She narrows her eyes, as if to warn him he better be right. “Good.” Then she’s smiling again, batting her eyelashes, clearly about to change her tune. “But hey, since you’re going to be up, could you make sure I don’t sleep past ten? Ma mentioned we could go for waffles, but The Maple Tree usually runs out of fresh batter by eleven and then they start serving their frozen backups.Which is fine for people who’ve never tasted fresh, but not even worth the trip for someone who has. And I really wanna make the trip. We hardly ever go.”
“Is it reserved for special occasions?” Knox asks, looking pleased with the thought.
“No,” Sloan says, clearly confused by his misinterpretation of her last statement. “We just usually sleep too late.”
“Youusually sleep too late,” I correct her. “I’m just less attached to waffles.”
“You’re a pancake girl, I remember.” Knox winks.
“Hm. Still kind of sounds like you’re the problem then,” Sloan quips. One mom-stare later and she’s apologizing dramatically. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.I’mthe problem.” She pulls her covers over her head, giggling nervously, “I’m the problem!” she squeaks one more time before she pops her head back out. “We can still go tomorrow, right?”
I roll my eyes, laughing at her antics. If this kid had energy like this in the mornings, she could be eating waffles every day. “Yes, we can still go.” I guide Knox to head back for the door, following him there. “Now get some sleep.”
“I will,” she promises. And tonight, I actually believe her. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I pull the door nearly shut, leaving just a sliver of space so I can hear if she needs me, a habit I’ve had since she was little and intend to keep until she moves out. Then my hand finds Knox’s before I even have a conscious thought around it, and together we walk the three steps down the truly short hall, back to my room. Our room. At least for now.
Crawling under the covers with him tonight isn’t much different from when we did it this morning. There are no underlying agendas or attempts at seduction, just the two of us, curled up in each other’s arms, quietly and intermittently chatting as we start to doze off.
I can’t remember the last time I was so content and relaxed and ready for rest. No running to-do list scrolling at the forefront of my mind. No worrying about the random things I worry about even when worrying about them has never once paid off or been valid. No tossing and turning trying to trick my body into releasing the tension that never seems to leave me and just moves from limb to limb instead. None of it.
I’m just here. With him. Safe from all of it. And so secure, I sleep straight through without waking up until morning.
As promised, he lets me sleep in. Which I appreciate in theory, but not so much in practice now that I’m waking up to an empty bed. The fact I can smell coffee as soon as I do, does take the edge off a bit. Even if it is coming from the downstairs coffee pot and not the one I can see from my bed. I suppose I do appreciate that he chose the option less likely to wake me.
I’m halfway through preparing my first cup before I realize I haven’t given a single thought to my appearance and the morning version of me Knox is about to be subjected to. I pause in front of the fridge, half and half still in hand, to mull it over. Do I care? Should I hurry to claim the bathroom while there’s still time and track down a mirror to assess the damage? I should not. Much like my pancake consumption, this is a ‘what you see is what you get’ sort of a moment for us. Knox might as well get the whole picture of daily life in this household. Even if it includes me strolling around sipping coffee with one pajama pantleg stuck halfway up my calf, my tank top still semi-twisted around my torso from how I slept, and my hair doing God knows what atop my head. If he’s really here for me, he’s here for this.
Speaking of being here for things, he’s clearlyliterallynot here right now. Given Frieda’s size, and the fact our walls are little more than paper dividers and provide literally no sound absorption, it’s pretty easy to assess the number of occupants and it’s been abundantly clear since I crawled out of bed that theonly ones here are the same four chicks I’m used to waking up to. But, since I noticed his backpack is still sitting in the chair in the corner, I’m sure he can’t be far. So, I finish fixing my coffee and go about wandering the property until I find him.
In the end, it doesn’t take much beyond stepping outside to locate the man. As soon as I round the corner, I can see him, standing out on the dock (did I mention we live on a lake? We live on a lake. Well, my parents do. We’re long-time visitors of people who live on a lake) his own coffee in hand, chatting it up with my stepdad, equally engaged in coffee consumption.
I watch from a distance for a while, sort of in awe of the sight. My stepdad always tolerated my ex, and certainly spent enough time with him over the years, maintaining a relationship for Sloan’s sake. But the way he’s talking to Knox, laughing, clearly sharing his own stories, and obviously thrilled to have an attentive audience, it’s hard to deny he has a genuine interest in knowing Knox, one he never had in knowing Ebenezer.
Not wanting to interrupt their conversation, I head for the main house.
As expected, my mother is in the kitchen, standing at the stove, waiting for the kettle to whistle. She has a clear shot at the dock through the glass doors from here, and when I walk in, I notice she’s watching them just as intently as I was.
At least until she hears me enter. Then I have her undivided attention.
“Looking for someone?” she teases.
“Nope.” I pull out a barstool from the breakfast bar and have a seat, attempting not to check the dock repeatedly from here, and failing miserably. “Already found him.” I meant that to be a joke of sorts, but it delivered more seriously than intended and I resort to drinking my coffee to cover.
But there’s no hiding these things from my mother. “Yes, it certainly looks like you did.”
I roll my eyes trying to remind her – and me – not to get ahead of ourselves. “I’m not going to deny that he’s pretty insanely amazing, but,” I pause, wondering how attached I really still am to thisbut, “we just met. And he doesn’t even live here. He’s only in town until Wednesday. I think it’s a little crazy to start talking about this like it’s a done deal.” Yes, he said he’s coming back. And yes, somewhere deep inside, I believe him. But another part of me, the scared part, the responsible part, the intense desire to notlook like a gullible foolyet again part, can’t help but keep reminding me that people say all sorts of things, and despite their best intentions, life comes along, minds change,feelingschange, lies are revealed, and then things don’t turn out the way you think they ought to.
“Just to clarify,” my mother says, moving the kettle from the burner just as it starts its high-pitched wail, “this istheKnox, as in Knox Marley, the musician you went to see in concert on Saturday night with Arizona.”
“Correct.” I knew she’d pieced that together even if she never let on last night over tea.
“So, you find it too crazy to believe that a man you met the night before last who has not left your side since but has in fact gotten to know your immediate family, supported you in a crisis with Sloan’s dad-” I make a face. I hadn’t realized she was aware of that. “Sloan told us last night after you left to make dinner,” she fills me in before she goes on, “A man who cooked with you, and basically walked into your life without judgement or expectation outside of wanting to care for you, and who now is listening to what looks to be at least a dozen long lost tales of Javier’s football coaching days, all of that, too crazy to think he might be for real? But, going to a concert single and leaving on a date with the artist, that’s like, totally average? Absolutely normal? Not remotely unusual or hard to believe?”
I press my lips together, denying her any hint of a smile. “I should have known you’d take this route.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “You should have.” She pours the water over her waiting teabag and cup. “Tea?”
“I have coffee,” I remind her. “But thanks.”
