Page 30 of Sterling Clay

I shouldn’t get comfortable, but I can allow myself the few moments of grace he suggested. The strength of his arms. The warmth of his breath near my ear. The solidness of his body wrapped around mine.

Being pressed up against Clay Sylver feels too good, too safe.

Chapter 11

[Clay]

After the day Mavis had, she deserves to be spoiled, so I do my best. I bring home a pizza, and we eat together before she checks Dutton’s unofficial math homework.

Earlier, Mavis made a series of decisions.

Sell the property. Find a job. Send Dutton to school.

Her perseverance is admirable, and I sit back and marvel at her superpower. After a tough morning, she came home and taught her kid some math skills, checked his work, and then lined things up to do it all over again the next day.

In the simplest way, she reminds me of my mother.

As we sit on the couch after Dutton’s homework, trying to concentrate on Princess Power, I don’t miss how Mavis is nodding off, the day finally catching up to her. With Dutton between us on the couch, my arm is outstretched behind his head, and I nudge Mavis’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go take a bath? Relax.”

I have a soaker tub in my guest bathroom that I don’t think I’ve ever used.

Mavis stares at me, startled by the suggestion. “I’m alright. Just been a long day. Need to focus on the routine of things.”

Tomorrow, Mavis returns to the hospital as an emergency room nurse. She had been talking to her old boss who told Mavis they were begging for nursing staff and offered her a job on the spot. With Dutton still so young and childcare slim and costly in the area, part-time was the most Mavis could do at the moment.

It was a start.

As for routines, I knew all about them. I also knew that they lead to ruts, like mechanically moving through your life on autopilot. I don’t begrudge my position at Sylver Seed & Soil. I am honored my family trusts me to keep it afloat. I love my job, something not everyone can say, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t overwhelmed by the demands. Never having a day off. Never taking a vacation. Never slowing down.

Then again, keeping busy kept me out of trouble, not that I’d get into any regularly anyway. Still, a little reprieve might be nice occasionally.

And a bath sounded like exactly what Mavis needed.

I wish I could join her.

“Go.” I nudge her shoulder once more. “We’ve got Princess Power here.” I nod at the screen. Surprisingly, the show had more plot than I expected.

Mavis blinks at the brightness of the large monitor over a wooden mantel on the field stone fireplace. Then she glances down at Dutton, sitting closer to her than me.

“Are you sure?” She’s looking at him while questioning me.

“How much trouble can I get in?” I tilt my head at the screen again. “The princess is watching me.” I crack myself up, but Dutton doesn’t blink, mesmerized by the girl in pink, doing a one-two punch, and yelling hi-yah before racing after a bad guy.

Mavis smiles, the slight curl not lighting up her eyes like I’ve seen before. Like the look she used to give me when she’d wander into the store, or I’d see her in town. I’d feel like a high school teen stumbling upon my crush, earning a prize with that smile. Like we shared a secret. Only Mavis never knew about my conflicting emotions. I was highly attracted to her, while I respected the hell out of her marriage vows or, rather, the ones I thought she had.

She leans to the side to kiss Dutton’s head. “I’m going to take a bath. Then it’s your turn,” she warns him. Looking back up at me, her face softens as she mouths, Thank you.

When Mavis leaves the room, a weird tension remains. I wouldn’t say I’m not good with kids, but I also can’t say I am good with them. Up until recently, my interaction has primarily been with my nephew, Hudson, who loves all things traditionally boy. Or should I say stereotypically boy?

He’s into baseball, video games, and dirt. He’d never watch Princess Power or wear pink or want to dress like a female superhero for Halloween. He also isn’t six.

I’d been raised in a male-dominated home, one fraught with the arrogance of my father, thinking because he was labeled the patriarch of our family it meant he deserved honoring when not one of us respected him toward the end of his life. I’d always love him in some twisted way because he was my dad, a sad, lost man. But it didn’t mean I valued or obeyed him.

He’d lost that privilege when he knocked my younger siblings around and tried to emotionally tear them down as they aged. He’d used damning words on me as well.

So stupid you flunked out of college before you got in.

I’d been confused at first, wondering where the supportive man who loved his wife and family more than anything, had gone. A bottle of Jack stole him from me. But I wasn’t one to place blame. My father made his own choices, and unfortunately, his decisions had not been in favor of his children or his business. The legacy my mother built with him through both a company and their offspring were a painful reminder of what he’d lost.