Her little eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks are red.
“Purrlock is leaving,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to use a brave voice. “I don’t want him to leave. I’m not ready. We just became friends,” she continues, a hiccup escaping her as the dam behind her lids breaks. She’s full-on sobbing.
This has Purrlock on edge, and he hops out of her hands, skittering back to her room. Beck scoops her up in his arms, and she goes limp as a ragdoll against him, her tiny shoulders heaving as she cries into the crook of his neck.
“Shh,” he eases, rocking back and forth gently to calm her. “Listen, the rain washed the bridge away, so Purrlock isn’t going anywhere just yet,” he tells her.
She leans back, looking at his face. All I can see are her blotchy, chubby cheeks, but I can see a change in her body language.
“Really?” She asks, looking from him to me.
I nod, smiling. “Think you’re able to keep hanging out with him for me?”
She wiggles out of Beck’s grasp, nodding excitedly.
“I have to go tell him!”
She tears up the stairs, but when she gets to the top, she stops suddenly. She turns towards us slowly, her expression concerned.
“You okay, Lenny?” I ask.
She looks unsure for a minute. “Does that mean you can keep staying over, too, Clover? You can keep spending the night here?”
Beck coughs, and I get it. I’m just as thrown off.
“Yeah, babe. Is that okay with you? Just for a while,” I reassure.
She bounces on her toes happily before she runs off to her room, presumably after Purrlock, and I’m filled with relief. She wants me here.
I want me here, too.
BECKETT
Lennon is fast asleep downstairs after we all hung out all day, and I’m laying another set of my clothes on Clover’s bed while she showers. I linger for a bit longer than I should, running my hand along the quilt she loves so much. I’m glad I still had it. Truth be told, I kept it because of her, the memory of seeing her wrapped up in it so many times, passed out on our couch when I would come downstairs in the mornings when we started secretly seeing each other. She started making up excuses to not sleep in the room with Brynn anymore, and it became the easy way to sneak to the kitchen together at night.
We never did anything physical; we were always afraid we would get caught, so we just made out a lot. I wonder if she would still smile against my lips after every kiss, or if she stopped doing that at some point. Or if she does that with everyone.
Nope. The thought of her smiling against someone else’s kiss immediately pisses me off. I shake it out of my head, and lay a nightlight I had scrounged up from the garage on top of my clothes for her. I still hear the water running, so I take the king-sized sheet I brought up with me, along with a shit tonof thumbtacks, and start pinning it to the wall, covering the window.
Clover looked exhausted this morning. I figured it was from all of the hectic things that have gone down in the past few days, catching up to her, but then it hit me when I was out in the barn, being mad.
She’s always been afraid of the dark, and especially of windows in the dark. She was probably terrified up here last night. I press the last tack into the wall and step back to check that the whole thing is covered.
“Oh, hi,” Clover sputters.
“I didn’t hear you come out. I’m so sorry.” I falter over my words when I look over at her, standing in the frame of the bathroom door, pulling the towel tighter across her perfect chest. Her skin is flushed, and I’m not sure if it’s from the hot water or the fact I’m pretty much gawking at her, wondering what she looks like under the towel.
Great. I turn my back towards her, adjusting my quickly hardening cock, trying to will it down.
“I uh, did this,” I offer, motioning vaguely to the make-do window covering.
I hear her shuffling around behind me, and I have to avert my eyes again when I notice the light from the bathroom is casting her silhouette on the wall beside me dimly. Before I do, I see her outline stepping into panties, bending over to pull them up, the shadow of her breasts swaying.
“Thank you,” she replies, her voice low. “You remembered.”
I glance at her silhouette again and see her holding up the nightlight. She pulls my tee over her head, again, the shadow of her breasts teasing me. I would give anything to turn around right now and pull that shirt right back off of her, but that’s not something I can do.
I fucked up thirteen years ago. Not fully, because I have Lennon, but it shouldn’t have been with Hannah.
