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I had my keys on the nightstand, but to get to the front door, I had to go down the creaky steps and make noise. I didn’t want my dad to wake up and worry. That was what I told myself as I opened the window and tried my luck on the trellis. It wasn’t rotten and falling off the house, but I also weighed more than I did at sixteen. I stuffed my phone in my bra and held my keychain in my mouth and started down. I tested it with one foot. It seemed securely attached to the house, although I was about to get a face full of the tangled clematis that hadn’t been trimmed since my mother died. I let go of the windowsill and latched onto the trellis. I hung there for an instant. I was nervous that it wouldn’t’ hold my weight. I was even more worried about the fact that if I fell, my ex-sister-in-law’s new boyfriend Deputy Win was going to get an eyeful of me in the mud at the bottom of my window like an overgrown teenager up to no good. Because somebody would call the cops if they heard a crash like that. I shut my eyes, envisioning the whirl of red and blue lights and some uniformed person who was younger than me at school having to haul my bruised ass out of the mud while I tried to explain what the hell I was thinking.
There was nothing for it but to climb down. Little by little, I shimmied down and made it to solid ground again. I went out the side yard and got to my car without anyone calling the cops on me, so that was a relief. I was dirty, and a glance in the rearview mirror showed a lot of leaves stuck in my hair and one on my neck. But I was alive and unharmed. Once I got to his house, I knocked. No one came to the door. I pounded on it as loud as I dared, not wanting to wake the neighbors. Giving up, I took my miniature screwdriver out of my glove box and went to work on the front door. In less than two minutes, I had it unlocked and swung it open, quiet as you please. It occurred to me then, belatedly, that if he was the kind of guy who slept with his gun under his pillow—not uncommon around here—my sneaky ass might get shot. So I shut the door soundlessly and got ready to call his name. My eyes adjusted to the dark, to the flicker of bluish light from the TV. I got my bearings. There he was, asleep in the recliner. My heart swelled, and I smiled.
I toed off my shoes, left my screwdriver and keys in them. I crept silently across the room to his chair and leaned over it.
“Hey,” I said, sitting on the arm of the recliner.
His eyes flicked open, startled. He tensed, started to spring up from the chair, but his eyes settled on me. He relaxed visibly. I took an instant just to breathe him in, the same Old Spice body wash smell I remembered from high school. Grinning, I leaned in and kissed him.
“I just stopped by to make sure you’re okay,” I said.
A smile played across his lips as he took control of the kiss, pulling me down into the recliner with him. He sat up, tugged my leg across his lap until I straddled him without ever breaking the kiss. He took it deeper, his tongue stroking into my mouth as his arms settled around my hips. I loved his hands on my back, slipping under my sweatshirt as he nipped at my lips teasingly. I wriggled with pleasure.
Pulling back, I looked down at him seriously, “I couldn’t stand thinking I’d hurt your feelings when I pulled away. I wanted to put my arms around you and say, ‘yeah, he’s mine. Be jealous.’ But I did what we agreed to and kept it a secret for a little while yet. I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“It’s just a fact of how we have to do this, to try and manage everyone’s feelings. Someone’s are bound to get hurt sometime, and I’d rather it was my feelings than yours,” he said.
“It may be a control thing with me. I’m going to have to think on it, figure out if I’m worried that it would upset my dad via Ryan having an outburst or if I’m just afraid of not being able to control people’s reactions to us. I need time to think it over. But right now, I don’t want to waste my energy. I have you right here where I want you,” I said with a cackle. He laughed, a big, carefree laugh.
