Arms crossed over my chest, I had my hip propped up against the counter.
Watching her.
Shea focused on pushing some buttons on the dishwasher, her attention trained away, intensity billowing around us, that invisible tether stretched taut.
Almost reluctantly, she stood to face me. Quiet filled her kitchen, the two of us just looking at each other, the water running through the pipes, and our confused breaths the only sound.
April and Kallie had just left to go to the park, and when they’d gone, it’d stolen all the relative ease. It felt a bit of an olive branch when April had looked at me as if she were making a tough decision, then made a quick glance to Shea, before she’d turned to Kallie and bent her voice in that way women always seemed to do when they talked to little kids.
“How about a trip to the park?” she’d asked, and Kallie had been all over it, flying up the stairs to her room to get changed and bounding back downstairs in less than two minutes. She’d jumped up and down, the ball of pure energy she was, clapping her hands and squealing, “All ready, Auntie April!”
Shea had knelt down and hugged her, murmured, “Have a great time, Butterfly,” while she brushed back some of that uncontrolled hair. The kid had gone and flung her arms around my leg, hugging me tight, saying something about me reading to her another time while I’d been completely struck dumb.
April had paused at the door and looked back at us, eyes narrowed. “Three hours,” she’d warned, obviously giving the two of us some time alone, because she wasn’t immune to the questions swirling between Shea and me, either.
Now Shea cleared her throat, redness on her cheeks. “I’m going to run upstairs for a minute. Why don’t you wait for me in the living room? The remote’s on the coffee table…it should be easy enough to figure out.”
“Sure,” I answered, though watching television was the last thing I wanted to do. What I really wanted was to follow her right back up those stairs and go for another round, to see her with the sun shining down around her, lighting up the lush lines of her body while I pounded into the delicious warmth of it.
Don’t go there, Stone.
Instead, I trailed her into the living room and watched her jog upstairs and disappear into her room with a quick, unsure glance behind her. I pushed out a strained breath from my lungs, wondering again what in the hell I’d gotten myself into.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Turning away, I wandered back into the middle of the living room, pulled out my phone to see who’d texted. I swept my finger across the face and couldn’t help my grin.
The Keeper.
Should have known he’d be concerned.
Hey, asshole. It’s noon and we haven’t heard a word from you. Everything good?
Nope. I was completely and utterly fucked.
I tapped out a vague reply to Zee. Yep. Everything is good.
Immediately it buzzed again. You didn’t come home last night.
I resisted rolling my eyes. The kid was a sharp one.
Another text came in right behind the last.
You with Shea?
Yeah, I answered.
Your girl okay?
My girl. What the fuck? Should have known Zee wouldn’t leave it alone.
Memories from last night went careening through my head. The way Shea had looked at me when I’d undressed in front of her, seeing beneath all the hard and cold and scarred.
My chest tightened, a painful squeeze of my lungs.
My girl.
Maybe in another lifetime, if I’d chosen another path, if I’d made a million different choices.
She was shaken up, but okay, I returned.
Okay, man, keep us posted.
Will do.
Stuffing my phone back in my pocket, I roamed Shea’s living room, looking at the pictures on the walls, the books crammed into the bookshelves, the basket of toys in the corner on the floor.
Home.