covers on the side that she’d always slept on when she’d been married to Grant, and Lonnie grunted.
“What?”
“If you sleep on that side, Edie will wake you up first in the morning.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Lonnie. Just shut up.”
He grinned a tired grin at her and then slid into the covers on the other side. She sat down, grabbed her phone, and sent a text to her mama, letting her know they’d made it home but that she was staying at Lonnie’s.
She wanted to roll her eyes because she knew what everyone was thinking about them. The connection they had wafted in the air for everyone to see. But they’d both done a good job of ignoring it. The friendship they formed so much more important than the physical energy.
She could hear Lonnie’s breath even out next to her as sleep took him. And as she found her own eyes drifting closed, she knew that everything would eventually work itself out in whatever way the universe had planned. They all just needed time.
♫ ♫ ♫
A soft giggling pulled Wynn from her sleep. When she finally forced her eyes open, she found herself staring into Edie and Lonnie’s amber ones. They were smiling down at her with smiles and eyes that were so similar that it was easy to see why people would think Edie belonged to him.
Wynn smiled back before asking, “What’s so funny, you two?”
“You’s snore,” Edie said with another giggle. She was tucked up against Lonnie in the bed. She hadn’t woken Wynn up first. Instead, she’d somehow climbed in between them without Wynn even knowing.
“You snore,” Wynn corrected automatically before adding, “and I do not!” She’d never snored. Grant had never complained that she snored. Snoring was completely out of the question.
Lonnie chuckled. “You were.”
“I do not snore!” Wynn frowned at them both.
“Well then, some other person has taken over your body, because that was definitely snoring. Cute snoring, though. Not all ugly, drunk man snores.”
She looked at him, floored. Cute snores? Was that even a possibility?
She went to get up, and Lonnie halted her, his hand on her arm, creating that instant sparkle that existed between them. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom and then home,” she told him.
“Nonnie says we have bedjama day.” Edie looked at her, suddenly serious.
“Lonnie said what?”
“I declared it Bedjama Day.” His grin was still there. It was good to see the grin returning and staying for so many consecutive minutes after the sadness and grief she’d seen on him for days on end in L.A.
“What on earth is a Bedjama Day?”
“Wait. You seriously don’t know?” Lonnie asked.
Wynn shook her head.
“It’s a day you spend in your pajamas and in bed when you’re not sick. Bedjama Day.”
“Like when you have a hangover?” Wynn asked and then glanced at Edie quickly.
Lonnie smirked. “No, then you’re still ‘sick’ too. This is a day when everything is fine and you choose to stay in bed.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Come on. Never? Even as a kid, you didn’t just stay in your pajamas once in a while?”
Wynn shook her head. “No. My daddy and mama were more get-out-of-the-house-and-do-something type of people. Even if it was working in the garden or going to church.”
“You never spent the day in your pajamas while studying in college?”
Wynn scoffed. “I lived in a sorority house. If we stayed in our pajamas, it was because you were hungover, sick, or waiting for a guy to come over.”
Lonnie waggled his eyebrows. “That’s a different kind of Bedjama Day.” He covered Edie’s ears and whispered, “That’s Bedgasma Day.”
Edie fought against his hands on her ears, and he laughed as he let her go.
Wynn looked at him like he was insane. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You know. Bed and O-R-G-A-S-M.”
She flushed and looked away. “I got it, idiot. You didn’t need to spell it out for me.”
Edie crawled up so that she was leaning on the pillows in between Wynn and Lonnie. Her little feet were stuck out in front of her, Mask held in an arm, her cape clutched in the other. “What we do?”
“Read. Play games. Eat. Watch TV,” Lonnie explained.
“Why do we have to do that in bed?” Wynn cringed even as the words came out of her mouth. It sounded so wrong after talking about orgasms with him.
“Why not?”
“Who gets the food if we are all lying around in bed?” Wynn asked.
“We take turns.”
“Who came up with this?”
The first glimmer of a shadow crossed his face, and it made her want to take back her question because she could already guess the answer.
“Lita. But we could only do it if Rochelle was out of town. May would let us. She’d even change the sheets before Rochelle got home so that there wasn’t any evidence of crumbs in the bed to give us away.”
“Is coffee allowed?”
“Of course. Anything you want. If we want cake for breakfast, then cake it is.”
“CAKE!” Edie screamed, standing up and bouncing on t
he mattress between them, which caused Wynn to roll toward Lonnie and almost wipe the little girl out.
Lonnie caught them both, the little girl sitting on his shoulder, Wynn up against his chest, her hand balancing against his bare skin.
They stared at each other, eyes speaking words that only their bodies ever spoke to each other, while Edie continued to scream about cake. Finally, Wynn pulled her hand back and rolled to the edge of the bed.
“Fine. But you need to put a shirt on.”
Lonnie chuckled knowingly.
She got to the doorway and looked back. He had Edie in the air above him, his hands on her stomach as he waved her in the air. She was pretending to fly with her cape, and he was making zooming noises. She was giggling. The sight tugged at every single one of Wynn’s heartstrings.
This is what she’d wanted when she’d been pregnant. Grant playing with their child. Them nestled together like this. Like a family.
Lonnie looked over at her standing there. “What?”
“Do you even have cake?”
He chuckled. “Nah. But there are PopTarts and those MoonPie things that Mia has gotten me addicted to.”
She nodded and left to scour the kitchen and send another text to her mama. When she came back with snacks, coffee, and juice for Edie, Lonnie was hanging up his phone.
“Derek?” Wynn asked, even though it wasn’t really her business.
“It was Mark.” His voice was purposely bland, controlled. “I hadn’t texted last night. He said he was concerned.”
They sat for a minute, the three of them munching on Pop Tarts. “Maybe it opened his eyes,” Wynn finally threw out, hoping for Lonnie and Edie’s sake that it was true. That at least one of Lonnie’s parents would become vested in their lives.
Lonnie shrugged, putting the phone on the nightstand. “I’m not going to count on it.”
It was sad to Wynn that he didn’t even seem angry or hurt by it. He said it as if it was a random fact he was stating. Like he’d already been scrubbed of any emotion he could have for his parents.
“What’s first? Game or TV?” Wynn asked, changing the subject like she knew he wanted.
“Game!” Edie shouted, spraying the PopTart crumbs all over the comforter and causing both Wynn and Lonnie to burst into laughter.
♫ ♫ ♫
Wynn couldn’t remember a day that she’d felt so relaxed. That had eased by in such a languid way. She’d expected to feel guilty. She’d expected for her brain to be full of the list of things she needed to do before they left on the next stop of the tour, but her brain had been oddly quiet.
They’d played card games, teaching Edie how to play Go Fish, and they’d read—sometimes together aloud, sometimes just tucked up like a ball of yarn that had been twisted together, own books in hand. They watched TV. They ate junk food and complained when their stomachs gurgled because of too many sweets.
Finally, at about eight o’clock, Edie passed out again. Her body bracketed by theirs on either side. Her foot on Lonnie, her hand on Wynn’s arm. To Wynn, it felt like somehow she’d been given a glimpse of heaven. Of everything she’d ever wanted.
Lonnie was reading on his phone. Wynn loved that he read for fun. Grant had read, too. It was something Grant and her had had in common, but they’d never read in bed like this. Tucked up together, toes touching. She suddenly felt like she’d missed out on a lot of things in life. She reminded herself that she was only twenty-five…almost twenty-six. That she still had plenty of time. That she was young, even though sometimes it felt like she was as old as her mama.
Lonnie looked up when he felt her watching him. “What?”
It seemed to be their new thing: catching each other staring and the other asking what. As if, maybe, one of the times they would actually say what their hearts and bodies were feeling instead of what their brains told them to say.
She knew she should suggest leaving. She had laundry to do and an essay to write. She knew that leaving was the right thing…for now.
“Nothing.” She closed her eyes against unexpected tears. Tears that she didn’t know why she was shedding. There was nothing that had made her sad. Not one thing. It had been a perfect day.
“Wynn…” He put the phone down and turned on his side. Edie flipped with him, dead asleep, her little face burying itself into the pillow next to Wynn’s chest. Wynn felt her heart expand and stop and expand again. “Talk to me,” Lonnie pushed.
“There’s nothing. Really…I don’t even understand myself why I’m feeling this way.”
Lonnie looked down at Edie tucked up next to her. “I forget sometimes,” he said, sorrow in his voice again.
“About Lita?” Wynn asked, opening her eyes to look back at him.
“No. About your babies.”
Wynn choked on tears. She could never forget. It was part of her everyday existence. She didn’t know how Marina functioned most days after having watched Jake grow up only to lose him. She hadn’t been able to love hers at all and it was still a constant ache.
“You’re gonna be an amazing mom someday,” he said quietly.
Wynn shook her head. “No. I won’t.”
Lonnie looked surprised. “You’re never going to try? Ever again?”
She laughed sarcastically. “That would mean having someone to try with.”
She thought she saw a moment of hurt pass over his face before he turned back to the joking Lonnie that was most prevalent. “Well, there’s always the sperm bank.”
She smiled at him. “The old-fashioned way is much more fun.”
His eyes got serious again. Smoldering. That was the word used in the book she’d just been reading. Smoldering eyes. Flames shooting through his brown irises.
“I could help with that.”
It was said in his teasing way, but there was that intensity back in them that was always there when he really looked at her. His eyes moved down to her lips, that opened at his inspection without her even meaning them to, before trailing back to her eyes.
Neither of them moved, as if they were each waiting for the other to do something first. But they didn’t. Not with Edie tucked up between them. Wynn was pretty sure that even if Edie wasn’t there, they wouldn’t have moved. There was something holding them both back. Things that both of them were struggling with.
She rolled over to the edge, standing up.
“I gotta go.”
“Wynn—” he started to object.
“No. I do. I need to do laundry, and schoolwork, and just get things done before we leave again.”
He sighed and stood up on his side of the bed.
“I know. I’m sorry that we’ve been monopolizing all of your time.”
She looked down at Edie, feeling guilty for not having said goodbye. It was part of the reason she’d stayed the night before, and she still hadn’t succeeded in telling the little girl she’d be back. But she needed to go. Now. Before her body did things her brain would regret. She grabbed her bag that he’d left on the floor by his dresser, put on her flip-flops, and grabbed her suitcase from the hallway just as he reached her.
He took the suitcase from her hand, and she let him just so that their hands wouldn’t be touching again after the moment they’d shared in the bedroom.
He walked her down to her car that she’d left at his place before they’d gone to Colorado. It seemed like so long ago. Days with Lonnie seemed to blend into lifetimes.
She opened the trunk, and he put her suitcase inside. She opened the driver’s door and turned back to him. “Thank you for today. I wouldn’t ever have expected a Bedjama Day to be so recharging.”
He chuckled before turning somber again. “Thank you. Seriously. I don’t know what I would have done without you since…well…ever since I’ve had Edie.”
“It’s what friends are for,” she said as she slid into the driver’s seat, uncomfortable again.
“No. You’ve gone way past wha
t friends do.”
She ignored what he was implying.
“Maybe where you’re from. Not in Tennessee.”
He tried to hold her gaze, but she wouldn’t meet it. “I just wish I could pay you back in some way.”
“If you talk money to me again, I’m going to find someone to take you into a dark alley and give you a beating.”
He laughed. “Do you know people like that?”
She smirked back at him. “No, but I bet Blake could put out some feelers for me.”
He stood back, and she started the car. “Please tell Edie I’ll see her on Thursday.”
He looked like he would complain. About the fact that it would be three days before they saw each other again. But then he just nodded. “We’ll see you Thursday.”
And she drove away, knowing that even though she was leaving, he wouldn’t be far from her thoughts. Him or Edie.
♫ ♫ ♫
On Wednesday, Wynn stopped by Mia and Derek’s after Mia got off work. Mia had said she had some news to share. Wynn’s brain went straight to babies. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Mia was pregnant. The way those two went at it, it was almost surprising it hadn’t happened before now.
She knocked and let herself in. Mia was in the kitchen, like she almost always was when she wasn’t at work. Either the kitchen or on the couch with a book. Those were Mia’s favorite things other than Derek. Baking and books.
They hugged and got caught up on their lives and the funeral while Mia finished the brownies and stuck them in the oven. Then, they made their way to the couch.
“Where’s Derek?”
“In the studio.”
“Does he live there?”
“Not when I have a say in it,” Mia said with a wink.
“Stop. I don’t want to know,” Wynn protested.
“Just because you aren’t getting any right now, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to abstain.”
“You sound like Cam,” Wynn groaned.
Mia laughed. Wynn liked that she laughed so much now that Derek was in her life. He was perfect for Mia. She’d meant what she said to Lonnie. She felt like if Jake hadn’t died, Mia might not have met Derek, and that would have been tragic as well.