All our next times.
I shake thoughts of Jayson from my mind and eat in silence, enjoying this rare moment of quiet that I seldom get to enjoy. The tension I didn’t know I was carrying melts off my shoulders, and I’m able to relax for the first time in…I don’t know how long.
“You’re being unnervingly quiet,” Fallon observes, tilting his head as he studies me. “Is it a good quiet or a bad quiet?”
“Good quiet,” I admit, my thighs clenching together as I watch him pluck a red grape from the bunch and suck it into his mouth.
I recline back against one of the throw pillows and nibble on a cucumber spear. “Would you rather,” I begin, playing the word game I used to love when I was younger, “live in a world without color or live in a world without sound?”
“Color,” Fallon replies.
I angle my head to the side and look at him. A spear of sunlight catches in his hair, turning the dark blond into burnished gold.
“Why?”
“I would still be able to see things, even if they existed only in black and white.”
He scoops a spoonful of banana pudding from a glass and brings it to my lips. I blink at him, the teasing glint in his eye daring me to take it. Propping up onto my elbows, my eyes never leave his as I take a small taste. His soft grin turns into something breathtaking as I lick the sweetness off my lips.
His voice is laced with something dangerous when he says, “You keep looking at me like that, and?—”
“And what?”
He bends over me, the scent of his cologne tantalizing. “And I’m going to have to kiss you again.”
“Fallon?”
“Yeah, Kitten?”
“Kiss me.”
And that’s how I spend the next couple of hours. Fallon, good food, and breathtaking kisses.
Perfection.
Chapter Twenty-One
ELIZABETH
Firecracker
“You hadSEX!”
Oh my god. Kill me now. My face spontaneously combusts into the reddest shade of color ever imagined.
“Jesus Christ, Mer. I can’t take you anywhere,” Bryce says from behind her, and my mortification increases a thousandfold. I’m so thankful my kids aren’t here right now.
Meredith’s high-pitched squeal has my ears ringing. “She has a hickey! Look, Bryce!”
I do? My hand comes up over my neck. Is this why Fallon keeps looking at me with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face? Holy hell. I can’t let Charlotte or Christopher see me with hickeys. I won’t be able to look my kids in the eyes ever again.
“Nice of you to drop by unannounced. Sorry you have to leave now,” I say sardonically, shutting the door on her.
After they got married, she and Bryce bought a house in Fuquay-Varina, about forty minutes from here. It’s nice being able to see her often. Now? Maybe not so much since she just embarrassed the crap out of me.
Meredith shoves the door wide open and tackles me in a bear hug. She’s wearing heels today, so her head reaches my collarbone. She’s kept her pixie bob haircut all these years but changes things up by dyeing it all sorts of colors. Purple is the color for this month.
“I am so sorry about her,” Bryce apologizes for his crazy wife.
