“I look like a Greyhound bus. What time is he coming? What are we eating? Does he know I have questions?”
“Lilah…”
“Because I have a lot of questions.”
She disappears upstairs with her suitcases. I lean against the wall and exhale. My daughter is home. My man is coming fordinner. And I’m about to watch the two most intense people I know sit across a table from each other and see who blinks first.
I cook the way my mother taught me. Pot roast, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted green beans, fresh rolls. The house smells of butter and rosemary, and I change my shirt twice before putting the first one back on. The black V-neck. It makes my tits look good without trying too hard. Not that I’m trying. I’m a mother hosting a family dinner. A responsible, mature, dignified woman who definitely did not let this man bend her over his kitchen counter yesterday afternoon.
Lilah comes back down looking like she’s about to conduct a job interview. Hair done. Earrings. The works.
“You dressed up,” I say.
“I’m the gatekeeper. Presentation matters.”
I hear the truck at six sharp. My stomach flips. My nipples tighten. Pavlov’s truck, apparently.
Then the door opens and Beau steps out.
He’s wearing a dark blue button-down tonight. Rolled up to the elbows …because God forbid this man ever cover his forearms. Tanned, veined, corded with muscle. The shirt stretches across his chest, the top two buttons undone, showing the hollow of his throat and a glimpse of the dark hair on his chest that I’ve had my face buried in every night this week. Clean jeans sitting low on his hips. Nice boots. No hat …his thick dark hair pushed back but already falling over his forehead in that way that makes him look younger and makes me want to push it back with my fingers.
He’s holding wildflowers in one hand. His golden eyes find mine through the screen door. And his whole face shifts. That jaw unclenches. His full lips soften. He looks at me like… My clit pulses. Over a man holding wildflowers on my porch. While my daughter stands three feet away. I need Jesus.
Lilah presses her face to the screen. “Oh,” she says. Then louder: “Oh. Okay. I get it.”
“Lilah.”
“No, Mom, I get it. He looks like if a Yellowstone character got a PhD.”
“Please don’t embarrass me.”
“No promises.”
I open the door. Beau climbs the steps in that slow, steady stride that makes my belly tighten and my thighs press together every single time, and stops in front of us. He’s so big he blocks the porch light. His scent hits me first …cedar, leather, clean skin. Then his eyes. Gold and warm and locked on me for a beat too long before he shifts to Lilah.
He holds out the flowers. “For you.” Looking at Lilah. “I’m Beau.”
He extends his hand. My daughter looks at his massive palm and shakes it.
“I’m Lilah. I have questions.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She giggles. “Sir, don’t ma’am me, I’m twenty.”
His mouth twitches. “Noted.”
She studies him, then turns to me, smirking teasingly. “He’s polite. That’s suspicious.”
Dinner starts as an interrogation and turns into something I wasn’t expecting.
Lilah opens with the basics …school, career, how long he’s been back. Beau answers with that quiet patience that makes me melt. No performing. No trying too hard. Just his low, steady voice and honest answers while he eats my pot roast like it’s the best thing he’s ever had. He compliments the food twice. The second time he looks at me across the table and says, “You keep feeding me like this and I’m never leaving.”
My face flushes. Lilah catches it. Files it away. Says nothing. Smart girl.
I try to focus on the conversation, but my eyes keep drifting to his hands. His thick fingers wrapped around his fork. The way his forearm flexes when he cuts his meat. The controlled, precise movements …same hands that pin my wrists above my head and hold me open for his mouth. Same fingers that curl inside me and find the spot that makes me scream. Now they’re buttering a roll at my dinner table while my daughter asks about his undergraduate thesis.
This is surreal.
