She wasn't normal.
He released a long, conflicted breath. They would never be normal. It just wasn't in their blood. He gripped her thigh, hooking it over his, and coiled his fingers around her hair. Fuck normal.
Her exhale warmed his neck, and the pad of her thumb traced his collarbone. “When was the last time you slept beside someone?”
“More than a year ago.” Which didn't exactly conjure sweet memories. On those rare occasions when Liv actually stayed in his bed, he'd never felt so alone. “She was the only one. What about you?”
“Brent was the first and last.” Her tits pushed against his ribs as she breathed in. “What was her name?”
“Liv.”
Her fingers jerked against his chest, but her lips pressed a soft peck on his shoulder, just beside the bullet wound. He'd tell her about that, about all of it, eventually. The idea of keeping anything from her was ludicrous. And so unlike his relationship with Liv, which had died at the hand of secrets.
Tonight had been the first night he didn't drive to Liv's neighborhood in over six months, and he hadn't even thought about it till now. Thinking of her tended to stir up a turmoil of conflicting emotions. But at the moment, all he felt was a dim ache somewhere behind his heart.
“Do you love her? Is that why you were on my porch?”
There were no quick responses to that. “I'm going to delay the answer to your last question because we're both tired. As for the first, I like to think of it as a seven-year fever.” Which had burned into a hotheaded, delusion-inducing illness.
His admission hovered in the darkness, smothering like a miasma he'd accidentally let in.
Her quiet voice scattered the thick air. “My fever lasted fourteen years.”
Fourteen years. That sleazy asshat didn't deserve fourteen seconds with her. “You know how to treat a fever?”
“Mm. I'm too tired to think of something witty. Go ahead.”
“Rest and lots of fluids.” He lowered his voice. “Obviously, not at the same time.”
“Oh my God.” Her groan dissolved into a soft lullaby of laughter. As it whispered through him, he realized the reason his days felt so empty was because they hadn't been filled with that sound.
He touched his lips to the top of her head, grinning. What a sentimental asshole.
For the second time that night, he waited for her breaths to tumble into sleep. This time, they did, pulling him along with a smile on his face.
The next morning, he woke wearing that same damned smile. But it didn't last. He was alone in the bed and the loft.
He shot up, his feet tripping over the floor. Only he wasn't tripping on a goddamned thing. Not a shirt or a magazine or a discarded pack of cigarettes in sight.
Fuuuuck. She'd been up for awhile.
The bedside clock read 10:43. He released a relieved breath. It was still early. He raked his hands through his hair. That was early, right? Jesus, what time did she normally wake?
He dug through the hamper, pulled out a pair of jeans, sniffed them, tossed them, and dug again until he found a fresher pair. Laundry was on the agenda at some point in the near future.
Tugging on the jeans, half-walking, half-hopping, he didn't bother with the zipper or button as he sharpened his attention on the stifling quiet downstairs. Would she have left? Could she?
A rush of blood heated his neck and face, his fingers curling into his palms. He plucked a toothpick from a holder on the dresser and sprinted down the stairs.
Halfway down the stairs, the scent of lemon and bleach reached Van's nose. Damn, damn, damn. He quickened his descent on silent feet. At the bottom, his gaze landed on the shiny kitchen counters, small appliances and canisters sparkling in a neat row, and Amber's ass hanging out of the fridge in her bend to scrub the deepest corner.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and let his frustration wave off his back. As much as he loved the sight of her in those little shorts cleaning his house, he wanted her to do it for him, not for her illness.
Shoulders back and chest out, he moved to the kitchen with heavy, wide steps. By the time he reached her, she was organizing condiments in the fridge door.
She spun when his footfalls landed behind her. He held his head down, his hand casually rotating the toothpick in his mouth. When her toes flexed against the tiles, he removed the pick, slowly placing it on the counter, and gave her the full force of his eyes.
She tensed, her pupils widening, her lips pinched in a line. The overhead light reflected a metallic glow around her, her dark hair freshly washed and dried. She drew in a lungful of air and grinned with overly bright eyes. “Morning. Sleep well?”
Apparently, he'd slept too well. He hadn't even heard her shower or run the hairdryer. But did the little vixen really think her pleasantries would distract him from the hand that was adjusting the mustard label in the fridge door behind her?
He stifled the laugh bubbling up inside him. Jesus, from the booty shorts and tit-hugging tank top to the fluttering eyelashes and saucy attitude, the whole package was cute as fuck. And defiant.
“Best sleep of my life. You?” He turned away, feigning disinterest in his now spotless kitchen, and reached into the overhead cabinet. His bare feet didn't stick to the tiles like they usually did. She'd been awake for a long-ass time.
“I slept well.” She hadn't moved from her position by the fridge. If she was wary of him, she had every right to be.
He removed a box of Froot Loops and opened the package with intentional slowness as his mind sped through the next ten steps. “Have you eaten?”
“Nope.” A casual response, yet it vibrated with caginess.
He kept his back to her but could feel the heat of her eyes stroking the muscles he'd worked hard to maintain. “How about some cereal?” Froot Loops was a midnight snack. No way would he feed her that junk. Nutritious meals only. Eggs and bacon, fucking protein and shit.
“Uhm. Sure.”
Without turning around, he held the open box over the floor and dumped it upside down. Colorful O's tumbled around his feet. He stepped side-to-side, crunching them into a satisfying dust of sugar.
Her breathing grew loud and rushed behind him. “Oh my God.” Then louder. “Why?” She released an ear-splitting shriek. “I just mopped the floor!”
And he would clean it later. He wasn't a damned slob. Sure, he slacked on the laundry and didn't give a fuck which shelves the cups went on. But she wouldn't find moldy food or mouse droppings or hoarding stashes of crap falling out of the closets. He pivoted slowly to check on her.
Pressed into the gap of the open fridge door, arms wrapped around her rib cage, shoulders curled in, and eyes wildly darting over the floor, she definitely struggled to hold it together. He was about to make it worse.
He emptied the last of the box, tossed it on the mess, and strode toward her with an air of calm and focus. His unyielding grip on her elbow shuffled her sideways as he closed the fridge. Then he backed her into the counter and put his face into hers. “You will not clean up after me.”
Her strong-willed chin appeared, jutting up and out, ready to fight. “I can't live like this. This” —she thrust a trembling finger at the floor— “is not okay.”
“That's right. So here's how it's going to be.” He clutched the counter on either side of her hips, arms straight, with two feet of tension rotating between them. “As long as you are obsessively clean, I'm going to be obsessively not clean. For every inch you give, I'll match it. We'll eventually meet in the middle.” He lowered his head so she could see his eyes. “Got me?”
She didn't look at him, her gaze locked-and-loaded on the floor as if waiting for the crumbs to sprout hundreds of tiny stingers and attack. He knew what was coming, tipped off by the slow deep inhale and the twitch below her eye, and he let it happen.
Her knees bent fast, her body dropping to the floor. Free from the corral of his arms, she scrambled to the mess, sweeping and scooping, her breaths rushing in her frenzy to shove tiny handfuls
into the box.
With an even pulse and loose muscles, he lowered to sit beside the huffing tornado. Cereal crumbled beneath his ass and legs as he leaned his back against the cabinet. She didn't seem to notice him, too consumed with black and white, linear numbers, and clean floors...her tragic need to perfect everything.