The way he saysbossis entirely too intentional.
“I’ll get out of the way,” he says to Mama first, then to me. “I’ll see you around Delta.”
I don’t even think it just slips out. “You will.”
He holds my eyes for one beat too long, then nods once and leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, and the kitchen shifts the second he’s gone, like someone turned the volume down on the whole world. I’m still staring at the door when Mama, busy at the skillet, says “so… you came by to check on me, huh?”
“I always check on you.”
“Mmhmm.” That satisfied little sound is loud enough without her looking at me. “Just making sure.”
I drink my coffee to hide the ridiculous smile tugging at my mouth.
Delta
Steam still clings to my skin when I step out of the shower and wrap the towel around myself before lowering onto the edge of the bed. My body is warm and relaxed, but my mind refuses to follow. I reach for the bottle of lotion on the nightstand and smooth it over my arms and shoulders, taking my time the way I always do at the end of a long day. It should calm me, but it doesn’t.Mama has called me almost every morning since the first day I had breakfast with her. She never asks directly, it’s always:
“Baby, I made too much food,”
or
“I need your opinion on something,”
or
“I just like having my daughter at the table.”
I know what she’s doing. She knows I know. Neither of us says a word. Breakfast has become my guilty pleasure. I pretend I am only coming for her, but I wake up thinking about him. I tell myself I’m not planning my outfits for breakfast, but I catch myself steaming tops and leaving earrings out the night before. I haven’t cared about how I looked for a man in years. I almost resent how easy it is for him to make me want to.
The flirting starts before Mama even finds her excuse to leave, and she makes an excuse every single time. Trace hands me a plate, and instead of placing it in my palm, his fingers brush mine. He steps behind me to reach the top shelf and lets his hand settle on the small of my back for balance, just long enough for me to feel it. When stray curls fall forward, he tucks them behind my ear with no hesitation, and no apology. Every time Mama turns away, he looks at me like he is cataloging reactions he intends to revisit later.
Then she leaves us alone. On purpose. Every single time. Suddenly the kitchen feels too warm, and too small, and too full of things neither of us should be saying. His double entendres are unreal like the time my mama asks if he needs anything before heading upstairs, and he responds with:
“No ma’am. I’ve got everything I need right here.”
Or one time he was holding the door open for me when he says, “Hmm such a beautiful view,” looking right at me when I turn back to look at him. Half the time I bite the inside of my cheek just to keep my voice steady. If I had lighter skin, I would be beet red from my collarbones up. He never crosses a line, he just walks right to the edge and waits to see if I will come with him, and the worst part is that I always want to.
I press my palm to my thigh a little too hard, and exhale. I don’t know when I’d become this woman, Preston left me so emotionally bruised that I am unsure what to do when a man is interested.
“Girl, pull it together,” I murmur to myself.
I reach for my body oil, slathering it all over and just resign myself to the fact that Trace means something to me whether I want him to or not. I slip into my pajamas, tie my bonnet, and crawl into bed with a sigh. My body is exhausted, but my mind… not so much. So I reach for my current comfort read,Mo Flames, because nobody writes escapism like her, and crack the book open. A few pages in and I’m hooked all over again, right at the good part, when my phone lights up. I frown and pick it up, unknown number. My thumb hesitates for only a second before I swipe. “Hello?”
Silence.
My stomach dips. “Who is this?”
Nothing. No breathing. No TV. No movement. Nothing.
“Okay, goodbye.” I hang up before they can.
I toss the phone face-down on the nightstand and try to go back to my book, but the sentence I was just devouring suddenly looks blurry. I blink a few times and force myself to keep reading, but the buzz in my head won’t quit.
Probably a wrong number. It was probably nothing, that’s what I decide. But whether or not I actually believe it is a different story.
Trace
The house is tranquil after dinner. I sit on the edge of the mattress in the cabin, elbows on my knees, staring at the floorboards without really seeing them. Therapy was earlier this afternoon, and my mind drifts back to the minute Ranger stepped under me. I was fine. I was always fine at first, it waswhen he slowed, hesitated, when the world went still that it happened.
