“Are you putting my house on the market, too?”
“Oh, I’ve got ideas...”
“And you say I’m manipulative.”
“We can live wherever you want,” Cary said. “For the rest of our lives.”
Shiloh ran both hands through his hair. “And you’ll grow your hair out and let me braid it.”
“No.”
“Maybe,” Shiloh said. “You’re gonna owe mebig.”
“What do you think of my plan?” he asked in a soft voice.
She touched his ears, his cheeks, his eyebrows. “I still don’t know what it’s like to be with you,” she whispered. “And I don’t know how I’m going to find out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And I think... if we’re going to be married and living apart, you’re going to have to start letting me in on your planssooner.”
He pressed his forehead into her chin. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
Shiloh laid her cheek on top of his head. “But it’s a good plan, Cary.”
He looked up at her, dislodging her head. “Yeah?”
She nodded.
Cary shot his hand out to grab his cap and dropped it on top of Shiloh’s head.
She shrieked and tried too late to cover her head, knocking the cap askew. “I’m not one of your girls!”
Cary hugged her. “Yeah, you are. You’re my number one.”
Sixty-Seven
“Your hair doesn’t smell like apples anymore...”
Shiloh’s voice was muffled. Her face was pressed into the top of his head.
She’d knocked his cap onto the floor somewhere—Cary left it there. He finally had Shiloh back in his lap, and he wasn’t letting her go this time. He needed both arms to hold her.
“It only smelled like apples,” he said, “because the cheapest shampoo at Hinky Dinky was White Rain green apple.”
Shiloh sighed. “It was so nice.”
Cary ran one hand up her thigh, under her dress. She was wearing jeans. “It isn’t nice now?”
She kissed the top of his head. “It’s still pretty nice, Cary.”
The way she was sitting put his face in her sternum. He could feel his dog tag under his cheek, under the lacy cotton dress she was wearing. Cary wished he had a free hand to unbutton it. He nosed between the buttons. He held her with an arm under her thigh and a firm hand under her bottom.
He felt ravenous. Shemadehim ravenous. Hungry on top of hungry. It was a struggle to be rational when they were this close, a struggle to make sense.
“You probably want me to get off your lap,” Shiloh said.
Cary almost laughed.
