Dad sighs and shakes his head. “This week’s sermon is being a butt. I’m determined to wrestle a few inspiring concepts down.” Grabbing a diet soda, his carton of fried rice and a pair of chopsticks, he adds, “I won’t be leaving the study until your mother comes home.” Then he winks at me, as though Nick and I plan to canoodle on the sofa (a Dad term more fitting for his parents’ generation than his own). Mom’s shift ends at midnight.
I’m never sure if Dad just has absolute confidence that I’d never do anything wicked, or if he actual y thinks I should loosen up. I hope it’s not the latter, because if I’m the girl whose pastor father thinks she’s too uptight, that would be pretty darned depressing.
Nick takes the center of the sofa while I nestle into the corner, legs pretzeled. His elbow rests lightly on my bent knee in between bites. Everyone in my family tends to comment throughout anything we watch, but Nick never talks during films. It’s a sure bet I’l end up biting my tongue figuratively or literal y at least half a dozen times. Final y, the credits rol .
“That was less clever than the reviews promised,” he observes, clicking the remote. His hand rests lightly on my knee, a non-insistent pressure not easily read. The world has gone dark outside, the room dim in the solitary lamplight without the glow of the screen. “Your house is always so quiet. Mine is the exact opposite—thinly contained chaos.”
Nick is an only child, but his parents take in special needs foster children and train service dogs, and his house is in an almost constant uproar. I’ve wondered but never had the nerve to ask if he ever yearned for the individual attention he would have been due as an only child, or if he felt neglected by his parents’ dedicated care of other peoples’ children.
My eyes find our elderly dog, curled on her pil owed bed across the room. “That’s true, Esther and I don’t produce a lot of commotion.” Her ears perk at the sound of her name, black eyes blinking as she waits to see if I require her attention. Her whitened muzzle rests on her equal y whitened paws.
Nick leans into my line of vision, pushing thoughts of Esther from my mind as he inclines his head and kisses me. His lips are warm and his kiss careful and gentle. I kiss him back, wishing he would deepen the kiss, that his hand would stroke my leg, or stray to my waist to pul me closer.
None of these things occur. This is not our first kiss, but each one we’ve shared has been the same: pleasant.
He pul s away, smiling. I smile back, and tel myself I’m not disappointed.
Neither am I in danger of losing control. Which is good.
Safe. And exactly what I need.
Esther huffs a soft doggie sigh from her pal et and closes her eyes. Nick, even with the multiple dog and people scents attached to him, is no risk to me.
Chapter 11
REID
Dori doesn’t trust me. I’ve got that much figured out. She clearly has no idea of what a guy in my position is offered on a daily basis. I could sleep with a different girl, or several, every night. There’s always another one, ready to go. I’ve had offers—which I absolutely do not accept—from girls so young it makes me want to track down their parents and tel them they should be arrested for raising baby whores. Even when it comes to the ones who are borderline old enough, I won’t do some chick who thinks she’s al grown up just because she’s experienced.
I underestimated Dori’s determination to keep the Diego girl away from me. Not only did she manage to get me moved outside with Frank permanently, she’s now supervising Gabriel e herself. I’m not sure what was expected from this arrangement, but I bet it wasn’t the shit-fit that went down this morning when Gabriel e found out about it.
Al egedly, she picked up a hammer and threw it. Not at a person, but supposedly it narrowly missed a window and lodged itself in the drywal of the dining nook. I didn’t lodged itself in the drywal of the dining nook. I didn’t witness this meltdown, but thanks to Frank being a gossip addict, everyone outside stays ful y informed of every rumor inside or out. It’s not unlike a mini movie set.
“Roberta threatened to cal her mother and send her home if she didn’t calm down, but Gabriel e stil owes at least thirty hours.” Frank looks at me and shrugs. “I had no idea that girl would miss working with me so much.”
“In your dreams, old man,” quips his wife, Darlene, who’s loading bedding plants into a wheelbarrow. Her hair is entirely silver and longer than I’ve ever seen on a woman her age. It hangs in a fat braid down her back. “Come on, kid, let’s get these pansies in the ground.” I realize she’s talking to me when no one else moves.
By lunch I’ve learned how to plant pansies (“Not too deep! Not so close together!”), and the fact that Frank and Darlene retired five years ago, declared themselves bored stupid six months later, and decided to design landscaping for Habitat homes instead of going on cruises and taking up crafts.
“What did Frank mean, about Gabriel e owing thirty hours?” I’m staring at my hands, which are filthy. I couldn’t plant flowers with gloves on (earning, “Noob,” from Darlene), so there are solid black lines of dirt under al ten fingernails. My manicurist is going to kil me.
“The families approved to get a house have to put in a few hundred hours of ‘sweat equity.’ Gabriel e’s parents both work two jobs, and her brothers are too young to put in time.” She gives me a weird look. “Up until last week, Gabriel e was total y uninterested in helping out.” I fol ow her to the tap where she rinses off the hand tools we just used. When she doesn’t elaborate, I rol my hand.