Good at Being Alive(85)
“Rebecca,” he says, his eyes raking over me as the cab driver backs out.
“Theo,” I reply, fighting a smile.
He pushes me inside the door and tucks a finger into the waistband of my shorts to pull me against him. “What exactly are you wearing?”
I smile. “Just a T-shirt and shorts.”
“They qualify as neither,” he says against my mouth.
His hand slides down to my bare thigh…then beneath the seam of the shorts. Air hisses through my teeth as his fingers slip over my clit, then push inside me. “Filthy little girl,” he says against my ear. “You’re drenched.”
A glance between us reveals his erection is pushing at his suit pants. I tug his belt free and slide my hand inside his boxers to grasp him.
“Bend over,” he growls, turning me toward the couch and wordlessly yanking my shorts to the floor.
“More,” he says, pressing his palm to the center of my back. “Bend over more.”
I do as he says, and he falls to his knees, his tongue sweeping between my legs, from one end to the other.
I suck in air as he does it again, as he adds his fingers.
The noises he’s making are…
I thought I’d be weirded out by having sex in this house but…
Oh my god, it’s so obscene what he’s doing and his mouth is so hot and…fuck.
“Theo,” I whimper because I’m so close.
He stands, pushes his own pants down, and thrusts inside me. This time he doesn’t wait to let me adjust but fucks me fast and hard. I brace myself on the couch, squeezing him tight, and he’s barely begun before I cry out. He pulls my hair and releases inside me only a second later.
“Fuck,” I whisper, and then I start to laugh.
He’s still breathing fast behind me. “Rebecca, I thought we discussed you laughing after intercourse.”
“It’s just that it was so fast.”
“Oddly enough, that explanation isn’t an improvement.”
I twist to press my mouth to his arm. “I came. It wasn’t a complaint. I just had no idea how these next few days would unfold with you in work mode.”
He pulls me up and turns me toward him. “I’m here to check on the office,” he begins, and my heart drops.
“I—”
“I’m here to check on the office for as little time as I can get away with, and I plan to spend the rest of the hours I’m here doing exactly this.”
My face presses to his chest. I can’t believe I was ever worried about a word out of Kylie’s lying mouth.
* * *
? ? ?
I get up when he does the next day and we go for a run before he heads into the office. I never thought I’d be someone who’d consider six miles a “small” run and suddenly…I am. There’s something restless inside me when I haven’t gone out and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, I’m seeing muscle for the first time. Obviously, I’ve always had muscle—otherwise I’d be dead—but now it’s visible muscle. I actually look like an athlete, and I sort of like it.
In another house, in another family, this is who I might have been: the athlete, the honor student, the highly motivated kid. Every time Theo insists that I’m not lazy, not useless, not bad…a part of me still wants to argue, but more and more, I’m thinking he’s right.
I spend the hours he’s gone packing the kitchen. So far, there are eight boxes of old Tupperware and pots and pans and trivets and weird appliances I know I’ll never use, but there’s an ache in my chest at each one because I remember these things, these pieces of my childhood. I remember the hours Jessie spent cooking in this kitchen, and the custard she’d serve in those glasses, and the special trifle she’d offer in this one translucent bowl. She did try hard to make this a home, to make us a family. But she did it by sacrificing me.
The kitchen is mostly done by the time Theo gets home, though he’d offered to help with it. Instead, I’ve saved a much harder room for him to assist with: my dad’s office.
Most of it is incredibly boring. Theo’s working on Jessie’s “decorative” bookcases, which hold more artificial plants and macramé than books, while I go through twenty years of bank statements and tax returns.
“Box up the macramé for Jessie’s sisters,” I tell him, flinging a file into the trash. They’ll tear into it hoping for Jessie’s designer bags and hate me more than they already do.
Theo groans. “Bex, I saw that.”
“What?” I ask, blinking up at him with all the innocence I can muster.
“You need to actually open the files before you put them in the trash.”
“It was labeled tax forms! If the IRS wants to audit him now, I wish them luck.”
His mouth curves as he shakes his head. “Why don’t we switch?”
“Gladly,” I reply, rising. He presses a kiss to the top of my head as he passes, his hand briefly on my hip. Whatever it is we are doing—this thing between us with all its casual affection—is second nature for him and entirely new to me. Is he like this with everyone? The idea stabs me as I start packing up Jessie’s endless collection of artificial plants.
I wish he’d just…say something. About how he feels, about what happens when the show ends. We’ve only got two shoots left—Madeira and the marathon. Shouldn’t one of us at least allude to what we’ll do after that? I guess I could be the brave one. I’m just not sure how I’d survive four days in Madeira and a twenty-six-mile run by his side if he’s given me some vague answer like “I’m sure we’ll stay in touch” or “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”