“Nice place,” Naomi observed as I locked my front door behind us and flipped on the lights.
“Thanks. My grandfather built it,” I said on a yawn. It had been a long day followed by a long night at Honky Tonk and I needed sleep.
“Really?” she asked, her gaze lifting to the loft above the living room, the timber ceiling and the antler chandelier that hung there.
The cabin was small and leaned toward rustic. Two bedrooms, one bath.
The floors were pine. The stone fireplace needed a good scrubbing but still did the job. The leather couch was finally broken in just the way I wanted it.
It was home.
“Are these your parents?” she asked, picking up a framed photo on one of the end tables. I didn’t know why I bothered keeping it. My parents were line dancing at a picnic in Liza J and Pop’s yard. Smiles on their faces, feet in sync. Happier times that, in the moment, seemed like they’d go on forever.
It was, of course, a lie.
Happier times always came to an end.
“Listen, Daze. I’m beat.”
Between my brother getting shot, the sudden onslaught of orgasms, and work, I needed a solid eight hours of sleep before I’d be worth anything.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure,” she said, carefully putting the photo back on the table.
Though I noticed she’d angled it toward the couch, not away from it like I’d done. “I’ll head home. Thanks for the backup today with Way’s teacher…and my parents. And then all the orgasms and stuff.”
“Baby, you’re not going home. I’m just telling you why I’m not makin’
any moves when we go upstairs.”
“I should just go home, Knox. I have to be up early to get Way at Liza’s.”
She looked as exhausted as I felt.
I hadn’t given it more than a passing thought in the past, but my girls at Honky Tonk dragged their asses home at two or three a.m. and on weekdays had to be up again by six or seven depending on the usefulness of their significant others.
I remembered a solid year stretch when Fi would fall asleep sitting up every day at her desk because her kids were shit sleepers. It got to the point where I had to do the thing I hated. I got involved.
I’d unleashed Liza J on her and, in less than a week, my grandmother had both kids on a schedule sleeping ten hours a night.
“You have off tomorrow, right?” I asked.
She nodded, then yawned.
“So we’ll get up in,” I glanced down at my watch, then swore, “three hours and go have breakfast at Liza J’s.”
It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Which usually wasn’t a huge concern to me. But I felt the tiniest splinter of guilt thinking about staying in bed while Naomi dragged herself off to family fucking breakfast and then tried to keep Waylay from breaking the law for the rest of the day.
Besides, I could just come home after breakfast and sleep until whenever the fuck I wanted.
I liked the way her eyes went soft and dreamy for a second. Then practical, people-pleasing Naomi was back. “You don’t have to get up with me. You need sleep. I’ll go home tonight, and maybe we can…” Her gaze slid down my body, and her cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. “Catch up some other time,” she finished.
“Yeah. Nice try. Want some water?” I asked, towing her toward the kitchen.
It was bigger than the cottage’s. But not by much. I could imagine some visitors would find it “charming” with its hickory cabinets, counter tops in a deep forest green, and a tiny island on wheels that I used to pile unopened mail on.
“Water?” she repeated.
“Yeah, baby. Do you want a drink of water before we go to bed?”
“Knox, I’m confused. This is just sex. We both agreed. Unless my parents are around, and then it’s a relationship. But my parents aren’t here, and I’m so tired I don’t think even an orgasm could keep me awake. So what the hell are we doing?”
I filled a glass from the sink and then took her by the hand and led the way toward the stairs. “If you leave, I have to walk your ass home in the dark, then walk my ass back here. Which puts me hittin’ the sack back by another fifteen minutes at least and, Daze, I’m really fucking tired.”
“My stuff is at my house,” she said, biting her lip in hesitation.
“What stuff do you need in the next three hours, Daisy?”
“A toothbrush.”
“Got an extra upstairs.”
“My face wash and lotion.”
“Got water and soap,” I said, tugging her up the stairs.
“I still don’t—”
I stopped and faced her. “Baby, I don’t want to think about it or wonder what it all means. I just want to put my head on a pillow and know that you’re safe and asleep. I promise you, we can nitpick this mess to death tomorrow. But right now, I just need to close my eyes and not think about shit.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But we’re definitely nitpicking this mess to death tomorrow and reconfirming the ground rules.”
“Great. Can’t wait.” Before she could change her mind, I pulled her the rest of the way up the stairs and into my bedroom.
“Wow,” she yawned, blinking at my bed.
A man’s bed and his couch were the most important pieces of furniture in the house. I’d gone for a big-ass king-sized sleigh bed stained dark.
It was unmade, as always. I never saw the point in making a bed if you were just going to have to unmake it to use it. It was a good thing Naomi was nearly dead on her feet, because if the rumpled sheets didn’t send her packing, the short stack of underwear and t-shirts next to my nightstand would have.
I nudged her in the direction of the bathroom and riffled under the sink until I came up with a spare toothbrush still in its dusty, original package.
“I take it you don’t have many overnight guests?” she asked, wiping the dust off the plastic.
I shrugged. I’d never spent the night with a woman in this house. I was already crossing the invisible boundaries of our agreement by having her spend the night. There was no fucking way I was going to hash out what it meant with her.
She was the one who was used to sharing a life, a sink, a bed with someone. She was the one coming out of a relationship.
Great. Now I was tired and annoyed.
We stood shoulder-to-shoulder, brushing our teeth. For some reason, the companionable routine reminded me of my childhood. Every evening when we were kids, Nash and I hung out on our parents’ bed, waiting for them to finish brushing their teeth so they could read us the next chapter in whatever book we were in the middle of.
I shook off the memory and glanced at Naomi. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Everyone’s talking about us,” she said, rinsing her toothbrush.
“Who’s everyone?”
“The entire town. Everyone is saying we’re dating.”
“I doubt that. Most of them are just saying we’re fucking.”
She flung a hand towel at me that I caught one-handed.
“Fine. My parents and Waylay’s caseworker think we’re in a relationship, and the rest of town thinks we’re just having sex.”
“So?”
She looked exasperated. “So? It makes me look like a…well, like my sister. I’ve only known you three weeks. Don’t you care what people think about you? What they say about you?”
“Why would I do that? They can whisper all they want behind my back.
As long as none of them are dumb enough to say it to my face, I don’t give a shit what they say.”
Naomi shook her head. “I wish I could be more like you.”
“What? A selfish asshole?”
“No. Whatever the opposite of a people-pleaser is.”
“A people-displeaser?” I supplied.
“You have no idea how exhausting it is worrying about everyone else all the time, feeling responsible for them, wanting them to be happy and like you.”
She was right. I had no idea what it was like. “Then stop caring.”
“Of course you would say that,” she said, sounding disgruntled. She took the hand towel, wiped down her toothbrush, and then the counter. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It is that easy,” I argued. “Don’t like something? Stop doing it.”
“The life philosophy of Knox Morgan, ladies and gentlemen,” she said with an eye-roll.
“Bed,” I ordered. “It’s too late for philosophy.”
She glanced down at her outfit. Her feet were bare, but she was still wearing that denim skirt and shirt from her shift.
“I don’t have any pajamas.”
“I take it that means you don’t sleep naked?” Just like making the bed, wearing pajamas was a waste in my opinion.
She stared at me.
“Of course you don’t sleep naked.”
“There could be a fire in the middle of the night,” she insisted, crossing her arms.
“I don’t have any turn-out gear for you to sleep in.”
“Har har.”
“Fine.” I left her in the bathroom and headed to my dresser, where I found a clean t-shirt. “Here,” I said, returning to her.
She looked down at it, then up at me again. I liked the way she looked.
Sleepy and a little less than perfect as if the shift and the late night had worn down her armor.
“Thanks,” she said, staring at it and then me again until I got the hint.
“You do realize I’ve already seen you naked, right?”
“That’s different. Go away.”
Shaking my head, I left the bathroom, closing the door behind me.
Two minutes later, Naomi stood in the doorway in my t-shirt. She was tall, but the shirt still covered her to mid-thigh. Her face was scrubbed clean, and she’d pulled part of her hair up and back in a small knot on top of her head.
The girl next door was about to crawl into my bed. I knew it was a mistake. But it was one I wanted to make. Just this once.
We traded places, with Naomi slipping into my bedroom and me commandeering the bathroom to remove my contacts from my bleary eyes.
Running on fumes, I snapped off the bathroom light and crossed to my side of the bed. She was on her back, arms tucked under her head, staring up at the ceiling. I killed the bedside light and stripped in the dark, throwing my clothes in the direction of the dirty laundry pile.
I dragged back the blankets and finally fell into bed with a sigh. I waited a beat, staring up at the darkness. This didn’t have to mean anything. This didn’t have to be another string, another knot.
“You good?” I asked.
“My pillow smells weird,” she said, sounding disgruntled.
“You’re sleeping on Waylon’s side.” I pulled the pillow out from under her head, then threw mine at her.
“Hey!”
“Better?”
I heard her sniff the pillow. “Better,” she agreed.
“Night, Naomi.”
“Good night, Knox.”
I WOKE TO A THUD, a yelp, and a curse.
“Naomi?” I rasped, unglueing my eyelids. She came into a soft focus at the foot of the bed, where she was performing some kind of gymnastics to get her skirt back on.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I need to shower before I go to Liza’s for breakfast.
“There’s a shower here,” I pointed out, rising on an elbow to watch her drag her shirt on inside out.
“But I need fresh clothes and mascara. A hair dryer. Go back to sleep, Knox. There’s no need for us both to be walking zombies.”
Blearily I glared at the time on my phone. 7:05 a.m. Four hours didn’t really count as spending the night with a woman, I decided.
The appeal of being a bachelor was the fact that my days were dictated by me. I didn’t have to work around anyone else’s plans or not do what I wanted to do just so they could do what they wanted.
But it seemed unfair even to me that Naomi should have to spend the day running on fumes while I slept in. Besides, breakfast did sound good.
My feet hit the floor with a thump.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to right her top. It was now right side out, but backwards.
“No reason for you to walk home, shower, and walk back to Liza’s. Not when there’s a perfectly good shower here.”
“I can’t go to breakfast in my uniform,” she said in exasperation. “Doing the walk of shame to family breakfast is not happening.”
“Fine. Give me a list.”
She looked as if I had just spoken to her in Swahili. “A list of what?”
“What do you need to get through breakfast without shame. You shower.
I’ll get your stuff.”
She stared at me. “You’re working awfully hard for just a hook-up.”
I couldn’t say why, but that statement pissed me off. Standing up, I picked a pair of jeans off the floor. “Gimmie a list.” I dragged on the jeans.
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Has anyone told you you’re a grump in the mornings?”
“Yeah. Every single person who’s had the misfortune of seeing me before ten a.m. Tell me what you want from your place, then get your cute ass in the shower.”
Four minutes later, I was headed out the door with an obscenely long list for a Saturday morning breakfast that my grandmother would preside over in her camo pajamas.
I jogged through my backyard to hers and came up on the cottage’s back porch. The hide-a-key had been in the same place since I could remember. In a fake rock in one of the flower boxes on the railing. I snagged the key, fit it into the lock, and found the door was already unlocked.
Great, now I was going to have to lecture her on security.
The cottage smelled like fresh air, baked goods, and lemons.
The kitchen was sparkling clean except for the opened mail on the counter. Naomi kept it in a small upright organizer, probably alphabetized, but now all the envelopes were fanned out in a sloppy stack.
The rolltop desk in the nook off the living room was open, revealing a mostly tidy workspace with Naomi’s laptop, a cup of colorful pens, and a stack of notebooks. The bottom drawer was open a few inches.
Though it was no mountain of underwear and t-shirts, I was glad to see a little disarray. I’d noticed the more stressed Naomi got, the cleaner she became. A little mess was a good sign.
I took the stairs two at a time and swung into the bathroom first to collect the toiletries and hair dryer. Then I hit Naomi’s room and grabbed shorts and —because I was a man—a lacy, girly blouse with buttons.
Haul secured, I locked the back door and headed back to my place.
When I walked into the bedroom, I found Naomi standing in the steamy bathroom with wet hair wearing nothing but a towel.
The view brought me to a sudden halt. I liked seeing her like this. Liked having an undressed, freshly showered Naomi in my space.
I liked it so much that I went on the offensive. “You gotta lock your doors, Daisy. I know this isn’t the big city, but shit still happens out here.
Like my brother getting shot.”
She blinked at me, then snatched the bag of girl stuff from my hands. “I always lock the doors. I’m not an incompetent adult.”
“Back door was unlocked,” I reported.
She dug through the bag and laid the toiletries out in a neat line around my sink. I’d brought extra since I didn’t give a shit about the difference between eyeliner and eyebrow pencil.
“I lock the doors every time I leave and every night,” she argued, picking up the brush and running it through her damp hair.
I leaned casually against the door frame and enjoyed the show as she methodically worked her way through her cosmetics. “What is all that shit, anyway?”
“Haven’t you ever watched a woman get ready?” she asked, aiming a look of suspicion at me as she penciled an outline around her lips.
“It’s just breakfast,” I pointed out.
“But I don’t want to look like I just rolled out of bed with you.” The stare she gave me was pointed. I glanced in the mirror and noted that my hair was standing up in all directions. My beard was flat on one side. And I had a pillow crease under my left eye.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because it’s not polite.”
I crossed my arms and grinned. “Baby, you lost me.”
She turned her attention back to a palette of colors and started swiping some of them on her eyelids. “We’re going to breakfast,” she said as if that explained anything.
“With family,” I added.
“And I don’t want to show up looking like I spent the last twenty-four hours having sex with you. Waylay needs a role model. Besides, my parents have enough to worry about without adding a second promiscuous daughter to their plates.”
“Naomi, having sex doesn’t make you promiscuous,” I said, torn between amusement and annoyance.
“I know that. But every time I make a decision anywhere in the neighborhood of what Tina would do, I feel like it’s my job to make it clear that I’m not her.” She put down the eye shadow and picked up one of those eyelash curler things.
I was starting to get a clearer picture of the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about naked.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
She managed to give me a scowl despite the fact that she was using that contraption on one of her eyes. “Not everyone can strut through town, not giving a shit about what other people think.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Daisy. I don’t strut.”
She crossed her eyes at me in the mirror. “Fine. You sashay.”
“Why do you feel like you have to keep proving to your parents that you’re not Tina? Anyone with eyes and ears who spends thirty seconds with you can tell that.”
“Parents have expectations for their kids. That’s just the way it is. Some people want their kids to grow up to be doctors. Some people want their kids to grow up to be professional athletes. Some people just want to raise happy, healthy adults who contribute to their communities.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for her to finish.
“My parents were in the latter group. But Tina didn’t deliver. She never delivered. While I was bringing home A’s and B’s in school. She was bringing home Ds. In high school, when I joined the field hockey team and started a tutoring program, Tina played hooky and got busted with pot in the baseball dugout after school.”
“Her choice,” I pointed out.
“But imagine what it was like seeing the parents you love so much get hurt over and over again. I had to be the good one. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t afford any kind of teen rebellion or bounce between majors finding myself in college. Not when they’d already struck out with one daughter.”
“Is that why you decided to marry that Warner guy?” I asked.
Her face shuttered in the mirror. “Probably part of it,” she said carefully.
“He was a good choice. On paper.”
“You can’t spend your entire life trying to make everyone else happy, Naomi,” I warned her.
“Why not?”
She looked genuinely baffled. “Eventually you’re going to give a little too much and you won’t have enough left over for yourself.”
“You sound like Stef,” she said.
“Now who’s being mean?” I teased. “Your parents don’t want you to be perfect. They want you to be happy. Yet once again, you’re jumping in and cleaning up your sister’s mess. You stepped into the role of parent with no notice, no preparation.”
“There was no other option.”
“Just because one of the choices is shitty doesn’t mean it’s not an option.
Did you even want kids?” I asked.
She met my gaze in the mirror. “Yeah. I did. A lot actually. I thought it would be through more traditional means. And that I’d at least get to enjoy the baby-making end of things. But I’ve always wanted a family. Now I’m making a mess of everything and can’t even fill out an application correctly.
And what if I don’t want this guardianship to be temporary? What if I want Waylay to stay with me permanently? What if she doesn’t want to stay with me? Or what if a judge decides I’m not good enough for her?”
She wielded a lip gloss at me.
“This is what it’s like living in my brain.”
“It’s fucking exhausting.”
“It is. And the one time I do something that’s purely selfish and just for me, it blows up in my face.”
“What did you do for you?” I asked.
“I had a one-night stand with a grumpy, tattooed barber.”
