In the dark of night, I lay in bed, sleep evading me like that stray fucking cat that used to sit on my doorstep every afternoon. She always sat within reach, while dodging my hand every time I stretched to pet her. No matter how patient I was, no matter how still I sat, she tucked tail and ran at the first sign of interest. I didn’t even have to move. It was as if she could read my thoughts. Yeah, sleep was like that. A real fucking bitch.
Throwing the sheets back, I slid from the bed. My door opened with a traitorous squeak. I glanced at Haris’s door, and then padded down the stairs, heading for the kitchen. When I turned the corner, he was waiting at the island with a pint of French vanilla ice cream and a pair of spoons.
“Couldn't sleep?” he asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
My frown deepened. “I feel horrible.”
“Because you’re taking your grandmother’s advice?” Absently, he stabbed at the pint of ice cream, refusing to look at me.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.” Despite my will, a few tears slipped down my cheeks. I covered my mouth, trying to repress a sniffle.
“Hey.” Circling the island, Haris wrapped his arms around me and drew my head against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“What’re you apologizing for?”
“Complicating things.” Dropping his head, he pressed his face into my hair. “I should give you some space to think, but I can’t help myself.”
“If I didn’t want you around, I’d tell you to fuck off, Haris.” Lifting my hand, I swabbed the tears from my cheek. “But I do think my gram’s right. We need to take this slow.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Matilda.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
Sighing disconsolately, Haris loosened his grip and grasped my hand. “Come sit outside with me. I saw a swing out on the back porch when we came in.”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“I have two days to make you fall in love with me. I plan to make good use of them.” Tugging my arm, he led me outside, taking care to be quiet when opening the door.
The air was warm and smelled of flowers and freshly laid mulch. As we sat on the swing, the joists complained with a deep rumble. I stared tartly, offended.
“I think the two of us are testing its limits,” Haris observed.
“Shut up.”
“Oh, come on, Matilda, I weigh more than you do.”
Skeptically, I looked at him. “I’m pretty sure I have you by ten pounds.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“I’m going to get bigger.” Carter would’ve said he’d brace the supports with a thicker chain and a couple of two by fours. I could almost hear his snarky tone.
Mentally, I slapped myself hard across the face.
“You’ll bounce back. I did.”
I snorted and glanced askance. “I didn’t know you had children.”
“I was fat when I was a kid. My mom used to call me ‘husky,’ but I was fat. I can admit it.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I was,” he said matter of factly. “And short too.”
“Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”
“I’m serious. I got picked on constantly. At first it was just name-calling, but as I got older, it turned physical. So, I signed up for boxing. And I worked out. A lot. Once I hit puberty, I shot up like a weed and firmed up.”
“Give a hand of applause to puberty.”
Testing the rafters, Haris pushed back. We swung forward with a lazy glide. “See? All safe.”
“Do you want kids, Haris?” I asked impulsively. There was no point in beating around the bush. If we didn’t have the same goals, I didn’t want to waste our time with this charade.
Haris chewed his lip, pondering my question. “I hadn’t really given it a thought until a few months ago. I mean, I think it’s always a supposition in the back of your mind that you’re going to have them, but you always hide behind your age as an excuse to why you’re not ready.”
“If you want me, you need to be ready.” In a couple short months, it was happening whether he was ready or not.
“I said I hadn’t given it a thought until a few months ago, but since then, I’ve thought about it a lot.” Placing his hand on my stomach, he smoothed his palm over the circumference.
“How many kids do you want?”
“One of each sounds reasonable.”
“It’s unrealistic,” I snorted. “It’s not like you can choose the sex.”
“I know, but it paints a nice picture.”
“So, you want two.”
“It’s hard to be at ballet, baseball, and band practice all at once. I mean, you can only split yourself so many ways.”
He had a point there.
“You really want a house full of them,” he stated, as if I hadn’t put much thought into my decision.
“Jake and I are eight years apart in age. He didn’t have time to hang out with his little sister. On occasion, he toted me along if Gram had plans. When he did, the guys were cool. It was like having four big brothers. They made me feel like part of the gang. I loved it. I decided a long time ago that I wanted that—a big family. I want lots of kids, and close in age.”
“Having a big family can have its flaws too. You can ask Paisley. Jake said she was one of thirteen.”
Nose wrinkling with discontent, I glanced up at Haris. “It’s a little scary that you know so much about me and my family while I know barely anything about you.”
“I’m trying to rectify that now.”
“I think it’s my problem to rectify. Not yours.”
Twirling his fingers between mine, he lifted them to his lips and pressed a kiss lightly against my knuckles. “It’s ok, Matilda.”
“We’ve been friends for three years and I don’t know your favorite food, your favorite color, or sport. What kind of friend am I?”
“The kind that was in love with someone else.”
My frown deepened. “You’re too understanding.”
“You say whatever comes to mind.”
“It’s called honesty.”
“That’s what I love about you.”
“Really?” I contested. He was going to eat those words. “If you propose, I’m not going to say yes.”
Patiently, Haris smiled. “Ever?”
“You asked for my grandmother’s ring!”
“You mentioned it once.”
“I had some crazy notion that Carter was going to give it to me when he proposed! It was a stupid dream. I was immature, and it was farfetched.”
“It meant something to you.”
“Well romanticism is cliché. It doesn’t anymore.”
“You’re saying that because you’re hurt.”
“Maybe, but it has nothing to do with why I’m not marrying you.”
Pushing off the deck once again, Haris maintained a slow glide. “I like soft-shells. Fried. I don’t normally eat fried foods. Because my weight, you know?” Smiling waggishly, he glanced in my direction. “But I splurge with soft-shells when they’re in season.”
“I love fried food. Try to take it away from me, and I might cut you.”
“I don’t have a favorite color,” he continued, ignoring my facetious warning. “I’m color blind.”
“I knew that.” I felt a sudden moment of pride. I wasn’t completely oblivious. The first time Jake had met Haris, I had been irresolute over what to wear. I had asked Haris whether he liked the purple sweater or the red one better. Typical Haris said it didn’t matter, that I looked nice in both. Typical Matilda got annoyed with his courteous response and pursued the conversation until he confessed he was color blind. In the end, he’d said to go with red. He’d heard blondes in red were sexy.
I’d gone with the purple.
“I don’t like sports. All jocks. Too many bad memories.”
“A grudge after all these years?”
“I still don’t wear underwear. It’s a deep seated aversion after years of wedgies.”
“So you’re naked under those clothes.”
“I’m pretty sure everyone is naked under their clothes.”
“You know what I mean.” Scooting closer, I tilted my head, staring up at him from under my lashes. Haris stared down at me, his breath brushing over my face with a warm caress.
Wondering if I still had any appeal, I wet my lower lip, pulling it between my teeth. I wasn’t sure if Jake’s rationale held true if it wasn’t Haris’s baby I was carrying. Maybe it was only true for the biological father. Some primordial attraction to the female carrying his progeny.
Haris dropped his head, pressing his lips to mine, a slow moan rolling up his throat. I took that as an affirmative. Bolstering my observation, he reached down and guided me onto his lap, his gaze never abandoning mine. His pupils widened, eclipsing his irises in their inky depths when I didn’t protest.
As his tongue thrust against mine, he angled his head, deepening the kiss. My eyes drifted closed, dissecting every emotion coursing through my mind. What we shared wasn’t fevered or desperate. It was slow and lazy like a warm summer night. A slow burn.
Breaking the kiss, Haris held my gaze as his hand inched up my thighs, watching for some sign of refusal. My feeling of safety snapped, a weak thread. I grasped his wrist, hindering his explorations. “Please, Mattie,” he begged. “Jesus, I’ve wanted this for so fucking long. Just let me touch you.” Kissing my jaw, he flicked his tongue, closing his teeth over my skin. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I was about to release his hand when a flash of red caught my eye. It was no lightning bug. It arched toward the ground and burst into cinders, small but bright in the dark of night. With a shock, I released Haris from my grip and sat up.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, misreading me. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”
“It’s not that. Someone’s in the yard.”
“Where?”
I pointed to the far right corner, just within the trees. “There’s a small path there that leads along the neighbor’s house and to the block behind us.”
Just as I spoke, a shadow crossed beneath a pale streak of moonlight. “Go inside,” Haris commanded, helping me off his lap.
“What’re you doing?”
“Going after them.”
“Don’t be stupid!” It was too late. He was already halfway down the stairs. I don’t know why I wasted my breath. “You could get hurt!”
“Go inside, Matilda!” Loping across the lawn, he didn’t look back. I watched as he vanished in the dark before I headed into the house.
Gram was standing in the kitchen when I closed the door behind me. Ignoring her, I pushed back the curtain and peered out the window, but she flicked on the light, blinding my sight.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing. We were just talking.”
“Where’s Henry?”
“Haris.”
“By the sound of things, you weren’t sending him home.”
“We were talking!”
“Matilda, I have the Whisper 2000. I can hear a mosquito belch from across the room. Unless I’m mistaken and you were breaking the news gently, you were definitely not saying goodbye.”
“Oh! My! God!” I exclaimed.
“Where is he—cooling himself off?”
“No! Someone was in the yard, watching us! He ran after them!”
“Oh dear.” Joining me at the door, Gram grasped my concern. “Which direction did they go?”
“Through the Carson’s yard, toward Clancy.”
“Can you see them?”
“No, because you turned on the light!”
Urging me on, she flicked the switch off. Just as I pulled the curtains back, a form came into view. I hadn’t been expecting to see anyone, let alone an arm’s distance away, so I screamed, lodging my heart in my throat. Equally startled, Gram echoed my cry with her own.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Gram hollered, grasping her chest. “You nearly gave me a coronary, Mattie! You can't do that to someone my age!” Reaching for the closest thing, she took up a ladle as a weapon.
“Matilda?” Haris called from outside. Concerned, he rapped on the glass. “Matilda, open the door! It’s me, Haris.”
Disengaging the lock, I tugged the door open. Haris stepped inside and panned the room. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, did you find anyone?”
“No, it was too dark. They got away.”
“I’m going to set the alarm,” Gram said. “You can never be too safe. Especially after what happened to Paisley at that club. That man’s out on bail, you know.”
‘That man’ was a porn actor that couldn’t take no for an answer. Paisley met him at Jake’s club. When Jake apprised her of his identity and metaphorically pissed on his territory, it only increased the stakes, so to speak. Cade apparently loved a challenge. Fast forward a few weeks, he’d almost seized his prize when Paisley showed up at the club alone. He’d drugged and attempted to rape her in the penthouse upstairs. Luckily, Jake had been close by and was able to intervene before Cade could accomplish his goal.
“I doubt he’s going to go looking for trouble, Gram. He sounded like more of an opportunist.”
“Don’t discount the avarice of a desperate man, Matilda. That man had it out for your brother for stepping between Paisley and himself. And there’s nothing more opportunistic than you staying in this house alone.”
“Well thanks.” That just gave me the warm and fuzzies all over.
“Just because you might not want to hear it, doesn’t make it any less true. There’re some real mental cases out there. And violence has touched too many people close to us already.”
“Your brother’s the keyboardist for a world-famous rock band,” Haris agreed. “Their fans can draw a lot of unwanted attention.”
Turning, Gram headed toward the alarm panel. She dropped the ladle back into its holder along the way. “Maybe you’ll listen to Henry. God knows, you don’t listen to me.”
Haris’s eyebrow quirked in doubt. Patiently, he waited for Gram to leave the room before returning his attention to me. “You shouldn’t argue with your grandmother.”
“Really?” I challenged. “Then when you go home Sunday night, you won’t mind leaving me in this house all alone while knowing some stranger is lurking around my backyard?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Or maybe you should just go home tonight, since we shouldn’t be dating.” Shamelessly, I smirked from under my lashes. “I can’t be trusted to make a sound decision, you know.”
“Matilda Whalen!” Gram called from the next room. “I think you teased that boy enough for one night! Now go on back to bed or you’ll be calling me roomie instead of neighbor!”
Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. “She’s complete evil.”