CHAPTER 48
EMILY
Talking.
Banging.
Hissing pipes in the walls and whooshing traffic just outside the window.
The click of the stove before the gas came through the burner and the clatter of plates.
Aching back and chilly feet.
Mouth like a slab of yuck had settled between tongue and palate.
I usually woke to silence or the first threads of my radio alarm. Light through the drapes in the warmer months.
I never woke to the sounds of other people. I stayed still on the couch, shifting only to ease my back, and listened to Phin mumble, Carter bark orders, Brenda in the bathroom upstairs, running the plumbing.
Moving would have disrupted it. Opening my eyes would have shattered my dream-state appreciation of the irregular beat of activity. I didn’t want to observe it. I wanted my ears and body to be filled with it.
Half-in, half-out of consciousness, I didn’t have the self-awareness to ask why I enjoyed the presence of other people so much. Why I felt comfortable instead of awkward. I just lived in it like another ingredient in a nourishing soup.
The hard click of an open door woke me fully.
“Shh,” Carter whispered. “You’ll wake her.”
“I’m up,” I said, opening my eyes. Phin stood at the front door with a huge pack, and behind him, his dad stood, preshower, in jeans and a light jacket. I remembered what I’d learned about him last night, but seeing them together, all I saw was a resemblance.
“Sorry,” Phin said, cringing.
“You’re going to school?” In half sleep, I had no filter.
“He insisted,” Carter said defensively, as if he would have kept him home after the night before and needed me to know what a gentle dad he could be.
“Have a good day, then.”
“I’m dropping him at the bus stop.” Carter looked at his watch. “Five minutes.”
Phin opened the screen door, stopped himself, and addressed me.
“Sorry about last night.”
“Why?” I rubbed the gunk out of my right eye.
“That was a little intense.” Phin rolled his eyes at himself, making light of what he’d been through.
“But I learned how to hack the LA County Registrar or whatever,” I said. “Totally worth it.”
He laughed, agreed, and walked out with his dad. Uncle. Both.
I watched them through the window. Carter looked back at me as he got into the car, as if he knew I was there. I waved. He winked.
Brenda padded down the stairs in yoga pants and a tank top. She was a beautiful woman with her hair up in a twist and no makeup. That must have been where Genevieve got it.
“I was hoping you were the lump on the couch I saw last night. Did he make coffee?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“Six thirty.” She disappeared into the kitchen, and I threw myself off the couch, untangling my legs from the blanket as if it were attacking me.
I folded it, laid it on the back of the couch, and went into the kitchen. Brenda put a cup in my hand before I had a chance to tell her I was calling a cab so I could make it to work by eight.
“Thank you for being here,” Brenda said. “Last night was a big deal.”
“I felt like an intruder.”
She shook her head. “Trust me. You were a nice buffer. I knew the shit was going to hit the fan someday. I figured I’d be the one with the stained shirt.”
“Do you think he’ll be all right? Phin, I mean.”
“I do.” She picked up the pint of half-and-half and gave it a shake to see how much was in there. “He’s got more advantages than most kids but enough disadvantages to screw him.” She dropped half-and-half into her coffee. “My daughter had everything. Didn’t do her much good.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to her.”
“Yeah. So was half of Hollywood. What a circus. I lost a child. A piece of my heart. And they turned it into a spectacle.” She shook her head slowly and sipped her coffee. “Thank God for Carter. He’s going to be the one to get Phin through.”
As if summoned by his name, the front door opened and Carter called out, “Emily? You still here?”
“In the kitchen!”
He appeared like a white knight, unshaven, unshowered, ready to do battle for the people he loved. He exuded manliness and safety, like a king swearing to protect the realm.
It was a beautiful thing and yet, troubling. I didn’t know where my place was in his kingdom, or if I wanted a place in it at all.
“Call time is eight,” I said. “Are you on the schedule today?”
“Yeah. We gotta roll.” He took my cup, placed it on the counter, kissed his mother on the cheek, and guided me to the door.
“I don’t know about you, but I have to shower,” I said as he opened the car door for me.
“You can at your place.” He closed the door at the end of his sentence.
“We’re never going to make it,” I protested when he got in.
“Never say never.”
He backed out onto the street before I could object. I had plenty to say. Traffic. My house was in the opposite direction. Traffic. I hadn’t put my day bag together. And also . . . LA basin traffic.
But none of it mattered. By the first left onto 4th Street, Carter was a man on a mission. Five miles over the speed limit, changing lanes safely but frequently, intuiting where the traffic was and whipping turns to avoid it, he had me at my front door in six minutes. The car was barely at a complete stop when he got out and opened my door.
The emergency restraining order was taped to my front gate.
I rushed through the gate, then into my house. Carter closed the door behind him and slipped my bag off my shoulders.
“I can—”
He planted a kiss on my lips, opening my mouth with his tongue, which tasted of minty toothpaste. I pushed him away.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
He didn’t say a word, just pulled my shirt over my head and threw it to the side. His eyes blazed with intention. He looked like a man with a job to do and a hot desire to get it done. His hands curved around my rib cage and caught the edge of my bra, pulling it over my head. My nipples were stone hard for him, and he looked at them for no more than a second before getting under my waistband and pulling down, underpants and all.
I gasped. “Carter. Wait.”
“Shower. Now.”
Right.
Shower.
I stepped out of my pants legs and into my bedroom, passing the kitchen where Grey sat by her empty bowl.
“Give me a minute,” I said as I made my way to the bathroom, turning on the water. I stood half-in, half-out of the shower with my hand under the stream, waiting for it to heat up. I didn’t think we were going to get to work on time, but I could play along.
The water had just turned hot when Carter entered, naked, all hard muscle and taut skin. He was magnificent. A full-color statue of David, walking into the bathroom, shutting the door even as he moved in my direction with his hands out, pushing me onto the wet tiles and planting his mouth on mine for the second time.
I tried to speak but couldn’t work around his tongue, and his touch sucked all the air out of me. My body said what my mouth couldn’t, pushing into him, seeking his erection. I lifted a leg, and he put it at his waist so I could meet him, and the second his hardness touched my softness, an electrical buzz vibrated the length of my spine and stung my throat into a groan.
Yeah. We were going to be late.
He ran his mouth over my cheek and down my neck.
“Say you still want me,” he said.
“I’m naked in the shower with you.”
“After last night. What do I have to do to prove myself?”
“Nothing, I—”
“Just tell me.”
“Carter. You did your best for him. You did what you thought was right.” I dug my nails into his skin as if that would wake him up, but his eyelids only fluttered half-closed, the dark lashes stuck together, water dripping off them onto his cheeks like tears. “You did what was right.”
“I can’t bear that I found you at the same time as this happened. You weren’t supposed to come in the middle of a storm. You were supposed to walk into my life when all the storms were gone.”
“What good would that be?”
I reached down between us and found his erection. “Let’s get this ready.”
We got the condom on. He leaned into me, sucking air through his teeth when the head went in. I wrapped both legs around him, and he put his hands on my ass to hold me up.
He kissed me once, then drove deep into me. We stayed joined for a second, still and silent, letting the water hit us, and slowly he rotated his hips, forcing pleasure out of me. He had me with my shoulders against the wall, up in his strong arms, moving my tiny frame however he wanted.
I let go in his arms, giving him control over our motions, and every stroke brought me closer. He bit his bottom lip, holding back.
I touched my clit, which was all I needed to explode around him. I arched and wiggled with pleasure, but he held me tight. When he came, he held me more firmly, three feet off the floor and as safe as I’d ever been.