No, I bet we had more like eight, if not five. It was like she had a sixth sense when it came to knowing if I was awake or not.
Tallulah had been sleeping through the night since she was three weeks old, and I’d counted myself lucky because that meant when I went back to work, she’d sleep in while I got up early to study. Or so I’d thought, it never worked out that way.
For instance, if I were to wake up early to work out in the living room—she woke up. Without fail.
Didn’t matter what I was doing, or how quiet I was. If I was awake, she was awake.
Period.
Today, though, she’d have to wait.
I had to get cleaned off quickly so I could go strip the sheets and start a load of laundry while he was cleaning off in the shower.
Then I had to pick Tallulah up and get out of here before he got out. I’d never, ever be able to face him again, and here he was standing at my back acting like I’d not just committed a dating faux pas.
“Hand me the soap,” he ordered, pointing at the corner of the tub where I’d placed it the night before.
See, here’s where Karma kicks in.
Had I put it back in the soap dish holder on the wall, I wouldn’t have had to bend over at all.
Because had I not had to bend over, I wouldn’t have farted.
It was the cutest sounding fart I’d ever let out in my life, but still, it was a fart.
My asshole clenched and I froze under the water, wondering what in the hell I’d done to deserve this lot in life.
Surely I hadn’t done anything too bad.
I’d kicked my brother in the nuts on purpose when I was in high school, and I’d stolen my mom’s car two months later out of spitefulness. Though, she hadn’t noticed. I’d felt bad and come home all within fifteen minutes, and then had the gall to admit what I’d done to her.
She’d looked at me like I was crazy and had told me to go clean the kitchen.
And, to this day, I still felt bad for that fork I’d thrown in the trash because I couldn’t get it clean.
So yeah, I was going on the fact that I’d thrown one of my mom’s expensive forks into the trash for the reasoning behind why exactly my life sucked.
Maybe I could just drown myself in here.
A strong, muscled chest moved up close to my back, and I stiffened even more.
Here I was, bleeding and goddamned gassy, and the man wanted to hug me?
Why?
“How are you so calm?” I demanded as I looked at him with water pouring down my face. “Aren’t most men period-phobic?”
Fart-phobic? Not that I’d bring that one up. I could totally act like it didn’t happen.
He looked at me with laughter in his eyes.
“Yeah, some are,” he shrugged. “I’m a fuckin’ doctor, and a grown ass man. I understand the logistics behind periods and gas.”
Oh, god.
He’d just said gas.
I was going to die quietly right here in his arms.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Get off me.”
He refused.
“I already put the clothes in the washer, and your daughter’s about to wake up any minute,” he informed me. “I’m about to drop you off at your mom’s, and I won’t be able to speak to you for two and a half goddamn months the way that I really want to. So how about you forget about being embarrassed over bodily functions that you have no control over and that the majority of the population experiences on a daily basis, and hug me the fuck back?”
I looked at him, staring into those blue eyes that had the power to melt my heart, and nodded.
Then I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face into his neck, and breathed easy again, no longer in quite the panic that I’d been in when I’d woken up a few minutes before.
Though, you could bet your ass that I wouldn’t be bending down in front of him again for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 14
Your boobs really bring out my eyes.
-Tommy’s secret thoughts
Tommy
“I’ll take y’all home.”
I looked at him incredulously. “You can’t,” I denied him. “If the water happened to be low enough for you to get through it on your bike, there’s still the little dilemma of Tallulah not having her car seat. And even though I did it the other day, I won’t be doing it again. Not when we have to drive another ten minutes down the road with dumbasses trying to get out and about today for the first time in four days.”
He grinned at me.
“I have a car. A car that has a car seat in it because I pick my niece up from daycare at least once a week.”
She blinked.
“You have a car?”
She said car like it was a dirty word, and I had to squelch the urge to laugh so she wouldn’t think I was laughing at her instead of with her.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
She twitched.
I could tell she was embarrassed.
Hell, I was embarrassed for her, but what had happened this morning wasn’t the end of the world.
Fifty percent of the goddamn population had periods and a hundred percent of the world’s population farted.
It was a bodily function, and one that you couldn’t control.
So no, I wasn’t upset, grossed out or mad. I was, however, pissed off that I was having to give her up, even if it was just temporarily.
I fucking hated responsibilities.
I hated that she wasn’t going to be here after two days of having her in my bed, giving me things that I wanted more than anything, when I got home from work.
I wouldn’t even have the smell of her on my sheets since I’d had to wash them.
I’d almost say that was on purpose—since she was still trying to pull away—if I hadn’t seen her face and the way that her mortification had swept over it.
Taking her by the hand, I urged her out of the house.
I’d already loaded Tallulah’s diaper bag and her medicines while Tally had been feeding Tallulah, so all I had left to do was drop down and sweep Tallulah into my arms—which I did moments later while still holding onto Tally’s hand.
“Ready?” I looked at Tally.
She took one last look around, like it was the last time she’d ever be in this place—which was likely true since I would be moving into my own place within a week—and nodded her head with very little enthusiasm.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “Show me to this mysterious car.”
I grinned and pulled her with me, taking her down the steps and around to the garage door, which was already open and waiting for us.
She froze the moment we rounded the side of the house.
“This is not a car,” she informed me. “This is a freakin’ beast.”
I looked at my black 1967 Chevy Impala, the one that left the garage only on rare occasions, and grinned.
“I got this girl when I was sixteen,” I told her as I pulled her forward. “When I turned twenty-one, I got my first bike, and I haven’t driven her much since.”
“That’s blasphemy,” she informed me. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment to put a car like this on the back burner.”
I led her to the passenger side and opened the door for her to take a seat.
She took a look at the white leather interior, and I could tell she wanted to snort.
“I guess you don’t have your niece much?”
I shook my head.