“I don’t think I’d be paying attention to the smell of chemicals, but as you wish.”
Pat leans closer, his eyes now completely zeroed in on my mouth. Watching him watch me comes with a heady satisfaction. As he continues closing the distance between us, I catch a sparkle of glitter near the corner of his lips. Reaching up, I drag my finger over the spot. The glitter doesn’t budge.
“You’re going to get glitter all over me,” I tell him in a voice that tells him I don’t really mind.
Pat keeps inching forward, giving me plenty of time to resist or run, like he knows my two defaults well. “I hate to tell you, darlin’, but you’re already covered in glitter.”
My eyes flutter closed just as his lips brush mine.
And, because I really do have the worst luck of all the luck that’s ever been lucked, Jo’s class chooses to return at this moment. We jump apart, but not before twenty-two small voices chorus, “Ewwww!”
We really need to stop kissing in public places. I’m not even able to maintain a proper level of embarrassment because there’s a glint in Pat’s eyes, a promise that he’ll finish the kiss he started. Thankfully, when I catch Jo’s eye, she looks delighted, not horrified.
We definitely shocked her teacher. “Oh, hello,” Mrs. Stem says, and before I can even respond, she flicks the light switch.
As the overhead bulbs come to life, so does the big fan mounted in the corner pointed right at us, right at the open containers of glitter. And just like that, Pat and I are suddenly in the center of a glitter tornado.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pat
When I die, the mortician will still find glitter in some of my nooks and crannies. Probably even in my unmentionables.
The thought makes me chuckle as I’m scrubbing myself for the third time, watching blue and pink and purple glitter disappear down the drain. In the other shower downstairs, Lindy is probably finding the exact same thing.
But thinking of Lindy in the shower is probably not the wisest idea.
Not when we’ve just reentered kissing territory. I am not going to push too far too fast and then end up backtracking across the border. Nope. We are moving this journey in a forward direction. Onward!
I need to keep things moving slowly. I’m keenly aware of tomorrow’s court date. There is no way to measure the emotional impact it will have and even is having now. Lindy and Jo might be mostly pretending it’s not happening, but I can sense the underlying tension and worry. I’ve done my best to infuse whatever humor and lightness I can into this house, but in truth, I’m worried too.
I can’t imagine Jo not being with Lindy. This is where she belongs. It would be wrong to move her to another city where she’d be living with strangers, even if it’s a process that happens slowly. Sheet Cake is her home. Lindy is her home. And I want to be a part of that home too. I already am far more invested in this little girl than I have a right to be for this short stretch of time.
And though I don’t want to be selfish, I can’t stop wondering what this might mean for me and Lindy. If the courts keep Jo with her, I’ve basically outlived my usefulness to her. While we seem to have progressed, I’m also scared she’s making decisions in a heightened emotional state.
I meant to have an actual discussion with her about where we stand before kissing her again. But I screwed up being a jerk with the whole Neighborly thing, and then I started to kiss her again in the classroom. I don’t have a playbook for how to deal with my particular set of circumstances.
I turn the water to freezing cold for a few minutes, though my thoughts of the hearing have already significantly cooled me down. I shove all the worries into that dark cave of my mind where they belong.
Be gone, darkness! Head toward the light. That’s better.
I get out and wrap a towel around my hips, examining my red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. I’ve never been so grateful for an eye-washing station. I can safely say having glitter blown into my eyeballs is one of the least pleasant things I’ve experienced. And having shattered my ankle, that’s saying something.
Was it worth it though? Totally.
I step into the hallway and run right into Lindy. I grab her arms to keep her upright. Her skin is damp, and it takes me a minute to realize that like me, she’s also in just a towel.
“Sorry,” I say, telling my eyeballs they had better not stray from her face OR ELSE, despite their very strong urge to trace a path downward to see just where her towel starts and ends.
Her eyes are wide. “I forgot to bring a change of clothes downstairs with me.”
“It’s okay. Were you able to get all the glitter off?” Even as I ask this, I see a sparkle in her eyebrow. Best not to mention it.
“Probably not. I’m going to be covered in glitter forever. Just call me Sparkles McGee.”
“Okay, Sparkles.”
Her eyes drop down to my bare chest, and her eyes narrow. “You’ve got to stop walking around shirtless. I know why you’re doing it.”
“Why am I doing it, Sparkles?”
“To get a reaction out of me.”
Lindy says this like we didn’t share an epic kiss just last night. And that we didn’t just get caught almost repeating it at the elementary school.
I keep my expression as innocent as a little baby lamb leaping through a spring meadow. “And why would me shirtless get a reaction out of you?”
Lindy sputters, and I can’t help the lazy grin spreading across my face. “You know why,” she says.
I cross my arms over my chest, not because it makes all my muscles flex. Just because it’s comfortable, and I’m all about the comfort. “You realize I’m not the only one in a towel, right?”
Lindy’s hands fly to the knot holding up her thin towel, and she backs toward her room. “Stop looking!”
“I’m not. But this is one area where I’m okay with double standards. You can look all you want, Lindybird.”