“Goodnight, Winter.”
Her lips tip up as she turns away, avoiding my gaze. Like our interaction makes her bashful. Like we’re two giddy teenagers saying goodnight after a first date.
Being loved is uncomfortable for her. God, I want to change that, but she’ll be the one to tell me when the time is right. I have it in my head that after spending her life behaving in a way that suits everyone around her, she might need a minute to figure out what suits her.
She walks away, and I resist the urge to follow her. Her sneakered feet pad quietly down my walkway, across the front sidewalk, and up her own walkway. I step onto the porch so she can’t see me watching.
Her eyes stay on her toes as she approaches her house. But she doesn’t go inside.
She takes a seat on the front step and lifts the coaster, staring at it. Her fingers trace over it, much like they trailed over my face moments ago.
Her features are soft, and she looks younger in this moment. Her eyes aren’t pinched, her lips aren’t in a pout. This is how she looks when she’s with Vivi.
Happy.
After a couple of minutes, she rises and steps into her house. Warm light spills onto the porch for a moment, and the inaudible murmurs of her and Summer talking filter into the night. Through the front window, I see them hug.
Three hugs in one night. Not bad.
I walk into my house with a goofy smile on my face. My mom catches it from where she’s sitting on the couch with an episode of Grey’s Anatomy queued up and ready to go.
“You do know you’re in love with that girl, don’t you?”
I flop down beside her and sling an arm over her shoulder, ready to get lost in the very best medical drama while sitting beside one of my favorite women in the world.
“Yeah, Mom. I know.”
25
Winter
Theo: What if I stayed here as my home base?
Winter: In Chestnut Springs?
Theo: Yeah.
Winter: In your house?
Theo: I could pitch a tent in your backyard if you prefer. Invite you over for a campfire and tequila. ;)
Winter: Not ideal. Someone shitty could move in next door. I could end up with an even worse neighbor than you.
Theo: And who knows if he’d mow your lawn for you the way I do. Pretending to garden would be boring and pointless without me to watch.
Winter: I do not watch you.
Theo: You only ever garden when I’m mowing the lawn.
Winter: How do you know?
Theo: Because I’m watching you back.
A loud squeal pierces my ears as Peter slides across the hardwood floor like he’s Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Vivi has an alarmingly strong arm on her. From her spot on the floor, she wails on the rubber chicken, whipping it across the living room while Peter gives chase.
When he rushes back and drops the squeaky toy at her feet, she slaps her chubby hands together and laughs. Peter’s tongue lolls out the side of his mouth from where he’s had teeth removed. He’s so excited his eyes seem ready to roll right out of his head.
“He really is horrific if you look at him for too long,” Loretta murmurs, before taking a sip of coffee. “Theo found him on the street while on vacation in Mexico. Fed him some taco meat, and the rest is history. Refused to leave the country without him. Rescheduled his flight and everything.”
I snort. The man has a thing for strays.
From my sitting position on the floor of the living room, I watch Theo walk across the room in a way that should be illegal. He’s wearing light-wash jeans and a white T-shirt while carrying a plate of oatmeal cookies. Ones he baked fresh—because of course he did.
His outfit couldn’t be plainer, but I can’t take my eyes off him. I’m taken back to the days he shows up to mow my lawn, without a shirt. While he taunts me with his muscles, I pretend to garden and creep on him from behind my sunglasses.
It’s been a week since he laid me out on the gym bench and made a meal of me. I’ve worked out alone since our escapade, but he always swings by at the end when I’m stretching.
He crouches beside me and whispers, “Excuse me, ma’am. Did you sanitize that bench right there?” while pointing at The Bench.
I scowl.
He winks.
And we part ways.
We’ve fallen into a rhythm, even though we haven’t expanded upon that night at all. There’s a lot going on. His mom is here. He’s working at the gym while he rehabs. I’m barreling toward my little sister’s wedding, where I’m not a bridesmaid. I’m a fucking maid of honor.
A role I keep trying to give to Willa, but that bitch only laughs at me.
So, Theo and I continue to circle each other. We’ve developed a sort of kinship. My place, his place. We go between them, and so does Vivi. So does his mom, who’s taken it upon herself to be the warmest, most helpful human I’ve ever met. Theo definitely inherited his infallible brand of kindness—the easy smile and gentle touches—from her.
So why do I hold back?
It’s because he told me there hasn’t been anyone else since that night. It’s that fucking coaster tucked in my bedside table. Sometimes, I pull it out just to stare at it.
It’s physical proof he liked me even then. Proof that he isn’t full of shit, like every other man in my life. That he’s thought of me since that night. That Vivi and I aren’t the burden in his life I seem to think we are.
Who knew a shitty, stained coaster with both our scrawling signatures scribbled across it could upend my carefully curated boundaries so thoroughly?
I’m not sure how to act around him anymore.
I want him almost obsessively. Things are so good between us right now, but I’m terrified of it all blowing up in my face. I’ve been the pawn between two parents who hate each other, and subjecting my daughter to the same complications keeps me up at night.
Regardless, I can’t keep my eyes from drifting to him. My body from drawing closer to him. My hand from trailing between my legs in the bath while I think about him. My feelings for him have become more than lust.
Vivi chucks the chicken again and Peter scuttles across the floor like a geriatric cannon, narrowly avoiding the wall—and Theo’s feet. When he gets the toy, he does his best imitation of a lion killing a gazelle. Eyes wild, head whipping it from side to side. Vivi squeals with joy because this is her and Peter’s new favorite game.
“Peter, pull yourself together and bring that back.” I use my this-ER-is-going-to-shit voice, drawing Peter’s attention for a moment. With a scowl at me, he begrudgingly brings the toy back and spits it out in front of Vivi.
“That dog isn’t deaf, Theo. He just doesn’t listen to you,” I say as Theo places the plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of me with a gentle squeeze to my shoulder.
“How do you know?” he replies as he takes one cookie over to his mom, who is relaxing in the armchair.
“Because he listens to me. And I’m a doctor.” He grabs a cookie and hands it to me, before taking one for himself and sitting on the couch directly behind me. I can feel one of his bare feet against the side of my ass.
I blush.
He’s sitting so close, and his mom is right there. Plus, he ate me out and we haven’t even talked about it.
I feel like a fucking teenager around him.
“But are you a vet?” he says from behind me as he chews.
“No, but—”
“Okay. I’ll trust a vet on this then.”
“Has a vet confirmed that he’s deaf?”
“No.”
“So, your only proof is that he doesn’t listen to you?”
“Exactly. Just like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His knee nudges playfully at my back as Vivi turns and crawls toward her grandmother with big, sparkly brown eyes.
Her dad’s eyes.
“That I need to take you both to the vet.”
It’s Loretta who snorts this time as she reaches for Vivi, grinning wide as she pulls her in for snuggles. “Maybe you just don’t have anything interesting to say and that’s why they don’t listen to you. Did you ever think about that, Theo Dale Silva?”
My head snaps around to face Theo and I mouth, “Dale?”
He’s got a super sexy name and then . . . Dale?
He knees me again, but this time, he reaches under my hair and gives the nape of my neck a firm squeeze that has my entire body clenching. His head drops next to mine, and his stubble scrapes against the shell of my ear as he whispers, “Stop being so mean to me. It gets me hard when you’re mouthy. Makes me think of all the fun ways I could put that mouth to work instead. And I don’t need a boner right now.”
My cheeks flame again as he releases me and lounges back on the couch like nothing at all just transpired between us.
Perhaps I should move away from him after that toe-curling warring, but my body follows him instead. I lean back against his legs and revel in his heat and sturdiness.
He and his mom start talking about Grey’s Anatomy, and even though I could join in, my brain is stuck on how good it feels to lean on someone. To trust someone.
And I realize it then.
Theo Dale Silva has wormed his way into my heart, and I never stood a chance at keeping him out.