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“Now?”I jumped at the chance to spend more time with her.“I’d be happy to.”
I unloaded the shopping into Jess’ house, happy at making the fridge look inhabited at last, while Jenny tried to wrangle Toby out of his car seat.He was in a playful mood, grabbing on to the straps like an octopus as she tried to untangle him.
I locked up Jess’ house and, when I strolled up to Jenny’s door to knock on it in case Rick was home, he opened it before I could lift my hand.
ChapterTwelve
Rick
Had Maddie’s hair always been so shiny?Rick wondered as she stood on his doorstep.The sunshine, dappled from the tree in the front yard behind her, casting leaf-shaped shadows on the lustrous black of the strands, flyaway and fine and soft.He knew how soft it was.He had to curl his hand into a fist to stop from reaching to touch it.
“Hi,” he said, dumbly.
Way to go,his inner monologue sassed.
“Hey.”If she thought he was dull, she didn’t say it.“I didn’t realise you were home.Jenny asked me to sit with Toby while she took a bath.We just went grocery shopping.”
“Come on in.I always need a bath after I go grocery shopping.”
She laughed at his joke, and it made him feel on top of the world.He stepped back to let her in, and caught a gasp of her scent as she passed.Something sugary and cherryish.
“Incoming!”Jenny announced as she barreled towards the door with Toby under her arm.He was howling like he’d been separated from a limb.“So much for my relaxing bath.I can smell somethingheinouscoming from his cute little butt.”
The sound of his wailing distorted as she carried him up the stairs, and then Rick heard her add, “Who’s ready for the tickle monster?”
Squealing laughter ensued.
“I wasn’t hanging out by the door,” Rick added as Maddie toed off her shoes.“I was about to go check the mail.”
“Of course.”She furrowed her brow, smiling.“You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Rick.”
He’d wanted to, but didn’t know how to say that, so instead, he asked, “You want coffee?”
“As you say in this country— or maybe you don’t say it at all—does a bear shit in the woods?”
He snorted.“I have never personally said that, but my dad does all the time.Maybe it’s generational.”
He led her through the house to the kitchen.Sunshine streamed in, dappled on the wooden floors by the overhanging tree in the yard.
Maddie inhaled deeply as they reached the coffee machine.“You’ve already made a coffee, haven’t you?I can smell it.Sweet, sweet caffeine.”
Rick took the cup and offered it.“It was for me, but if you’re about to keel over from lower than usual caffeine levels, please take it.”
“I think I can last five minutes.”She grinned.
It was easy, being with her.Exchanging silly banter.Making her coffee, the scent drifting through the air.
He wanted to make her coffee every day.
She dropped into one of the kitchen chairs.Upstairs, the sound of Toby squealing and Jenny saying, “Calm down!I’m just washing your hair!I even got the watermelon shampoo you like!This is meant to bemybath!”filtered down the stairs.
“I don’t think Ieverliked having my hair washed as a child,” Maddie began as the coffee brewed.
“No kid does.Well, except maybe Kyle Brandon in my fourth-grade class.I swear he was part seal.Always in the water.I think he became a swim instructor.”He rubbed his hand over his hair, threading his fingers through the strands.“I had a buzz cut for so long.Feels weird, long like this.Every time I go to shampoo it, I’m still a little surprised.”
She tilted her head, appraising him.He felt the kiss of her attention as keenly as if she’d touched him.
Andfuck,he wished she had.
