****
Angie had her iPod on when Sarah came back to the kitchen. Vanessa was eating.
“So he’s finally sleeping with you, huh?”
Sarah shot a glance to see if Angie could hear her. “I’m not listening to your crap.”
“No, you don’t want to hear the truth especially now, would you? You’re on the way out, Sarah Langston, you just don’t realize it yet.”
With that Vanessa got up and sauntered out. Sarah wondered what Vanessa meant. But she had a suspicion Vanessa meant that Scott would get bored of her soon now that they were sleeping together. Sarah sat up straighter in her chair with sudden resolve.
Why couldn’t she and Scott become real? Become adults who date like most adults? There was no reason why they couldn’t. And you know what? She wanted that more than she’d ever wanted anything in her twenty-six years. Yes, until now, Scott didn’t date. He got around. He didn’t commit. He didn’t have girlfriends. But so far, he was already being different with her than he had any other girl. Why couldn’t she become his first? Why couldn’t they fall in love? It wasn’t so out of the realm of possibilities in life, was it? No, she firmly believed that it wasn’t.
And it had the plus side of proving Vanessa completely wrong. So then, why not start today?
Sarah went to work, Angie’s pleasant chatter took her mind off her nerves, and off her sudden strange existence where she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t normal. The shop was pleasantly busy. Thankfully, tourist season was starting to pick up. Sarah counted on it.
The call came at eleven o’clock sharp. Sarah marked down the time. It had become almost a normal part of her day, logging calls from her stalker.
“How’s your boyfriend, Sarah?” the voice asked, its whisper soft and creepy in the nearly innocent question. “I don’t like you having a boyfriend. Does he know your secrets?”
Click. The caller hung up. Leaving Sarah shaking, but also angrier than usual. She was so tired of this. And tired of the questions, and of the unknown. She promptly called the police and reported her latest incident. She was told her car had shown up with no fingerprints, neither had her purse which appeared completely intact. Not so much as a penny missing.
She smiled all afternoon, despite the stalker, but because of Scott. He was going to be there soon picking her up and it only made the afternoon all the better. Angie even commented on how happy Sarah seemed with a grimace as if she couldn’t see what there was to be happy about. Angie was very pregnant, very uncomfortable, and very annoyed at everyone else who wasn’t.
Scott came and collected both of them. He was back to not touching her with Angie’s eyes on them. But he caught her gaze on him and a look passed between them. She communicated more intimately with Scott through a look, than she had any man she’d ever dated or slept with.
They got home. Vanessa was there, dinner was ready and in the oven, the scents making Sarah’s stomach growl, which made her entire face turn red. Scott was standing right beside her. She wanted to die. She never let anyone, let alone a man she liked, hear such bodily noises come out of her. He, however, just glanced down at her and smiled as he started to look through his mail, unconcerned. Totally not seeming to notice the monumental deal that Sarah felt this should warrant.
Huh. That was something to consider. Scott didn’t care, and that made her feel not quite the level of embarrassment she usually would. With Scott, she suspected, she could be herself. Not the version she wanted everyone else to know, but the real her who had problems eating, but didn’t want to have problems eating. The her who was self-conscious about everything real about her family, and wanted everyone to think she was opposite of what she really was. Except Scott. He saw all of it. And he didn’t seem to get why she made such a big deal out of hiding herself.
She was comfortable with Scott, while he put the petty things she agonized over into perspective, like eating or dancing in front of people, even though she stank at it. With Scott she could have fun for the sake of fun, and she could be just as hungry as he was, and he didn’t think a thing of it.
Dinner was almost okay, with the four of them. Angie helped ease the tension. The steak and vegetables were succulent, and Sarah ate it without conscious thought to portion size, which after she was done, surprised her. She felt Scott watching her. He smiled when she met his gaze. He liked she’d eaten her dinner.
Vanessa left to go out, and Angie disappeared up into her room. Why did Vanessa go out? How did that make a pregnant Angie feel? Sarah sighed. It wasn’t her fault, nor her business.
“Why are you so good about helping out around the house?” Sarah asked as she was helping Scott finish the dishes.
“Vanessa would kick my ass if I didn’t. She cooks, obvious reasons, Angie and I switch off cleaning up.”
“Oh.”
“You know you don’t hide the overtones to your ‘oh.’”
Sarah shrugged. “How did you learn how to dance so well?”
“Where did that come from?” He glanced up from the sink, and then sighed. “You already know where—Vanessa. I was going to my first real dance, you know formal, dressing up kind of dance, and Vanessa was appalled at my lack of dance moves. So she taught me how.”
“What hasn’t she taught you?” She wanted to bite her tongue, the snide overtones were thick in her voice.
“She has lived with me since I was ten. For years she was more of my big sister than anything.”
“When she wasn’t your sister, what was she?”
Scott finished rinsing the broiler pan and handed it to her as he shut the dishwasher. Finally, he straightened and looked at her.
“What do you really want to know, Sarah?”
“When did you start sleeping with her?”
Scott groaned in obvious frustration. “She’s been a lot more than that.”
“So you have? Slept with her?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. After a long moment he shook his head as if in defeat. “Yes.”
“How does that work? When you feel like it you go into her bedroom? Between her dates and yours?”
“No. It isn’t like that.” He walked into the living room, and sprawled onto the couch, his feet resting on the coffee table.
“Like what then?” She followed and stood blocking his view of the TV, arms crossed across her stomach, staring down at him.
“Sit down, would you? And quit with the looks. You knew I slept with Vanessa. If you want to know the details you’re going to have to stop looking at me like you’re going to scratch my eyes out if you don’t like what I say.”
She relented, sitting down beside him, her posture rigid.
He sighed loudly. “Okay. When my dad finally died, after a couple of pretty harsh years of illness, I was lost. I was only twenty and my last living relative I had contact with died. I felt, I don’t know, like I was adrift in the world. Hopelessly alone.”
“Except for Vanessa.”
“Yeah. Except for Vanessa and Angie. She understood. Vanessa grew up in foster care, got pregnant at sixteen, and then lived with us. This house, me and my dad was the longest she’d ever lived in one place. She thought that was over. She was ready to leave.”
Sarah bit at her lip, feeling the stirring of sympathy for Vanessa even though she detested the weakness. Vanessa would never have sympathy toward her, but who could be so cold as to not be affected by Vanessa’s history?
“So?”
“So…right about then, we kind of found each other. Suddenly, I wasn’t the younger brother she never had, and she wasn’t the sister I always wanted. We were of age and we were lost, lonely, and scared.”
“What happened? Do you still love her? Sleep with her?”
“I thought I was in love with her. Everything was so screwed up for a while. I had a lot of grief about my dad, probably my mom too, mixed in there. And we needed each other. She needed me, I needed her. Then it kind of just stopped working. We realized we weren’t in love with each other. But we shared this house, we shared Angie, and we finally found that we are each other’s family, just not each other’s lover. So, in answer to what you really want to know, I don’t sleep with Vanessa. I haven’t in years.”
Sarah almost pointed out the obvious. He may not be Vanessa’s lover, but that is exactly what Vanessa wanted from him. But she was tired and didn’t want to get Scott mad at her again so she said nothing. She surprised even herself when she crawled onto his lap, like a child might their parent. She felt so out of whack, out of her normal. And he made her feel better. His presence made her feel whole.
She felt his startled reaction. He wasn’t used to her being overtly affectionate, nor was he used to someone seeking him out for comfort. Still, she needed it. She laid her head on his shoulder, her body curving trustingly into his. She was quiet and safe, and finally she fell sound asleep.
****
Vanessa’s car pulled into the driveway and he suppressed a groan. There was no way to get up, and get Sarah either to bed, or awake before Vanessa came in.
That quick Vanessa stood in the opening of the living room. She looked at Scott, and then at Sarah curled up on his lap sound asleep. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted in a sneer. It would have been better if Vanessa had walked in on them in the throes of hot, kinky sex, than for her to see this, them cuddled on the couch together. Vanessa would find this worse, and far more threatening.
But damn it, why should he have to turn his whole life upside down for Vanessa? Hide everything? Hide Sarah? What was he supposed to do? Tell Sarah to get off him? He’d been so surprised by her unusual display of trust and vulnerability he’d been sitting there for over an hour with her against him. Watching TV, enjoying how good she felt. How for the first time since he could remember he felt right. This felt right. He felt complete with Sarah, as if she filled up everything that was wrong with him.
Still Vanessa catching this wasn’t a good thing.
“What are you doing, Scott?” Vanessa asked the deeper question in her tone.
“Nothing, Vanessa. Nothing, okay? Quit it, would you? She’s just temporary, you know that. You know why. So quit looking at me like that.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure you know that?”
“I’m fucking sure.”
“Good. Just so you know, all this,”—Vanessa waved at them cuddled together—“will make it all worse for her.”
“I know,” he said shortly. Didn’t he already know all this?
He got up, shuffling Sarah’s weight around and walking easily to the stairs, ignoring Vanessa’s glare. Scott knew what his life was, what it always had been, but didn’t he deserve a little happiness even if it was only temporary?
Sarah stretched out in bed waking when her foot touched another. Surprised, her eyelids fluttered opened. Scott was still in bed? She remembered falling asleep on him, had he carried her to bed? He stirred at her contact, his eyes blinking open. His hands came out snaking around her waist, bringing her closer. She was naked. He’d undressed her? She’d felt none of it.
“Why are you still in bed?”
“It’s Saturday, and since you took the day off…”
“I know, but you don’t stay in bed.”
“You might have had something to do with it.”
“I’m sorry I fell asleep last night. I was tired.”
“I noticed.” He shook his head. “You’re not required to sleep with me.”
“I know. I just, I would have.”
“If you hadn’t fallen sound asleep?” He smiled just before his mouth was on hers in a warm and sweet kiss. She put her arms around his neck enjoying the feel of him surrounding her. He shifted so he was over her, his body between her legs. He kissed her more, and then slowly pushed into her, slow and smooth and quiet they made love.
She wrapped the covers over the front of her and sat up. Sunlight streaked through the blinds. Her clothes were lying neatly across the bench at the end of the bed. Scott lay behind her, his hands cradling his head. His eyes were on her back.
“I was thinking—”
“Just now? I must be off my game.”
“Last night. I was thinking, maybe I shouldn’t be here with Angie being here. I mean that guy who called knew I had a boyfriend, and said he didn’t like it. He could easily follow me here. She’s very pregnant. I don’t think it’s a good idea if she’s exposed to that.”
Scott considered her silently for a moment. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s it? Don’t you agree?”
“Maybe. But what more are we supposed to do than what we’re doing?”
“I don’t mean you’re my boyfriend. Just…whoever called thinks you are.”
His gaze was hot on her as she got up and headed toward the bathroom, the sheet still around her.
She came out of the shower, towel wrapped around her and secured at the top. He was dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. He was putting on white socks when she came out.
Awkward
. Sex was one thing. Going about their morning routine with each other was, well, it was intimate. It was more.
She felt him watching her as she dug around in her suitcase for her stuff, bra, underwear, jeans, and shirt. She would be casual too. After all, that was about the only time he’d ever commented on her looks. Still, she felt him watching her as she expertly put her T-shirt over her towel before pulling the towel down and putting her bra around her waist, hooking it and then sliding it under her shirt. She jumped when his voice interrupted her.
“You do realize I know what size your breasts are.”
Her gaze jerked up to his. “What?”
“You. You’re always hiding yourself from me like I don’t know what you look like. You don’t have to dress like this is a girl’s locker room.”
“Well, I’m not comfortable.”
“Why would you not be comfortable by now?”
“It’s different when we’re…you know. Now we’re dressing. Besides I know I’m not your type.”
“Because you have small boobs? You think that made you not my type?”
“Yes. Why do we even have to discuss this?”
He stepped closer, towering over her. She focused her gaze on their feet. “Because it’s an issue for you. But it’s not for me. I mean, God, Sarah, even I’m not that shallow. I know you think I am, but I’m not.”