“Got it. This thing pull out?” It would take up the whole room, but I can’t imagine she sleeps on this thing as it is.
“Nope.”
I stand corrected.
“The old one my parents put
in here did, but it was messing up my back, so I had to switch,” she explains. “I can always go sleep in Sloan’s room and let you have it to yourself,” she offers.
“I think you’re missing the point of what we’re doing here,” I tease her. “Trust me, we’ll fit just fine on there. I don’t plan on keeping a lot of space between us.” On that note, I release her to go about making the bed and I notice she jumps right into action to get the job done herself. “Whoa, hold on.” I reach for her arms again, catching her mid motion. “What are you doing?”
She looks confused. “We’re making the bed.”
“No,” I shake my head, slowly backing her up to have a seat on her little bench, out of the way. “I’m making the bed. You’re going to sit back, relax and let me.”
“But,” she starts again. Then she stops. Apparently aware that there’s no reasonable argument to be made here. “You should know I feel very weird about this,” she huffs.
“Because you have some sort of OCD and are worried I will make the bed wrong?” I ask, removing the cushions and placing them beside her on the bench, where she instructed me to.
“Because I always make my own bed.”
“I assumed as much.” I have a feeling she’s been doing her own everything for a very long time. And likely not just doing for herself, but for everyone she comes in contact with. “I hate to have to tell you this.” I don’t really hate it. I’m sure she can tell because I’m smiling while I say it as I’m pulling off the last of the throw pillows. “But you’re going to have to get used to letting me do some shit around here. Especially when it comes to taking care of you. It’s a guy thing. We like it.Ilike it. Don’t deprive me.” I wink at her before I turn away to get the bedding.
She doesn’t say anything else after that. Just waits until I’m done, and everything is ready for her to climb in.
“Alright,” I announce, taking in the bed now that it’s finished. Not surprisingly, Kenley’s bedding is just as colorful as the rest of her stuff. “Ready when you are.”
I fully expect her to throw her guard up yet again and run for the bathroom linking her room to Sloan’s to change. Idon’texpect her to strip as she’s walking, arriving at her bed in only her cropped tee and panties, having unhooked and untangled her bra along the way.
“You do that every time you go to bed?” I ask, unzipping my pants to follow her. “Because we might have to start taking a lot of naps.”
“I notice you’re doing that a lot,” she says, mouth quirking at the corner like she can’t decide whether she’s pleased or amused. “What’s all thiswebusiness you keep throwing around?”
“Nope,” I tell her, mid pulling my shirt over my head, “we’re not doing that now.” Then I toss the shirt to meet my pants in the middle of her room beside her own trail of clothes and climb in beside her.
She laughs. “We’re not doing what now?”
“The thing where you try to backpedal so you can feel more in control again of what’s happening,” I tell her, sliding my arm under her shoulders to pull her over onto my chest. “This is a go with the flow moment,” I murmur into the top of her head and the soft, messy curls of her hair as she’s nestling up against me. “You can over analyze and pull away later. After we sleep.”
“Okay,” she sighs softly, her fingertips making tender trails on the bare skin of my chest. “But only because you smell nice, and I like the way I can hear your heartbeat when I lie here.”
Then the motions of her fingers start to slow, and her breathing deepens, and I know she’s already dozing off.
For a while I just lie here, relishing the feeling of holding this woman in my arms. Gradually understanding the words ‘home is where the heart is’ in a whole new way. A happy nomad all of my adult life, the realization I could suddenly be anchored, rooted in place through someone else, should scare the shit out of me. But I fall asleep feeling more content and at peace with my life than I remember feeling in a long, long time.
KENLEY
I wake with a start to the sound of my phone ringing. It’s Sloan’s ringtone. I push myself up to reach the small table I use as a nightstand only to find myself touching a bare chest.Right. Knox.
I’ll have to dwell on that new twist in my reality after I answer the phone and talk to my kid.
“Good morning, Toots,” I say, noticing Knox starting to move and stretch. I just hope he wakes up fast enough to recognize I’m on the phone before trying to talk to me, or God forbid, make some sort of manly morning groan sound.
“Hey.”
As soon as I hear her voice, I know something is off. She’s keeping her tone too low to be natural, and the volume is down substantially from her go-to, ‘world hear me, I have something to say’ levels.
“What’s wrong?” I check the time. It’s way too late to be worried about waking people, so that can’t be the reason either.
