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We’d come get her, no questions asked (I’d have to alert Bohannan about that no-questions-asked part, but he’d saddled me with this, he had to give me something).
Therefore, I was sipping my coffee and wondering when my fucking orgasms were going to begin because it was hard enough to do this stuff with my two girls, I thought it was over, and there I was again.
This was what I was thinking when a beard found its way into my neck, a warm, long, hard body pressed to my back and an arm wrapped around my stomach.
I would like to say I had the strength to withstand this unscathed, but we must remember, it had been thirteen (or fourteen) years.
I was about to verbally remind someone else of this when that beard tickled my ear and a gruff, deep voice said, “Kids are all gone tonight.”
Oh my.
In all my mental meanderings, I hadn’t noticed that Jess and/or Jace often hung at their dad’s (I’d not been to their place yet, and Celeste never went there either, so my suspicions were that it was wall-to-wall Bro Town and likely smelled like a used sock, so, being boys, they didn’t clean it, they just escaped it) and Celeste’s curfew was ten, but she was usually home around eight thirty or nine.
But tonight, all the kids had dates.
Which meant tonight was the first night we’d be home alone.
I’d been so deep in my pout about not getting laid, I hadn’t noticed.
“First, in my bed.” Bohannan nipped my earlobe as I shivered. “After David gets done, we can start spending nights at yours.”
“I—”
I didn’t finish telling him I was all in with this plan.
Something bobbing in the water down by the pier caught my eye through the weak morning pre-dawn light and the ever-present mist.
“What’s that?” I asked.
His mouth left my ear, and I felt the whisper of his whiskers against my cheek as he looked out the window.
And I knew it was bad even before I knew it was bad, when the reaction exploding from him buffeted my back so hard, I felt my spine bow and my hips press into the counter.
“Stay in here. Do not leave this house. Do not let Celeste leave this house,” he growled.
“Bo—”
He was off, but he twisted to me at the door and jabbed his finger my way, “And do not watch.”
Do not watch?
Oh my God.
Him saying not to watch meant I couldn’t not watch.
So I did.
He had his phone to his ear as he jogged to the pier.
“Hey, Delly?” Celeste called from behind me.
I whirled and my coffee sloshed, but fortunately, I’d consumed more than half of it.
“You know that cream sweater you have?” she asked.
“Yes,” I pushed out.
“Can I wear it?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
She smiled. “Is it up in your room?”
I nodded. “Unh-hunh. Middle drawer of the dresser.”
“Thanks, you’re the best.”
She was still in her robe, but her hair and makeup were done.
It was almost time to go to school.
I started to turn again to the window.
“And…”
I shot back into place, faking a smile while choking back coffee hopefully appearing to do it casually as Celeste returned.
“Do you think I can use that purse you use when you wear it? You know. The Chloe one,” she asked.
“Of course, lovely,” I replied. “Do you know where it is?”
“Closet.”
“Yes.”
“You really should just move in with Dad. He’s got tons more closet space,” she said.
This was momentous, her saying this.
I didn’t glory in the momentum.
“I’ll take that up with him.”
She gave me a saucy grin and took off.
I waited, listened, waited more, listened more, waited.
Then I turned back to the window.
Jess and Jace were now there.
Jace was bent, hands to knees, staring in the water over the far side of the pier.
Jess was in a squat at the pier’s edge, doing the same.
Bohannan was also doing the same, standing with his phone to his ear.
They weren’t close enough for me to read their expressions.
But their body language said it all.
I turned and raced up the stairs to help Celeste.
And to get dressed.
Because I had a feeling I needed to be ready.
Thirty-One
Black Hole Sun
The boys and I performed a minor miracle in getting Celeste off to school without letting on Black Hole Sun was upon us again.
After she was gone, I had just enough time to get a fresh pot of coffee brewing before the first sheriff cruiser pulled up.
They kept coming, and I handed out coffee and made two tubes of cinnamon rolls that Celeste had thrown into the cart the last time we were at the grocery store.
I then began a steady process of intermittently pouring mugs of coffee and scooping rolls onto paper plates, in between watching outside, noting how the game was being played, even desperately evaluating it, so I wouldn’t have to pay attention to why they were playing it.
