Silas

I should have slept on the couch.

I also should have beat Scott’s ass. When he called me and told me to meet him at the old Getty, I knew whatever he had going on was something serious. I haven’t heard from him in almost a year. Not that a cursory “Happy Birthday, Fuck Head” counts as quality communication, but it’s his way of doing things, an excuse to let me know that he is still alive. Scott leaves me the fuck alone. I leave him the fuck alone. It works best for both of us.

Yeah, when I left the farm I was expecting something big. He did sound pretty panicked and insistent on the phone, but I was expecting something along the lines of him asking me to stash a dufflebag full of cash for some shady client.

Or his famous move, the old twin identity swap. No one would mistake me for him these days, but doesn’t mean that would stop him from trying. When he stepped out of his car, he looked like he’d exchanged his gym membership for a steady diet of speed. But of all the shit that came to mind when my piece of shit brother’s number popped on my phone, him showing up with one of the hottest women I’ve ever seen was not one of them. I was really contemplating punching Scott right in his fucking face when he told me that I had to do something for him, that he needed my help. My fist was twitching when he said he actually expected me to let some woman he worked with in the city come live at my fucking house until he figured out exactly who was after her and why.

This was always Scott’s problem. Nothing is ever simple with him. That’s why I stay away. I get that the cops aren’t always the most reliable. We of all people should know how badly they fuck up. That doesn’t mean he needs to try his hand at vigilante work. I asked him flat out who this woman was and when he told me it didn’t matter, she was in trouble, I almost walked, until she stepped out of his car and I knew something was wrong. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks and she was limping a little bit, but that didn’t change the fact that she was fucking beautiful. Statuesque, with curves for days and beautiful dark brown skin that seemed to glow even under the shitty lights of the Getty. I knew exactly why Scott was calling in this favor. He wants to fuck her. When it was clear he was lying to us both, I decided to put me and this woman out of our misery.

It was obvious she needed some sort of help and I needed to get the hell away from Scott before I did something I would regret, or at least never hear the last of when our mom found out. I knew I’d regret bringing her into my house, but I didn’t really regret it until about two hours ago. People think people who live alone are lonely because they can’t wrap their minds around the idea that they could possibly enjoy being alone. I do. I like being alone. It’s fucking glorious.

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a bed with a woman for any period of time. Years since I’ve spent the night with a woman, just sleeping and now I remember why. I like my damn space. I have no idea why Liz—or Ebie, as she asked me to call her—even made the comment about groping and personal space. It’s almost two a.m. and she is glued to my side. To make matters worse, Honeycrisp, who has slept in the same chair since I got her from the Browns, decides to join us and has wedged herself on the sheets between our feet. I’ve gone from sleeping alone to sleeping with a strange woman and a dog who’s had philosophical differences with me since day one.  

The other issue is how hard my dick is. Ebie smells fucking amazing and her skin is so fucking soft, pressed up against my forearm and my thigh. I should probably get my erection down before I attempt anything.

I wait. I wait some more. I listen to the soft sounds of her breathing and that doesn’t help the issue at all. I have to move. I have to. I have so much shit to do in the morning, least of all explaining to everyone on the farm who the fuck Ebie is and the fictional account of where the fuck she came from. I need to sleep. I try to move. I do move. I start to ease to the edge of the bed, but she turns away from me, and moves her feet away from Honeycrisp’s fur. I rethink running for the living room. I have the space I need now. I adjust my crotch then I roll onto my side, facing Ebie’s back. Another mistake. The curve of her hip and her ass are staring right at me. I roll back over and face the window. Honeycrisp grunts at me. I almost boot her off the bed.

* * *

I definitely should have slept on the couch. That couch has been in our family going on forty years. I’m pretty sure the center support is broken, but I know for a fact I would have had a better night’s sleep on that piece of shit than I did next to Ebie. When my vibrate alarm goes off, two things are clear. I’ve only slept in twenty minute increments. Thirty minutes if you include all the time spent trying to convince myself that I wasn't awake. And I need to have a conversation with Ebie about what the fuck she considers personal space.

My alarm goes off and this woman is splayed on top of me. Half of her body is on top of mine. Her head is tucked under my chin. Her arm is wrapped around my torso. Her fucking knee is gently resting on top of my crotch, her thigh over mine. My cock decided to relax, but my balls are still aching. At no point in the night did the amazing way she smells go away. I look down and see that Honeycrisp has given up on trying to sleep in between us and has curled up on the other side of the bed, behind Ebie. It would be adorable if it were close to anything I actually want to wake up to. It isn’t.

I look out the window and imagine running down Scott’s Mercedes on foot, pulling him out of the car and beating him to death. I can't stand him. I stare at the roof of my tool shed through the break in the curtains. The sun is about to rise. Ebie being in my house and in my bed defines inconvenience. Between the way she looks and the way she’s clinging to me I know she needs her rest, but I have to get up. I carefully move her arm, then reach down and slide her leg off me. As I’m easing out from under her head, I see her eyelids flutter. I freeze, then realize it’s best to just get it over with. I slide my hand under the silk scarf thing she has wrapped around her hair and ease her head onto the pillow. She lets out a deep breath, but she doesn’t wake up.

I grab my towel and dig a washcloth out of my clean clothes pile and head upstairs to the bathroom. I don’t look around to see if there are any squatters on the second floor. They’d be welcome to it as long as they kept it down. I never come up here anymore. They’d be able to make themselves right at home. After I clean the cobwebs out of the tub and check if the pipes up here even work, I shower then head back downstairs to put on some clothes. Ebie is still knocked out when I get back. She seems to be sleeping more soundly. No clue what was so appealing about cuddling up to me, but whatever. I drop my towel and get ready for my day in peace. She doesn’t even wake up when I shove Honeycrisp out of the way and sit on the edge of the bed to put on my boots. Before I leave I grab a piece of paper, write down my cellphone number and slide it under her phone. I set a reminder to call out for a maid service at eight a.m. and then I head out. I need coffee.

* * *

“Fuck’s wrong with you? You look like shit,” Ginny asks me. I take the clipboard out of her hand.

“Rough night. Didn’t sleep much.”

“What’s on your mind, champ?” Ginny leans on the counter and bats her eyelashes at me. I think for a second, not even reading the words on the order form in my hand. My eyes won't focus anyway. I’m high on caffeine and sleep deprivation. I set the clipboard down and look at Ginny.

“My girlfriend is here. Her name’s Ebie. Tell as many people as you want. Get it out of your system.”

Ginny gasps, then steps back a few feet and puts her hand on her chest. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

“I met someone online. I think I might love her,” I add for a little flavor, because why the fuck not. “And she finally came to visit. She got in late though. She’s still crashed out at the house.”

Maya comes walking into the kitchen to find Ginny gawking at me. “What? What’s going on?”

Ginny lets out a little sound of shocked disgust then finally closes her mouth. She looks at her wife. She looks at me. She looks at her wife again. “Our sweet baby boy Silas here has a girlfriend. He’s had a girlfriend. They met online. The girlfriend is here. As in on the premises, here. He might love her. Her name is—what’s her name again?”

“Ebie.”

“And she has an adorable as fuck name. Ebie.”

“Bullshit!” Maya yells.

I shrug. “Sorry to break both your hearts, ladies.”

“No, I call bullshit,” Maya says “I’ve been trying to set you up since the first Bush Administration.”

“I didn’t know you back then. And we were in the fourth grade.”

“But it feels like it’s been that long doesn’t it?” Ginny says. “You haven’t had a girlfriend the entire time we’ve known you.”

“He hasn’t had a girlfriend the entire time he’s been alive.”

“Now you’re both lying. What about Jamie? We were pretty serious.”

They both look at each other, like they know I’m full of shit. ’Cause I am.

“Yeah. That was some great romance,” Maya says. “You both scratched each other’s itches until she tried to ultimatum you into a wedding.”

“And her plan worked out great,” I remind them. “I saw her over at the high school the other day and she’s pregnant again. Zach is over the moon.”

“Okay, whatever. If it wasn’t for Jamie, I’d be pretty sure you were still a virgin,” Ginny says.

“He might as well be. I hate to pry, but I don’t hate to pry at all. Did you two do it last night?” Maya asks. She steps closer to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “It’s been a while, Silas. Was it bad? Like really bad? Do you need any pointers? You can ask us anything. You know you can. We’re here for you.”

“See, this is why I don’t tell you two shit.” I grab the clipboard and the pen again. “I need double on the Family Jam this week. Ethel Lincoln brought some to the picnic over at St. Michael’s and half the church came over and bought what we had left in the mercantile.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll make a ton more. But hold on, hold on. I think we need to talk about this some more. How long has this been going on?

“A few months,” I decide right then. “You’ll like her.” My alarm on my phone starts going off. I pull it out of my back pocket and silence it.

“What’s that?” Ginny asks. Always nosy as fuck.

“Just a reminder.”

“Oh yeah? For what?”

“Gotta go wake my princess up. Someone’s coming over to clean up for her.”

“Wait one damn minute,” Maya says. “You didn’t clean before she came over?”

“Silas!” Ginny gasps. They don’t come over to hang out, but they’ve both been inside the farm house. They know the condition I keep it in.

“She’s not into me for my cleanliness.”

“I guess not,” Ginny says before she makes a gagging noise.

“I have to go. This all checks out. Do you need help with that barbecue sauce order?” I ask.

“Nope. I’m gonna get started in a few minutes. I’ll be in the thick of it when the afternoon tour comes through. I just need to pull the samples for Shawnie. A few were rank yesterday and you know how I hate that.”

“Yeah, the customers hate it too.” I sign off on the week’s order and hand the clipboard back. “I’ll be back with Ebie in a bit.”

“We get to meet her this afternoon?” Ginny says, perking up.

“I said I was bringing her by.”

“Oh boy,” Maya says.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She flashes me an evil smile.

* * *

When I get back to the house I can tell Ebie is up. Even before I walk in the front door, something feels different about the place. You can tell it isn’t empty. Joe Namath is lying in the front hall, and he’s awake. I squat down and scratch his head. “You keeping an eye on things for me?”

He makes a weak attempt at licking my hand, then drops his head back down to the floor. I head to my bedroom. The door is closed and I can hear music playing inside. I knock once, hard.

“You decent?” I ask.

“No. Hold on.” I was too pissed last night to pay attention to her voice, but I notice it this morning. There’s something rough and sexy about it. I lean against the wall and wait. A few moments later the door cranks open.

“Hi.” Ebie looks up at me and then opens the door the rest of the way. Her stuff is scattered around the bed, but the bed is made. Whatever soap or lotion she’s using is wafting out of the bathroom and filling the room. She’s wearing a pair of those skintight workout pants that show off every inch of her thick thighs and a loose v-neck t-shirt that does nothing to conceal how large her breasts are. She sits back down on the bed and picks up a pair of socks. I do my best not to look down her shirt.

“You risked the shower?”

“Oh, Mrs. Serea and her people already came by,” she says.

“When?”

“A few hours ago? They said they had a cancellation so they thought they’d swing by early since you requested a deep clean. They did the bathrooms, the kitchen, and vacuumed and dusted the whole downstairs like you asked. I tipped them.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

She glances around. “Are you mad I didn’t call you? Did they fuck something up?”

I look around some more. My bedroom is still cluttered with all the crap I’ve been too busy to deal with, but it does look cleaner. The windows look clearer and the AC unit looks almost brand new, restored to its nearly white original condition instead of the dull, dusty gray I’ve been used to. Honeycrisp is back sitting in her chair, but she’s not sleeping on top of my sweatshirt anymore. It’s neatly folded on the back of the chair.“No. I—I didn’t want them to wake you up.”

“Oh. No, it was fine. The dogs started barking and then they rang the doorbell. It didn’t make sense not to let them do what you hired them to do. They seemed to know you’d be busy around the farm.”

“Yeah. It’s been a long morning,” I say and my body picks that exact moment to remind me that I’m exhausted. I blink hard and force my eyes open.

“You don’t look like you slept much. Did I keep you up?”

“Of course you don’t remember,” I say as I sit down on the bed beside her. She reaches behind me and moves some of her shit out of the way even though I’m not sitting on anything.

“Remember what?”

“Yes, you kept me up.”

“My bad. I do sleep kind of wild when I sleep hard. I haven’t slept much this week.”

“But you slept well last night?” I ask.

She lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, I did. Thank you.”

“Good. How’s your ankle? I saw you limping last night.”

“Still aches, but it’s okay. I packed in a hurry. Scott told me to bring comfortable shoes so that should help more than heels.”

“You hear from my shithead of a brother yet today?” I pull off my hat and scrub my hair and then my face with my hand.

“Um… yeah. He’s helping with my apartment. The cleanup at my apartment. There was a lot blood.”

“What happened exactly?”

“Someone put a hit out on me and I ended up stabbing the guy in the neck with my stiletto,” she says matter of factly.

“Scott left that part out. I can see how that would keep you up at night. People don’t take out hits on people here, so don’t worry. Scott is missing the portion of his DNA that makes you a decent human being. You are safe here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Thank you,” she says, quietly. She sounds like she’s about to cry. Makes sense. She seems pretty stressed out, but there’s no point in dwelling on shit that’s already happened.

“You hungry?” I ask.

“Actually yeah. I’m starving.”

“I’ll take you over to the cafe and we can get some lunch. I’ll introduce you to everyone. Are you into handholding or…?”

She looks over at me like I’m nuts and then she remembers. “Right. I’m supposed to be your girlfriend. Uh, sure. Why not? I mean I’m not huge into PDA, but handholding is fine.”

“Great. I’ll let you get finished up. I’ll be in the hall.”

“Okay.”

I leave her to finish putting on her sneakers and handle whatever woman shit she needs to before we leave. She doesn’t take too long. Maybe five minutes later she comes out of the bedroom. Honeycrisp is trailing behind her.

“I turned the AC off,” she says as she glances down at Joe and steps around him. “Thanks for leaving it on for me.”

“No problem. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and then it should cool down a little bit. Come on.” I open the front door for her. Honeycrisp trots out onto the porch after her. She follows Ebie and me out to my truck.

“Where are the other dogs?” Ebie asks.

“Morty’s over by the barns. Gala and Hank are out in the orchard with the boys and Tina. It’s picking season. They like to keep them company. I’ll take you out there to meet them after we eat.” I walk around to the passenger side and open the door for her.

“Thank you.”

“You wanna come?” I ask Honeycrisp. She looks at me for a second and then over at Ebie.

“What’s the deal with you and this dog?” Ebie asks. The sound of her voice seems to be enough. Honeycrisp looks back at me and whines the way she does when she knows I’ve given the other dogs treats.

“Come on, girl.” She follows me this time and barely waits while I push my seat forward so she can jump in the back of the cab. “Yeah. There you go, you little mutt. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her,” I tell Ebie once I’m behind the wheel.

“Kinda harsh, don’t you think? She’s a perfectly sweet dog. She kept me company all morning.”

“She doesn’t like men. My mom took her in from an elderly couple at our church. It took her a while to realize she didn’t have to snap at me every time I came home.”

“And you kept her anyway even though she was trying to bite you?”

“She’s a dog. Animals need more patience.”

“Than people?”

“Yep. You ready?”

“I guess so.”

I wait for her to put her seatbelt on, then I bust a U-turn and head back toward the cafe.