A sigh escapes me. Tanner was a trash boyfriend, but sometimes I miss him. I miss the idea of him. Only, now, when I think of someone holding me, it’s Calder with his big, strong arms, that deep, gruff voice, and that rough jaw.
Why do I have to obsess over a guy who plans to sell everything that should mean something to him? My home. My work. My little niche in the world. I wouldn’t mind a distraction, but why does he have to be a man who actually listens to mewhen I talk about what I do? He fed me and chased off Tanner. If he wanted, he could be a really good guy.
Hours later, footsteps and voices downstairs filter into the room. Flutters explode in my belly for no damn reason. Calder’s going to do his own thing. He hasn’t sought me out or asked for my advice in the past two days. With Bowen around, he won’t need me at all.
I flip my lamp off and try to catch the sleep that’s been evading me since the night I spent in his bed.
TWENTY-TWO
CALDER
I’m still sleeping on the couch. Bowen’s adjusting to being home while also being a guest. The privacy will help him. The guest room doesn’t have sheets that smell like goddamn wildflowers either. He balked when I retrieved the floral-scented ones from the closet in Dad’s room, but I wasn’t letting him sleep in sheets that had touched Meredith’s body.
My thoughts have continued turning to her since the night of the kiss. How’s she doing? She hasn’t stopped working from sunup to sundown since I’ve been home. Thanks to the security system, I saw she and Sawyer were going in and out of the house all night. The garage is ready for a party. A shindig none of us wanted to throw.
Is the thought of enduring tomorrow preventing her from getting any sleep? I’ve been staring at a dark ceiling for hours, with my thoughts bouncing from her to tomorrow, then to Bowen’s arrival, returning to her, and finally to the financials, only to start all over again. And again.
The floor faintly creaks above. Water rushes through the pipes. Another squeak resonates as she returns to her room. Has she been awake this entire time? Has she been eating? Is she drinking enough water? Maybe since she fled the brewery earlierthan ever, she was able to have a real meal. But what if she didn’t eat at all?
Why do I care?
Yet I’m out of my makeshift bed before I can ask myself what the hell I think I’m doing. Not stopping to put on a shirt, I pad up the stairs, thankfully avoiding the squeaky step. I take it as a sign I’m not making an epically bad decision in checking on her.
Her door is cracked open. I push it open farther, and the rustle of her sheets fills the silence.
“I can’t sleep.”
Am I asking her, or telling her about me?
“Me either.”
She doesn’t tell me to fuck off, so I enter. It’s dark, but I imagine the bright, happy colors surrounding me. There’s more vibrancy in this room than anywhere else in my life.
“I didn’t mean the Tanner comment.”
She shifts again, sitting up. I stand next to the bed. I want her to pull me down, to tell me to crawl in with her, so I can smell not just her sheets, but her hair.
“It’s so unlike a Cross to lash out and say horrible shit that really hurts.”
“Touché.” A soft chuckle leaves me. I sit on the edge of the mattress, and a sigh leaves me. “I know I’m responsible. With Dad and the no contact. He’s at fault, but so am I. I didn’t encourage my brothers to mend a single fence.” I was too busy trying to keep us all afloat.
“Both your brothers are adults. They were then too.”
She’s right. But Landry was barely nineteen, Bowen was almost twenty-one, and I was a fresh twenty-two. “He’s our dad. I expected more of him, in so many ways. I looked up to him. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted what he and Mama had. And then he shattered it. All of it. And he wasn’t sorry. It was likehe was relieved he could finally let the secret out and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t be happy for him.”
Her touch lands on my shoulders, tentative at first. She scoots closer, and I lean toward her. “I’m sorry.”
“He never even said that.”
The bed jiggles as she changes positions to wrap her arms around me and rest her face against my back.
“Tomorrow…” I shake my head. “Fuck.”
“I know.” Her mouth moves against my skin.
I turn in her hold, planting a knee on the mattress. Her arms fall away, and I continue pushing her back until she has me cradled between her bare legs. “Between the funeral and you, I haven’t gotten a blip of peace. I can’t quit thinking about you, Meredith Winslow.”
She stuffs her hands through my hair, and my eyelids shut from the pleasure of her touch. “It’s being here that’s messing with your head. All these feelings. It’s doing the same to me.”
