Together they galloped down the stairs and through that palatial kitchen to that giant mudroom, where—God, there was a door leading into the house from the garage.
Dingo was first out the door to the back patio, and Maddie was right behind him. She made the mistake, though, of turning to close that door behind her.
And as she did, Fee’s mother came in through the garage.
Her surprise was all over her Fee-like face as she saw Maddie and gasped.
Maddie opened her mouth, and instead ofTell Fee to go fuck herself,she said, “I’msosorry, Mrs. Clark,” before she slammed the door closed behind her.
And, as she ran like hell toward Dingo’s car, she realized it was true.
Shewasincredibly sorry. For herself, for Fiona’s mother, for Dingo, and even for her dad.
But most of all, she felt sorry for the Fees and the Lisas, who crashed through life, probably through no real fault of their own, fucking it up royally for everyone around them.
“Any word from Maddie?”
Shayla checked her phone. “Nothing yet.”
Post-sex dishevelment repair was even more awkward in a garage, she had just discovered.
Fortunately, Peter had been dealing with his own shorts-around-his-ankles awkwardness and hopefully hadn’t paid too much attention to her tank-top-and-sneakers-only fashion statement.Temporaryfashion statement. She’d pulled her shorts on over her bare ass as quickly as humanly possible.
“You hungry?” Peter asked as he finished zipping up his own shorts.
“I would not say no to your scrambled eggs,” she admitted. When he’d cooked them the other night, they’d smelled impossibly good.
“I can do more than eggs,” he told her with a smile. “Believe it or not, I’m a pretty good cook.”
“I believe it,” she said, reaching up to pull his mouth down for a quick kiss.
He caught her, holding on to both of her arms, so that he could kiss her again. Longer this time. “That was amazing.” He smiled into her eyes. “Let’s do it again. But unlike Jack-of-the-magic-penis, I’ll need a few hours to get mine ready to go again.”
Shayla laughed. “Jack does not have a magic penis.”
“I think he might. Either that, or you left out the part where he takes a shit-ton of Viagra.”
“How about if we don’t attempt to schedule a replay,” she told him. “Instead, let’s have a signal that saysMeet me in the back of the garage, ASAP.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Like, if we run into each other out by our mailboxes, and one of us says,Hello.”
She cracked up. “You wanthelloto be ourLet’s go have sexsignal?”
He kissed her lips. “I very much do,” he said.
And for a moment, Shayla lost herself as she let him kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. She might’ve kissed him forever if he hadn’t suddenly lifted his head.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
“You mean, the sound of my vagina applauding?” she asked.
Peter laughed. “Jesus, I love…your sense of humor. But no, that’s not what I meant.”
Okay. Had she just imagined that hesitation afterlove? She must’ve. Although, God, the idea that she was breathlessly analyzing his language usage in hopes of a clue or a sign that he wanted to, what? Marry her? Harry was right. She sucked at casual sex. SometimesI love your sense of humormeant exactly and only that. She made the man laugh.
“There,” he said, but she shook her head.
There were lots of different sounds and noises in their neighborhood. Traffic from the main road, a few streets over. Airplanes regularly passing overhead. Mrs. Quinn’s hose as she watered her garden.
