by Susannah Nix
Just before I tipped the ice cream onto him, my doorbell rang.
I let out a disappointed sigh and set the ice cream on the nightstand. “To be continued.”
Wyatt pushed himself upright. “Want me to get it?”
“You’re naked.”
He got up and scooped his jeans off the floor. “You’re only barely more dressed than I am.”
I tied my robe sash tighter. “It’s probably just someone selling something.”
He pushed the curtain aside to peer out the window and froze. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He tried to cram his legs into his jeans and nearly fell over. “It’s your brother. Fuck.”
“Okay.” I tried to channel calm to counteract Wyatt’s panic. “It’s okay. I’ll just go see what he wants. You stay out of sight.”
“Andie, he’s gonna know I’m here. My truck’s still parked out front.” He’d been moving it into my garage every night in case of exactly this eventuality, but he hadn’t gotten around to moving it yet today.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll handle it.” I had no idea how I planned to do that, but I’d figure something out.
The doorbell rang again, and I hurried downstairs. On my way through the living room, I spied Wyatt’s guitar case and hastily shoved it into the coat closet.
Josh was raising his fist to knock when I finally pulled the door open. “Hi.” I only opened it a few inches.
“Uh…” He hesitated as he took in my state of undress. “Hi.”
“I just got out of the shower,” I said, holding the neck of my robe closed.
His expression darkened in disapproval. “You make a habit of answering your door to strangers half naked?”
“I saw your truck out front. I knew it was you.” I could tell he was gearing up to lecture me on my personal safety, as if I wasn’t an adult who’d been living on my own for years. “What’s up?” I asked, cutting him off before he could get started.
“I was out running errands, and I thought I’d stop by and check out all the work Wyatt’s been doing.”
“Don’t you trust him?” I asked.
“Of course I trust him.” Josh frowned. “He does great work. I just wanted to see it for myself.” He turned and surveyed the front porch with an approving nod. “This sure looks a lot better than it did.”
All the rotten wood had been replaced and the peeling paint scraped off and sanded. It just needed painting. “He’s starting on the trim paint tomorrow,” I said. “He just finished up the last coat on the siding today.”
“Where is he, anyway?”
I played dumb. “I dunno. Around somewhere, I expect.”
Josh walked over to the porch railing and leaned out, craning his neck as he looked from side to side. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
“Maybe he left?” I tried.
“His truck’s still here.”
“Huh,” I said. “That’s weird.”
Josh gave me a squinty look. “You don’t know where he is?”
I shrugged. “I was in the shower. He was here when I got home, but I’m not his keeper. He’s probably around back.” I shrugged again and cursed myself for it. Too much shrugging was an obvious tell. “Or maybe he’s in the garage.”
“Door’s open.” Josh hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “No one in there. But it’s nice that he’s got the door working again finally.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe look around back. You should check out the yard while you’re back there. He finished the grading last week and put in brand-new sod.”
“Hey!” Wyatt appeared from around the side of the house, startling the pee out of me.
I had to bite my cheek to stop myself from yelping in surprise at his sudden materialization outside, fully dressed, when I’d just left him naked in my bedroom on the second floor a minute ago. There was no way he could’ve sneaked down the staircase directly behind me undetected, so I could only assume he’d jumped out the window.
When my brother turned to greet him, I shot Wyatt a concerned frown.
“You did a really nice job on this porch,” Josh said. “I don’t have to worry about putting my foot through it anymore.”
Wyatt ignored me as he stomped his work boot on the steps. “Yeah, it’s a lot sturdier now, right?”
“Your boots are untied,” I told him.
Wyatt shot me an annoyed look as he squatted down to tie them. “If you want, I can walk you around,” he said to Josh. “Show you what all I’ve done so far.”
“That’s why I came by,” Josh told him. “I’m dying to see all the work.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Y’all have fun. I’m going to go put some clothes on.”
I closed the front door, leaving Josh and Wyatt to wander around the house on their own, and ran upstairs. Sure enough, the bedroom window was wide-open. I peered out to make sure they hadn’t come around that side of the house yet—eyeballing the sheer fifteen-foot drop Wyatt had made—before I pulled the sash down and yanked the curtains shut.
By the time I’d gotten dressed, put the bedroom back to rights, and returned the half-melted ice cream to the freezer, the boys were just finishing up their inspection. “You want a beer?” I heard Wyatt offer Josh as they came in the back door.
I shot Wyatt a disbelieving look for encouraging my brother to stick around.
“Nah, I’d better get home,” Josh said, to my relief. “Mia will be waiting for me to start dinner.” His gaze landed on me. “The place looks great. Wyatt’s really done a lot in a short time.”
“Don’t I know it,” I replied, darting a look at Wyatt before addressing my brother again. “Be sure to tell Mia we said hi.” I moved toward the door, not so subtly trying to herd him that way.
“Are you done for the day?” Josh asked Wyatt. “It looked like you were all packed up.”
He nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“I’ll walk out with you.”
“Great.” Wyatt turned to me with a dismissive wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Okey dokey.” I summoned a smile as I followed them to the door. “Bye, now!” As I watched them walk toward the driveway, I noticed Wyatt was limping a little.
Fuming, I sat down at the kitchen table next and pulled an exam off the stack of grading I still had to finish. I could hear their voices outside, which meant they were standing around gabbing. Knowing them, they could be out there half the night.
It wasn’t quite that long, but I’d graded two exams before I finally heard Wyatt’s truck start up. I went to the front window and watched him back out of the driveway. Josh had just gotten into his truck out on the street, and he waved as Wyatt drove away. I stood at the window until my brother had pulled away too, then I went into the kitchen and started heating the leftovers we’d brought home from Birdie’s last night.
I was just getting the chicken out of the microwave when I heard Wyatt turn back into the driveway, pull into the garage, and lower the door.
When he let himself in the back door, I was waiting for him. He looked white as my meemaw’s divinity candy, and I went straight to him and fitted myself into his arms. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
His arms wrapped around me, and he exhaled a long breath as he pressed his face into my hair. “I just landed on my ankle funny. It’ll be fine.”
I pulled back and punched him in the chest. Hard.
“Ow!” He rubbed his chest, looking at me like I’d mortally wounded him.
“What were you thinking? You could have seriously hurt yourself pulling a stunt like that.”
“It was a one-story drop onto soft ground.”
“You could have broken a leg or something! How would we have explained that to Josh, hmm? If he’d found you bleeding on the ground below my open bedroom window?”
“I didn’t break my leg, did I?”
“Not this time. But is it really worth taking a chance l
ike that?”
“Hell yes,” he replied, absolutely serious.
I pushed away from him and folded my arms across my chest. “I hate this.”
The novelty of having a secret was fading fast. I’d had some fun with it at first, when it had felt like a game, but I didn’t like deceiving people I cared about. Not about something this important to me.
Wyatt was more than just a casual lay. It’d be one thing if I were hiding someone I didn’t care about. But I had real feelings for Wyatt—serious, squishy, possibly even love kinds of feelings that I’d never had for anyone before. It felt wrong to hide something that big from the people closest to me.
Maybe that was why I kept fucking with Wyatt in public and taking reckless chances like at Birdie’s last night. I wanted to get caught so we could finally stop lying.
It made me wonder, if it was so easy for Wyatt to keep up the charade, did I really mean that much to him?
His brow furrowed like he had no idea what I could possibly be talking about. “You hate what?”
“All this secrecy and lying. It’s not going to make it easier when Josh eventually does find out.”
The corners of Wyatt’s mouth pulled downward as he blinked at me. His bewildered expression implied he hadn’t considered the possibility of Josh finding out.
Ever.
Like we’d just go on sneaking around…indefinitely, I guess?
I drew myself upright and narrowed my eyes at him. “We are going to tell him one day, right? Or were you thinking we’d just keep on hiding forever?”
I’d told myself Wyatt would get over his fear of Josh finding out. Eventually he’d find the courage to stand up to my brother. After we’d been together for a while, once we were on solid ground and more secure in this thing between us. Then he’d decide I mattered enough to be worth coming clean to Josh.
Maybe I’d been assuming too much. Maybe Wyatt hadn’t planned on things ever getting that far.
He’d said I mattered to him, that he wouldn’t leave me like he’d left everyone else before me. He’d told me he wasn’t letting me go. But how often did men say things they didn’t mean when they were coming down off an orgasm high? How often did they make promises they had no intention of keeping? All the time, right?
Wyatt might even have meant the things he’d said—just not as much as I’d taken them to mean. He could have meant he’d keep me around for a few weeks before tiring of me and moving on. Instead of just another one-night stand, I’d be one of the rare few granted a short-term repeat engagement. Lucky me.
The deer-in-the-headlights look on his face didn’t instill confidence in me, and I wondered if this was it. The end of our experiment. The moment when he admitted I’d never be important enough to claim publicly.
I watched him, my heart pounding out an anxious beat in my chest as I waited for him to say something. One second turned into two, and two turned into three.
He released a long breath and closed the space between us. My arms were still crossed, and he unfolded them so he could take both of my hands. “No, of course not,” he said. “We’ll tell him at some point.”
I searched his eyes, trying to discern if he meant it. “When?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“But you will?”
He nodded and pulled me to him, enfolding me in his arms. “I promise.”
I leaned into him, letting the warmth and solidity of his embrace melt away some of the chill I’d felt a moment ago. I thought about the songs he’d written about me, and told myself they had to mean something. My brain still had its doubts, but my body and my heart wanted to trust him.
So I made a choice to let myself believe him.
For now.
23
Wyatt
I stood back and surveyed the window trim I’d just finished painting. After further study, I added a few more brush strokes. Then another few.
I stood back again and made myself set the paint can down.
It was done.
I was just spinning my wheels at this point. The job was finished. There was some cleaning up left to do, but as of this moment all the work on Andie’s house had been completed.
For some reason I didn’t feel as happy about that as I should have. Maybe because I wouldn’t have an excuse to spend every waking minute here anymore. I’d been dragging my feet all day because I didn’t want this job to be over.
I liked being here—even when she wasn’t with me—and working on her house. But more than that, I liked that she needed me. I liked being able to help her.
It wasn’t that I thought she’d cast me aside as soon as I’d outlived my usefulness. Except…I guess maybe part of me was a little worried about that.
But I knew better. I did. Andie wouldn’t do that. She liked having me around as much as I liked being here. Still, the demons liked to whisper their poison into my ear. Planting seeds of discontent where they could. Looking for cracks in my confidence that would allow their doubts to take root.
It didn’t help that things had been weird between us since Josh’s unexpected visit on Monday. At least, I felt like they had. Every time I asked Andie about it, she insisted everything was fine. But I couldn’t shake this niggling itch in the back of my mind that kept telling me she wasn’t being entirely truthful.
The sex was still as amazing as ever. When we weren’t having sex we still cuddled and talked as much as before. But something felt different. Andie seemed more guarded somehow. Like she was holding back when she was with me. What exactly she was holding back, I couldn’t put my finger on. But there was a subtle distance between us I hadn’t felt before.
Maybe it was normal. I hadn’t been in many actual relationships before, and none had lasted even this long. For all I knew, this was a natural evolution. We’d left the high of the honeymoon phase and touched down on the solid ground of reality—a place I’d never made it before. Strange and uncharted territory.
But what if it was more than that? I was terrified of screwing this up. Half convinced it was just a matter of time before I blew it—or before Andie realized I wasn’t good enough for her.
It didn’t help matters that the question Andie had asked on Monday kept haunting me.
When would I be ready to tell Josh about us?
I honestly had no idea. All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t ready yet. I knew Andie was right, that the longer we snuck around behind his back and lied about it, the worse it would be when it finally came out. But it was going to be pretty fucking bad no matter when it happened, so it was a matter of minor degrees.
I couldn’t envision Josh forgiving me and offering me his blessing to continue dating Andie, which meant I didn’t see any way to salvage our friendship. But it wasn’t just Josh I was worried about. What if he somehow brought Andie around to his way of thinking and convinced her we weren’t well-suited? Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I couldn’t shake the fear.
Things had been going too well so far. I felt like I’d won the lottery and used up all my good luck—it was just a matter of time before the universe righted itself and I got struck by lightning.
For the time being, my plan was to avoid thunderstorms—aka telling Josh the truth—for as long as I could manage.
Not forever, obviously. I wanted to marry Andie one day if she’d have me. I couldn’t very well do that without telling her brother.
We just needed to wait a while. Until we’d been together long enough for me to prove my intentions were serious and honorable. Long enough that Josh wouldn’t be able to think the worst of me, and he’d have to believe I wasn’t using her badly.
I knew he thought I was a dog when it came to women, and I couldn’t blame him for being protective of Andie. In his shoes, I’d feel the exact same way. I wouldn’t want someone like me dating either of my sisters either.
If I was going to win Josh over to giving me a chance, it would take time and patience. It wasn’t some
thing that could be rushed. At the very least, once I’d put a ring on Andie’s finger, Josh would have to give me the benefit of the doubt. He’d know I wasn’t planning to pull my usual cut and run.
But I couldn’t pop the question tomorrow. That was the kind of misguided stunt Tanner would pull. The last thing I wanted was to freak Andie out by moving too fast, too soon.
I hadn’t even told her I loved her yet. I was working my way up to it, but with things feeling weird this week, it hadn’t seemed like the right time.
But maybe tonight should be the night. Andie would be thrilled when I told her the house was done. That’d be sure to put her in a good mood.
My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. I was surprised to see it was a call from Zelda Blanc, the owner of Zelda’s Bar & Lounge. I’d gone to talk to her on Tuesday about doing a solo set of my original songs there. She’d had me play a few for her and given me the okay, but she already had acts booked for the next seven weeks. My debut would have to wait a while.
That was fine by me. I wasn’t in any big hurry. It was enough that I’d taken the first step. I could use the time to practice and work out some kinks. Finalize my set list. And I guess maybe tell some more people about it.
“You’ve got Wyatt,” I said into the phone as I carried my paint can and brush to the garage.
“Wyatt, it’s Zelda. What are you doing tomorrow night?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Tomorrow? Why?”
“Because the guy I booked tripped over his cat and broke his arm.”
“He tripped over his cat?” I repeated to make sure I’d heard her right.
“He’s just lucky it wasn’t anything worse. Cats are sociopaths who’d just as soon kill you as look at you. I wouldn’t have one of those furry little murderers in my house.”
“Okay.” I’d never realized Zelda had such passionate views on cats. “Good to know.”
“Anyway, now I need to find a new act for tomorrow night. You want it?”
Nerves fizzed in my stomach like Mentos dropped into a Diet Coke. “Tomorrow?”
“That’s what I said. Yes or no?”
