I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can’t tell her that the coatrack is currently in a regional sorting facility for the Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana, because she will thoroughly lose her shit. My parents never got rid of anything when I was a kid, and they didn’t start with their big lottery win. Instead, they left almost everything in the house when they absconded to Florida, choosing to outfit their new condo with the finestGolden Girls–style décor—lots of pastels, seashells, and wicker. I’m pretty sure my mother bought out the word art section of the Boca Raton HomeGoods. No ocean pun goes un-punned in the Webber retirement condo.
To hear that I offloaded her coatrack (to say nothing of the coffee table, end tables, and a whole collection of vintage-stylelamps that looked like they were acquired in a particularly vintage win onThe Price is Right) might kill her.
But I don’t know what else to tell her, because I’m horny as fuck and my brain is scrambled eggs. For the first time in my life, I don’t know if I can come up with an appropriate lie to tell my mother.
And then Dan saves me.
“Mrs. Webber, can I make you a cup of tea?”
“Oh, that would be lovely, Daniel,” she says with a warm smile, “but I’m completely exhausted. I think I’ll just head to my room.”
Daniel?I mouth at him when she turns to take a mug out of the cupboard.
He shrugs and winks, and I mouththank youin return.
I try not to bristle at her calling itherroom. I mean, yeah, it’s the bedroom my mom and dad slept in for the entirety of my life until last fall. It still has hunter-green walls with an ivy wallpaper border and contains the dark wood bedroom set they bought as an anniversary present to each other in the early nineties, before I was born. It’s practically a time capsule, a museum = of my overprotected childhood.
But it’s nottheirs. This house is mine. And just because I haven’t changed it yet doesn’t mean I won’t. In fact, I should probably plan to move into that room. It’s the primary bedroom, the one with the en suite. It’s ridiculous that I’m still sleeping in my childhood bedroom, my childhoodbed.
But then I realize that this is the very reason why I haven’t taken over the primary bedroom. Because even though this house is mine, even though I’ve made a few efforts at making it feel like mine, somehow it will always be theirs.
You could sell the house.
The thought simultaneously excites me and makes me exhausted.
“You know what, I think I’ll crash too,” I say, giving my mother a tight smile.
She pads across the kitchen and wraps me in a hug, her signature apple-spice smell enveloping me. I breathe in and let myself feel the comfort of being really, truly loved. I don’t take it for granted. Grace grew up without her mother, and I know that even in her worst moments, I’d still rather have Mom here than not.
I do wish she wasn’therehere, though. Not at this very moment.
“Good night,” I say into her hair.
“Good night, butterbean,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
Over her shoulder, I see Dan drop his eyes to the linoleum, before gazing up from beneath his thick lashes.Good night, he mouths.
Soon, I reply.
I wake with a deep inhale just at the moment that dream Dan is about to slide inside me. Even my subconscious is cockblocking me. I sigh and turn over, but it quickly becomes apparent that I’m not going to fall back asleep easily.
I crawl out of bed and drag myself to the bathroom, hoping the bottle of melatonin I’m picturing in there isn’t also a figment of my imagination.
I trudge down the carpeted hallway, half thinking about someday putting in wood floors and half thinking about finding a whole new house that already has wood floors, so I don’t immediately notice the strip of light coming from beneath the bathroom door. Not until I’m directly in front of it. Not until the door flies open and Dan steps out.
I gasp. He’s wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and no shirt, so his carved chest and the ink decorating it are on full display. Without thinking, maybe because I actually am still half asleep, I reach out and trace a flower—a dogwood, I think. He stands still, his eyes following the path of my finger along his smooth skin.
When I reach the stem of the flower, I let my finger wander down the valley between his pecs, over the ridges of his abs, to the waistband of his sweatpants. I can see the outline of his cock, thick and heavy. I felt it pressing into my belly on the dock and so tantalizingly close in the car. I want to spend time with it, lavish it with attention until he’s as undone as I was earlier tonight.
The idea of taking apart broody, controlled Dan McBride is the sexiest fantasy my mind has ever created.
I start to crook my finger into the waistband, but I only get the very tip inside when he reaches down and circles my wrist with his big, strong hand.
For a split second I worry that while I’ve spent my time alone in my bed conjuring dirty dreams, he’s spent the time alone in his bed deciding that sleeping with me would be a terrible mistake. Maybe he’s decided he doesn’t want me.
But that terrible thought lasts only as long as a breath, because Dan takes a step backward into the bathroom, pulling me in after him. He pushes the door shut with his foot and then presses me up against it, his lips covering mine.
