I returned to the wine bottle and topped off my glass, my mother tracking my every move. “A little early, don’t you think?” she asked.
Smiling, I moved toward the living room. “No,” I said. “Not at all.”
I settled in to watch Christmas Day parades with my grandmother. She was thrilled to see me, and insisted on a tight hug.
She also thought I was someone else, so it fit with the theme of this trip.
I WANDERED THROUGH my workshop, still bleary-eyed from one too many beers at Shannon’s Christmas dinner last night, and I studied the raw wood ready for transformation. I’d been itching to build something for weeks, and since the office was closed until after New Year’s and Tiel wouldn’t be back until Monday, I had some time on my hands. I just didn’t know where to start. I continued pacing, stopping every couple of minutes to examine a branch or stump.
I sketched a few things, nothing particularly interesting, and eventually went back to my tree ring tile project. I’d been thinking about ripping out the flooring in the bathroom on my side of the house—we didn’t exactly have rooms since I blew out most of the walls when I moved in—and putting down finely planed wood. It was going to be a pain in the ass but it also had the potential to be tremendously cool. With the branches measured out, I started making the hundreds of cuts necessary.
It was tedious work but I enjoyed it. I’d always loved imagining ways to give trees new lives, and went out of my way to find the right ones. It was the one thing I’d learned from my father that wasn’t coated in hate and pain.
It was also splendidly distracting. I could hone in on precise cuts, quieting all thoughts of Tiel and the way her words clung to me long after our call ended yesterday.
I did want this to last, and that was a foreign concept to me. I’d always operated with one hand on the escape hatch, but now I was too busy keeping both hands on Tiel to think about going anywhere.
I didn’t know what it meant for something tolast,but I wanted to find out.
“Hey,” Riley called, banging his fist on the door to get my attention over the saw. “Punky Brewster’s here.”
Shoving the safety glasses onto my head, I said, “Who?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Go see for yourself.”
I followed him out of the workshop and found Tiel in the middle of my kitchen. She must have taken the first train out of Newark—just like she threatened. Smiling, I shoved my gloves in my back pocket.
Seeing me, she turned, and her eyes widened to saucers. She looked me up and down, drinking in the worn jeans hanging low on my hips and my navy blue tank, and beckoned me closer. “This is agoodlook for you.”
Her hands landed on my chest and moved down over my stomach to grip my belt. A noise rumbled in the back of her throat, and it was decidedly predatory. Plenty of women had admired my body before, but this felt fucking lascivious. Her hand moved lower, cupping me, and I surged into her.
“I have missed you so fucking much,” I hissed. “Do you have any idea how many wet dreams you’ve given me?”
“And on that cheerful note, I’ll be going out for the afternoon,” Riley called. “We might want to start investing in walls and doors around here, Sam.”
Much to my relief, Tiel laughed and continued stroking. She didn’t mind Riley, and she was better when she took my family in small doses. Who could blame her?
“I’ve missed you too,” she said. “Going home is always torture, but doing it without you was the worst. You’re coming with me next time, and you’re going to do filthy things to me in my childhood bedroom.”
“Of course I will.” I backed her toward my bed, slowly stripping off her clothes as we went. The notion of meeting her family lodged in the back of my mind, slowly dissolving into a cozy idea about me taking her there and showing her off, proving once and for all that she was a treasure.
“I’ve been thinking about tasting you right”—her mouth dipped to the hollow at the base of my throat, and she kissed and nipped that tender spot until the back of her legs hit the bed—“here. I’ve been thinking about that since I left.”
“You love me in a perverted and shameless way. It’s almost a problem, Tiel.”
“I really do.” She attacked my belt, tearing it from its loops as if it had insulted her, and my jeans were on the ground in a heartbeat. “Do you lovemein a perverted and lustful way?”
These were real words, and they were dangerously close to real meaning, too. Suddenly, we weren’t exchanging the same teasing barbs we liked to throw at each other.
I love you because you’re the only person who can consume eight cappuccinos in a single day and still form syllables.
I love you because you’re still under the impression we haven’t seen21 Jump Streetat least four times.
I love you because you wear red dresses with pink shoes and manage to make it work.
I love you because you refuse to drink coconut water on account of its ‘sploogy’ taste.
I love you because you never stop announcing why you love me.
