But it almost felt like something more than that.
I shook my head, blaming the weirdness on the heat stroke we all incurred moving Mary’s shit.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said after a moment, and I meant it.
It had all been fun and games until I’d seen regret in her eyes. For reasons I couldn’t explain, it made me a little ill to think about her spending the night at some cheap motel with God knows who in the room next to her. I was glad she took me up on my offer — that we could help while they fixed up her place.
“Clowning around is kind of my default mode, but I know shit like that can be ill-timed. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sure this is all—”
“It’s fine,” she said, cutting me off. “You can go back to your game now.”
I smirked at the sassy interruption. She was already more herself than earlier. “Game’s over. I think I’ll hang out here, instead.”
She didn’t have to turn around for me to know she was rolling her eyes.
I didn’t know why I loved to get under her skin so much. Probably because I was used to a very different reaction from most of the girls I encountered. The past three years had been easy for me. If I wanted a date, I could have one with the snap of my fingers. If I wanted a girl in my bed, I had a phone full of numbers I could shoot a text to and get just that.
But Mary Silver didn’t give me anything other than slightly heated indifference.
It was sick how much I liked it.
That prickly nature wound me up in a way nothing else could. I liked that she wasn’t simpering, that flirting with me seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind. Her sharp wit was just icing on the cake.
“We should game sometime,” I said.
She froze, only for a second, but enough for me to notice before she grabbed a container of yogurt and slid it into the back of the fridge.
“Kyle told me you have a PlayStation.”
“I doubt we play any of the same games.”
“I could teach you.”
She whipped around, narrowing her gaze at me with one eyebrow arched.
I threw up my hands with a laugh. “Or you could teach me, I didn’t mean to assume.”
She was still glaring at me as she turned back around.
“I’m not really into Battle Royale games,” she said. “Or those weird ass faces you were making out there.”
“I don’t make faces.”
She shut the fridge door and slowly stood, hands bracing on her knees as she did. “Oh?” She squinted her eyes, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth first before she started rolling it like she was trying to wet every inch of her lips. Her hands were braced in front of her holding an invisible controller, and she made sharp, shifty movements, looking like some kind of deranged animal.
Abruptly, she stopped, her face deadpan again.
“So you just look like that normally?”
I blinked at her, then barked out a laugh. “I wish I would have recorded that.”
She didn’t humor me with so much as another glance in my direction before she picked up the empty cooler and started walking toward the stairs. I hopped off the counter and followed.
“We can store that in the garage,” I offered.
“It’s fine, I have room in the closet.”
“I find that hard to believe after the heaps of clothes we carried over today.”
She sighed, still holding the cooler at the foot of the stairs as she turned to face me. “Is this how it’s going to be until my place gets fixed? You buzzing around me like a gnat?”
I had a quip locked and loaded, but there was something about the way she looked at me in that moment that made it evaporate on my tongue. It was the same way she’d looked upstairs that had made me pause earlier — a softness in her eyes that wasn’t normally present, defeat slumping her shoulders.
It felt… familiar, in a way I couldn’t explain.
“I feel like I know you.”
She arched a brow. “Trust me — you know absolutely nothing about me.”
“No, I mean like I feel like we’ve met before.”
Her lips tightened into a line, and with her hands still holding the cooler, she flicked her head back to get the fallen strands of hair out of her face.
I narrowed my eyes when she didn’t answer. “Have we?”
She finally looked away from the stairs and directly at me.
I swore I shrank a few inches.
“Don’t you think you’d remember if we had?”
The corner of my mouth kicked up at that. “Fair point. No way I’d forget meeting someone with such large…” My eyes trailed the length of her, appreciating the ample curves of her bust, her hips, her thighs. When I met her gaze again, she had an eyebrow quirked with a warning in her glare. “Tattoos,” I finished.
Her lips flattened even more, and then she turned and headed up the stairs.
“I really would like to see them all, you know,” I said, leaning against the bottom railing as she climbed.
“Go to bed, Leo.”
“Come on, tell me about them. Just one.”
“In your dreams.”
“Yes, actually, among other things. Want me to detail them?”
She paused, turning on her heel to look down at me. “You’re insufferable.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
She shook her head, but under her annoyed expression, I thought I saw hints of a smile.
“I’m too tired to deal with you,” she said, turning to climb the last few stairs.
“Need someone to tuck you in?”
“Goodnight,” she called when she dipped out of view, and I stood there at the bottom smiling even after I heard her door click closed.
Mary
The first dust of dawn was falling over the city of Boston when I shook out my yoga mat on the back patio. It was surrounded by the lush garden Holden had grown in his time here, and I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of flowers and herbs and vegetables as I wiggled my toes on my mat.
Usually, I’d wake and bake sometime around eleven, maybe even noon, before I’d settle in for a yoga session. But that was because under normal circumstances, I was at the tattoo parlor until two or three in the morning. I’d been off the last couple of nights to get my current situation under control, and it felt like a piece of me was missing.
I couldn’t wait to get back tonight.
Still, even without being at the shop last night, I couldn’t believe I was up this early. I blamed the lack of sleep in a new place.
Holden’s bed was comfortable enough, and the house was quiet once the boys went to bed. But it felt like trying to sleep in a tree knowing creatures lurked in the forest around me. I was on edge, too aware, like I knew I didn’t belong there. It was just… strange, and I couldn’t fully relax.
I’d given up somewhere after midnight, tossing the covers off and deciding to wander the house. I used to have trouble sleeping when I was a kid, and I swore Dad was connected to me in a way no one else in the world was because he would sense it. He’d knock softly on my door, and then he’d tell me to put my shoes on and we’d go for a walk.
We never talked, just walked side by side around the block a couple times. It wouldn’t take long to quiet my mind, still my heart, and find myself a bit more relaxed.