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Sliding off my lap, she shocks me to my core by crouching down and licking my stomach clean. Her sighs as she licks and nips all over my tummy make me forget about the few extra pounds I’ve put on in recent months. She’s into it all, and blowing my mind more and more by the minute.
“Baby,” I say, my breath trembling, my hands still gripping her hair as she bites and nibbles playfully.
“It’s okay,” she says, kissing up my chest. “I’ve always wondered what that would taste like.”
“No. Baby, what time is your final exam?”
My sweet Cecily freezes, then hisses a string of curses. She barely allows me to help her straighten her clothes before she’s bolting out the door.
I have no choice but to run after her to make sure she safely arrives at her exam. And now, I sort of do wish I’d stayed in better shape because damn, she’s fast.
Chapter Thirteen
Cecily
I try to focus on this post-Christmas game of Pictionary with my family, but my heart’s not into it.
Milo and I left things like this: He was waiting for me with a bottle of champagne after my final exam of the semester, and we talked. Instead of going to Mexico, he planned to visit his family in Philly through Christmas. The only flight out with any seats available was in a few hours, but he’d wanted to say goodbye.
“I’m coming back,” he’d said.
I believed that he meant it. However, no sooner did he say that when his manager phoned, interrupting our goodbye. I knew he was in real trouble with the publisher, and who knows who else. He had to be shielding me from all of the real trouble. There’s no way
he’s rearranging his life for me, a nobody editor of a half-assed student newspaper from Charlotte, North Carolina. And so, even though our temporary goodbye was sweet and sincere, I had a teeny tiny nagging feeling that I might never see him again. I’d spent Christmas Day preparing myself for that fact.
I occasionally stole glances at my phone. But here at Michael and Cara’s Unabomber cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina, I had no cell service and no WiFi.
Yesterday was a lovely Christmas with my family, and today after a board game marathon, there’s a group of them headed out for a hike in the woods. I just don’t have it in me, so I offer to stay behind and watch Chloe and Phillip’s youngest baby, Freya, while they join the hiking party.
Bundling up Freya in a warm outfit, I strap her into a harness and get my steps in while reading to her as I stroll along the wrap-around screened porch.
Baby books books are dull, for the most part. But I kind of like Winnie the Pooh.
I’m sort of getting into “Now We Are Six” when suddenly there’s a knock on the screen door. I nearly jump out of my skin. I look over and see a tall, broad silhouette of a man topped with wavy hair. I suck in my breath. Milo.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, gently clasping the back of Freya’s little head because, I don’t know, protective instinct?
I march over to the screen door and push it open. “Milo! I didn’t hear you drive up! What are you doing here? I thought you were in Philly.”
“Three days is about all I can take without you.” His voice sounds extra gravelly. His eyes look tired. “My brother threatened to kick my mopey ass out the door if I didn’t leave to go to you.”
Nobody has ever pursued me so hard. Or talked about me to his brother. And I find it thrilling. And insane, because how did he find me?
I ask him that, and he says, “I asked Mrs. Hurley.”
“Good god, our neighbor?” Mrs. Hurley has slightly mellowed out in the years since Michael and Cara got married. She’s agreed to take in the mail and any parcels from Mom and Dad’s house and Michael and Cara’s. But maybe we’d all trusted her a bit too much if she’s just giving up the location of our holiday hideaway to a total stranger.
Then again, he’s not a total stranger. I forget. He’s a celebrity.
“Did Mrs. Hurley recognize you, by any chance?”
Milo scrunches his lips and looks up as he thinks back, and it’s so cute I want to capture his bottom lip between my teeth. Good thing there’s a baby between us at the moment.
“Hard to tell,” he answers. “Does she normally play with her hair and giggle when she talks to strangers?”
“Most definitely not. She recognized you. Good thing, because she gets really uptight when she sees a car she doesn’t like. She probably didn’t take too kindly to you parking on the street until she knew who you were.”
I invite him inside. “I would offer to jump your bones, but as you can see, I’m babysitting, and she’s wide awake. You want some coffee? Fruitcake?”
