“Thank you.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something more, and I mentally braced myself. As much as I hated to see him leave, I needed him to get on with it because I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to control my emotions. And goddammit, I refused to break down in front of him. He didn’t need to deal with that on top of everything else.
But then he sighed. “See ya, Nash.”
“Take care, Tameron…and say hi to Dayton from me, okay?”
I watched him as he carried the boxes to his car, loaded it, and after shooting me a last look, drove off.
That was it. The end of an era. All three had found their way and were on their own now. The baby birds had flown the nest.
Fuck, I’d never expected it to hurt this much. I’d always thought parents should feel happy when their kids left, celebrating the freedom they’d acquired, but I now knew that wasn’t the case at all. I didn’t want my freedom. I wanted my brothers back. Not really, obviously, but still. Letting go was so much harder than I had counted on.
With a sigh, I closed the front door. At least the nest wasn’t entirely empty. Forest, Creek’s little brother, had moved into Creek’s old room a few weeks prior. He’d moved to the Bay Area from Texas and was now teaching history at Bayview Community College. With the housing situation being what it was and the absolute insane prices people had to pay—two thousand dollars for a one-bedroom studio the size of a closet? Get the fuck outta here—offering him to move in had been an easy decision. It wasn’t like I needed four bedrooms to myself.
I hadn’t seen as much of Forest as I had expected. When I’d first met him, he’d been a bubbly, vibrant kid—no, he wasn’tthatyoung, obviously, but I preferred to think of him as a kid since that prevented me from thinking about him in other ways—but he was now more reserved.
I hoped he was doing okay. Maybe now that Tameron had moved out, I would have more time to spend with Forest. That was a definite silver lining, right? I’d better focus on those before I truly turned into a bitter old man. The good Lord knew I was only steps away from that.
A door upstairs opened, and as if he knew I’d been thinking about him, Forest came walking down the stairs. As usual, I had a hard time dragging my eyes off him. Probably four inches shorter than me and with a slender build, he was gorgeous in every way. Soft creamy skin, a smattering of freckles, pretty brown curls, and pouty lips that just begged to be kissed made for one hell of a package.
He was almost at the bottom when he tripped, stumbling. My arm shot out, and I caught him reflexively, putting him down on his feet. “Careful there.”
Big moss-green eyes looked up at me. “Sorry. I was… I don’t know what happened. I guess I tripped over my own feet.”
He frowned, though, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“It happens, but you’d better not do it on the stairs. Even a fall from the last two steps could end up with you getting hurt. We had a lady last week who managed to break her ankle by stepping off a ladder wrong.”
“Oh gosh, that’s awful.”
Forest’s language always made me smile. As a teacher, he’d conditioned himself never to curse, and it made him sound adorably cute. “Yeah, she was by herself and couldn’t get up, so she ended up calling 911.”
Forest looked down, and I jerked back when I realized I was still holding his wrist. “Sorry, I was…” I gestured vaguely, noteven knowing what I was trying to say. Forest had that effect on me.
He cleared his throat. “No harm done. Thanks to your quick reflexes.”
“I’m glad I happened to be standing here, or you could’ve gotten hurt. Or maybe you wouldn’t have tripped. It could’ve been me who distracted you. Not on purpose, obviously, and I didn’t mean to, but?—”
“You didn’t distract me.” He cut off my rambling, and thank the gods for that. I had the weird tendency to make a fool of myself around him. He made me nervous, for some reason. Or maybe I was still more shaken up about Tameron’s departure than I wanted to admit, even to myself.
“Okay. Good. That’s good.”
Oh, for the love of god, shut up.
He smiled at me. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
I blinked.
“It’s your turn to cook, right?”
Crap. It was. “Erm, loaded mashed potatoes,” I said, knowing that the day I didn’t have potatoes, bacon, sour cream, and shredded cheese of some variety in my fridge, the world was ending. “With meatballs and, erm, green beans.”
I was pretty sure I still had some ground beef in the freezer, and we usually had green beans too. If not, there would definitely be peas or carrots.
Forest laughed. “You just totally made that up.”
I smiled sheepishly. “You caught me…but does that sound good?”
