AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I ended the call, racing down the stairs as if Ciara had told me she was going into labor instead of casually mentioning she packed her stuff and was ready for me to pick her up. I got into my car, driving as fast as I could out of the city and racing down the Mass Pike. I made it to Hemingway in record time—fifteen minutes, instead of the usual twenty to twenty-five. The sun was still burning bright when I pulled into Ciara’s driveway, casting its warm glow over her yard.
I speed-walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Ciara answered, smiling.
I tried to return her smile with one of my own, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. “You ready?”
“Yes.” She looked at me, tilting her head as she frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. “I was cleaning.”
“Cleaning?”
“Yeah. I wanted to make sure everything was ready for you.”
She blushed. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
I smoothed my hands down her arms, ending the gesture by gently squeezing her hands. “Of course I did,” I said. I winked. “Didn’t want you to see the slob side of me so early, pretty girl.”
She laughed and pulled me over the threshold. “If anyone has to worry about being judged as a slob, it would be me,” she replied.
We stood in the front room as Ciara looked around, frowning. “Hope I didn’t leave out anything important,” she said, more to herself than to me. “But I suppose I can get it later.”
She bit her lip as she glanced at me. “I can’t believe we’re going to be living together,” she said in a low voice. “It’s so surreal.”
“I know,” I agreed. “If someone had told me even two months ago that I would be married and getting ready to move in with someone, I would’ve laughed them out of the room. But here we are. Any regrets?”
She shook her head, still chewing on her lip. “You?”
“Not a one.” I looked past her, finally noticing that there were only a few suitcases and a large bag—was it a tote? A purse??—in the area. “Is that all you have?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “All I’m bringing are my clothes and toiletries. I figured that you already had everything else.”
Though she was right, I felt a nugget of guilt that all she had were clothes and toiletries. We would be living together in a place that wouldn’t really behomefor her.I’ll have to do something about that,I thought.
“Alright, well, let’s get going then,” I said.
All the traffic was going in the opposite direction on the Mass Pike, so it took even less time to get back to my place. We unloaded the bags from her car quickly, piling them all in my room until Ciara could sort them out. The only things she unpacked were her toiletries and one of the suitcases full of clothing.
“You can leave your stuff in my room,” I said, gesturing toward it. “We should probably have our stuff in there, for appearances, and I can sleep in one of the other rooms as needed. I don’t want you to feel any pressure to sleep with me—I mean, like actually sleep, notsleepwith me, though I don’t want you to feel pressured into that either—”
She placed a gentle hand on my arm with a smile, and I lapsed into an uneasy silence. “I know what you meant,” she said. “No worries. And I agree; it makes more sense to have our stuff in the master bedroom, just in case. Like if we entertain people here or something.”
“Exactly,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Exactly that.”
We stood in silence for a moment before she asked, “Do you mind if I take a shower?”
“Of course not,” I said. I moved out of the way so she could get to my room—ourroom—and the bathroom. “I’ll be in the living room.”
I closed the bathroom door and headed toward the kitchen, stopping to grab some popcorn before dropping down in front of the TV. I was happily munching on my snack when, halfway through an episode ofFamily Matters, a kernel got stuck in my teeth.
I sighed, pausing the show and getting up to get floss from the bathroom. Right before opening the door, though, I remembered a crucial piece of information: Ciara was taking a shower in there. And the shower door was glass.
It was opaque, but still.
I knocked gently on the door. “Hey, Ciara?”
“Yes?” she called.
“Do you mind if I get some floss really quick? I got something stuck in my teeth.”
