Elena

Nine weeks ago

It’s so foreign to be here in Nanny and Pop’s kitchen without them around. How can it be that they’re both just… gone? I bite my lower lip to keep it from trembling as I finish towel drying the large chafing dish. Earlier this afternoon it held the mountain of chicken cutlets the caterers dropped off when we got back from the cemetery. After setting the plate on the area of countertop I've designated for dry dishes, I turn and pick up the final clean platter from the dish drainer and start swiping across the glazed surface with the dishtowel. A hint of a smile plays on my lips as I conjure up an image of Nanny telling me to let the darn things drip-dry. Naturally, thinking of her gets me emotional. Setting the platter and the towel down, I rub my hands over my face.

I startle when I hear a noise from behind me. Spinning around, I see Colin. His black suit jacket is gone, his gray tie is loose, and his white dress shirt has one button undone. His left shoulder is propped against the door jam, and his right hand is comfortably in his pocket like he’s been in that position for a while.

Although Colin looks tired—or tuckered out, as Pop used to say—it does nothing to diminish how attractive he is.

His gentle smile causes my mouth to go dry. “I told you not to worry about any of this until tomorrow. Why am I not surprised that you didn’t listen?”

I can feel a faint blush spreading across my cheeks as I run a hand over the smoothness of the updo I spent a hell of a lot of time perfecting this morning. "I tried but I just couldn't… Nanny always said that dirty dishes left overnight become the next day's science experiment."

He smiles then, the first one I’ve seen since the day started. No one ever warns you about just how emotionally draining funerals are.

“She pulled that on me too,” he chuckles. “I grew up convinced dirty dishes were the first step to damnation. You know it was just her way of teaching us all to be tidy, right? Science experiments on dishes take more time than a night on the counter.”

I gesture toward the window over the sink that looks out to the guesthouse I once called home. “Since my mom was a slob I know exactly how long it takes for the science experiment to happen,” I sigh. “Without your grandmother to guide me, I’m fairly certain I’d have wound up just like my mother.”

He takes his hand from his pocket and lifts it to the back of his neck and begins to rub at it. “She was a mess,” he agrees. “Pop told me if it weren’t for you, they’d have booted her out within the first three months.”

My brows go up as I lean back against the counter, bracing my hands on the cool of the granite as I stare at him. "They knew that early on she was like that?"

Colin snorts as he nods. "Couldn't have missed it. Hell, even I knew, and I only caught glimpses. My grandparents…" his voice cracks on the word.

I watch the way his throat moves as he swallows and looks away. He closes his eyes for a second or two, the silence stretching between us before he looks back at me. “They both adored you,” he says. “A mess in a house they didn’t live in was a small price to pay to have you here where they could see you nearly every day.”

My hand goes to my mouth, and I do my best to cover a choked sob as the enormity of his statement hits me. I thought I couldn’t love them any more than I did a minute ago, but I was wrong. I’d give anything right now to hug Nanny and Pop one more time and tell them how much they mean to me. Colin crosses the room to me and puts his arms around me as I try my hardest to hold back my tears.

I've cried more in the last few days than I have in the last ten years. Consequently, I've also had Colin hug me more than at any other point in my life. It's the most pleasant kind of torture, to be held by the man who has long been the object of my affection. The comfort he's offered me in the days since his grandparents passed has been invaluable. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that in addition to the safety and security I find in his arms, I'm also having one of my lifelong dreams fulfilled.

My four-inch heels give me enough height that I'm only three inches shorter than his six-foot-two-inch frame. This allows me to tuck my head under his chin as I take a few measured breaths to get myself back together before I finally feel strong enough to stand up straight. His arms loosen, but he doesn't let me go. When I look up, I find him looking down at me. There's an expression on his face that makes me feel weak in the knees. I nervously run my tongue along my lower lip only to forget how to breathe when his eyes drop to my mouth and his nostrils flare. Holy crap—is Colin attracted to me?

“Leni,” he says huskily. “I wanted to wait—”

The sound of a throat clearing interrupts the moment. Colin’s arms drop as he steps away from me to turn toward the kitchen door. Leaning to the left, I see one of the crew from the party rental place that provided the outdoor seating for the luncheon.

"We've got the tent, tables, and chairs loaded into the truck, Mr. Findlay. I just need you to initial here, and we'll be out of your way."

“Right, sure,” Colin coughs.

His tone is slightly harried, and I can see the tension in his frame as he walks to the door and accepts the tablet the man is holding out to him. He initials quickly with his finger before he looks back over his shoulder at me with an expression I can't possibly decipher.

“I’m going to walk him to the door and then head upstairs to shower, okay?”

He waits for me to nod before he turns and walks away. Watching him retreat, I can’t help thinking about him in the shower—and the fact that we’re now alone in the house. For the last four nights, his parents were here as well, but they left directly after the luncheon today since his mom—Mariana—has her four-week post-op checkup tomorrow from her recent knee replacement.

This means that for the first time in my life I’m sharing space with Colin and no one else is around. My room—the one Nanny and Pop decreed was mine within months of my meeting them— is two doors down from Colin’s, the large hall bath the only thing separating our rooms.

After wiping down the kitchen counters and folding the kitchen towel over the handle of the dishwasher, I head upstairs. As I walk past the exterior wall of the bath that Colin and I share, I hear the water running through the pipes. The sound makes me think of him in there, naked, and I feel hot and flushed. I quicken my steps and fling the door to my room open, hurrying inside before closing the door softly behind me. I roll my eyes at myself as I meet my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. You'd think I just went through some Mission: Impossible obstacle course to get up here.

Laughing at my idiocy, I kick off my heels, pull the pins out of my updo and toss them onto my dresser before heading straight for my bed and dropping backward onto it, arms out wide. Across the room, the door to the Jack and Jill bath Colin and I share is firmly closed. In all the years I've stayed here, we've never had a bathroom run-in, not that I haven't fantasized about it. When we're in the house at the same time we know to knock twice on the door before opening it, and the system has always worked.

Rolling my neck from side to side on the bed, I inhale the clothesline-fresh scent of my crisp white bedding. For a second or two it's like nothing has changed and Nanny just had them hanging out in the yard, but then the reality hits all over again. Nanny and Pop are really gone now. The thought of them immediately causes a lump in my throat. Sitting up, I scoot myself back on my bed and settle into a comfy spot so that I can rest my head on a pillow and look around at the one place I've ever felt utterly secure in. Here, I've always known I was loved. Here, I've had no question about my importance.

I love my dad, but a part of me will always be hurt that he spent so long pretending that my mom was parenting. On the other hand, if he'd been more pro-active I wouldn't have had this. And this has been my everything, at least until now. I’m trying my best not to focus on what it will be like not to have this bedroom anymore. The room itself hasn't changed since the year I was eight when the four of us painted it a pale lime green that I'd been obsessed with. I can still remember the way Colin’s eyes went wide as he took the lid off the can and saw the color for the first time.

Looking back over his shoulder at me, he smiles. He’s always handsome, but his smiles make it over-the-top. “No pink for you, I see,” he teases.

I scrunch my nose as I set my hands on my hips. “Pink is for babies, Colin. Lime green is for big girls. Cool big girls.”

He chuckles as he pours some of the paint into the paint tray Pop set up on the tarp covering the plush cream-colored carpet. “I can’t argue with that logic, Little Bird,” he jokes. "After all, you are the coolest."

Obviously, he wasn't attracted to me when I was a child, and that didn't change when I was a teenager. For about five seconds during our summer vacation two years ago I’d thought he was looking at me differently, but later I dismissed that as being wishful thinking. Today, down in the kitchen, there was palpable sexual tension between us and I don't know what to think about it. I mean, what's the deal? Should I be dying of embarrassment because he was about to rebuff me— or was he feeling the attraction as strongly as I was? Of course, I wish for the second, but with my luck, he was just about ready to walk on hot coals to get away from me.

I haven't slept well because I've been too keyed up about the sudden loss of Nanny and Pop. The last few days were a flurry of activity to get ready for the funeral. Colin's mom and I spent the first two days I was here creating photo memory boards to display at the funeral home. Then yesterday Colin, his parents and I all worked together to make some of the food for the luncheon. A lot of things we had been able to order from the caterers but before Pop passed he'd mentioned that he wanted to make some of Nanny's favorite dishes. We'd gone all out to whip up several of both their favorite dishes.

Colin and his dad, Carson, spending five hours out in the yard grilling chicken and ribs while his mom and I whipped up Nanny's favorite blueberry tarts, cherry cheesecake bites, and a five-layer honey-coconut cake. Now that the funeral is over it's like the exhaustion of it all is hitting me in one giant wave. I can't stop yawning, and my eyes keep drifting shut. I love sleep more than most people do, but this kind of tired is on a whole other level.

Forcing myself not to nod off just yet, I stand up and take off my dress, bra, and thigh high stockings. Too tired to hang any of it up or go to the hamper in my closet I drop it in a pile on the floor before I grab the fluffy coral colored throw at the end of my bed. After getting back into a comfortable position on my bed, I pull the throw over me so that I can take a short nap to recharge my battery.