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I roll my eyes then return them to the TV in front of us where the Dodgers are playing an early season game.
“She’s doing a great job with the little guy, though, right? I mean, you wouldn’t ask her to do the live-in thing if you didn’t think you were going to keep her around for a while?”
Furrowing my brows, I look at him.
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, Bug is important to me.” He shrugs. “I just wanna make sure you’re not going to move her in then kick her out in a few months, you know? Make sure you have good intentions.”
My teeth grind together when he calls her that.
Bug.
“Let me ask you a question, August. What exactly are your intentions with Bug?”
He huffs a short laugh, but then his laughter grows loud and raucous. “Holy shit, you’re serious.”
“Language. Teddy picks up everything.”
August just sits on my couch laughing his ass off, and I’m not entirely sure what’s so funny.
“Colt, Emily is best friends with my baby sister. She’s twelve years younger than me. There’s no way I’d be dipping into that pool. Trust me.” Then he gets up and heads into the kitchen. “Besides, that’s not how I get down, you know? You know me. I’m not into the serious relationships, and Emily seems like the kind of girl you marry, not the kind you take home for a night.”
I swallow thickly at both of those visions, though the latter has me feeling somewhat hot at the collar, so I try to shove it out of my mind as quickly as it formed in my head.
But unlike the last few times I’ve thought about Emily in a less-than-professional way—her lips, her beauty, her laugh—I find it harder this time around to swat away. Instead, a picture begins to form in my mind. It begins as smoke, just a hint of what it’s going to become, but it slowly morphs into something else. Emily, looking back at me over her shoulder like she did at the beach, but this time, she’s laughing and untying her bathing suit top. It drops, but all I can see is her smooth, tan back as she climbs onto my bed, sticking her ass in the air.
“Dude.”
I blink, looking over at August, finding him glaring at me with his mouth open, all humor gone from his expression.
“Tell me you didn’t ask her to be a live-in nanny because you want to get into her pants, Colton. Tell me that’s not what this is.”
August looks furious, and part of me is thankful she has someone on her side looking out for her like this. But the part of me that does find her attractive and is angry at myself for allowing that image of her to fill my mind revolts.
“It’s not about that, August.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you it’s not about that.”
He glares at me for a long minute before he settles back on his side of the couch.
“You better not be fucking lying, man. Because if you are…”
“I’m not.”
And I mean it. I really do. I didn’t ask her to move in because I want to get into her pants. I would never do something like that. Ever.
So then…
Why does it feel like I’m lying?
***
“And this is where his pajamas are. He likes the Cookie Monster ones the best.”
It’s the following evening, and I’ve finally finished walking Emily through Teddy’s nighttime routine. She’s been doing a lot of nodding, her face focused but open. Melody was always a note taker. Said it helped her remember things better to write them down. But Emily likes to wait until I’m done giving direction then repeats everything back to me.
