“I know some of the basics of French, but no. Ace speaks French though,” she says, nodding her head to me as I open the fridge to get some fruit sliced up for the morning.
“You never told me that!” Wes accuses as he comes up beside me and grabs a large knife and a cutting board for himself.
I shake my head, slicing up some strawberries. “I’m not that great.”
“Say something in French.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know, anything.”
“Vous avez sérieusement besoin d’une coupe de cheveux,” I say with a grin. “Maintenant se remettre au travail.” I push him with my elbow as he stares at me for a moment with a look of awe.
“That’s seriously hot! What did you just say?”
Kendall begins giggling and grabs some shot glasses and a bottle of Patron. “She’s insulting you. I think she made fun of your lack of muscles,” she says, leaning against the bar.
“Douleur dans mon cul,” I say quietly to her, only making her laugh harder as I tell her to stop being a pain in the ass.
Wes looks between us curiously. “Which one’s giving me shit?” he asks, looking to Jameson.
“Beats the hell out of me. Probably both of them.”
“Ce pourrait être amusant,” Kendall says, making me return her grin. She’s right, this could be fun.
“Okay, no more French,” Jameson says, shaking his head.
“I’m just pretending that they’re telling us how badly they want us and how hot they think we are.”
“Have you met them?”
“They are kind of pains in the asses, huh?” Wes says with a smirk as he looks at me.
“Affirmative.” Jameson nods, drumming his knuckles against the granite countertop of the bar, making his way to Kendall as she fills shot glasses.
“It’s what you love about us,” she says, grabbing her shot glass. “Come on, cheers to loving us because we’re pains in the asses.”
“Santé!” I cheer, raising my shot glass as the boys smile and raise their glasses to ours.
Jameson and Kendall go down to the basement to start a movie, and Wes remains upstairs helping me get things ready as we exchange stories of our families and growing up. I learn that Wes’s family wasn’t very present, which makes my heart hurt for him. Never having experienced that myself I can’t relate very easily, but I feel incredibly empathetic to him as he tells me about how they’d never seen him play baseball and how he’d spent most of his time growing up with a woman named Marnie that was his nanny. He tells me about how he got interested in cars and started working on them when he was twelve with Marnie’s husband, Dale, and I share with him about my travels to France and what it had been like growing up with four siblings since he has none.
“Did you get lost?” Jameson teases from the couch across the room where he, Wes, and Kendall are playing a card game as Max comes down to the basement a little after nine.
Max lifts his baseball hat and rubs it over his head, flipping it forward and then back around. “No, Billy’s just being a dickhead. I was trying to play interference.” I watch Jameson and Wes both turn to look at him with silent questions to ensure that Max is alright, making me smile in appreciation. Max gives a brief shake of his head, sitting at the foot of the couch that I’m sprawled out on, not wanting to move from anytime in the foreseeable future.
Jameson begins asking Max about the rules of a card game that he and Wes are arguing over, and Max turns his head to look in their direction as he lifts my feet into his lap and presses the pad of his thumb into the arch of my left foot. His deep voice explains the rules and reveals something’s bothering him. I can tell that he doesn’t want to discuss it, at least not right now, so I lean back and watch as he settles another disagreement of the game as his fingers continue to knead my foot.
As he gets to the pad of my foot, a soft groan leaves me and I close my eyes because this may be the best feeling I’ve ever felt. My foot slips from his hands that have gone still, and I lift my head from the couch to find him staring at me, the look of frustration that he’d had upon entering entirely gone. I know this look, the intensity in his eyes, and heavy breaths tell me of his yearning desire.
I smile sheepishly and pull my feet back and lean forward so I can whisper in his ear, “We’ll be home in two days. You have to be good right now.”
“You have to stop making sounds like that,” Max counters. His fingers run up and down my spine, leaving trails of tingles and fire, because even the most innocent of touches from Max elicits a need from my body that is irrefutable.
Sleeping alone should be comfortable and restful; Max is a bed hog, always wrapping his arms around my waist, braiding his legs with mine, and burying his face in the crook of my neck so I hear his deep breaths all night. Tonight I can move and pull the blankets on without Max complaining because he’s always too hot, but not having the heat and strength of his body beside me leaves me feeling bare and exposed. I roll to the edge of my bed in a tight fetal position, clutching a pillow trying to will sleep.
After fidgeting and moving around for what feels like hours, I give up and decide to go seek out Kendall. I’m a little disappointed she hasn’t appeared tonight. I turn on my bedside lamp and my phone buzzes nearly instantaneously, notifying me of a text. My alarm clock verifies it’s already after two so I know it’s Max before I grab it.
Max: U ok?
Me: :) Just miss you.
Max: I cnt sleep either. Come unlock the door.
I flip the covers off and silently make my way to the front door without responding. As it swings open, I’m engulfed by Max’s arms as he buries his face in my hair and takes a few deep breaths. I know in my logical mind that this is silly. We’ve only been apart a couple of hours and I’ll be seeing him in a few more. This dependency is ridiculous, but my heart pushes logic away, and I wrap myself around Max and absorb his warmth.
He silently leads me back to my room in a pair of baggy sweatpants that hang low on his hips in a tantalizing fashion, along with a tight white V-neck T-shirt that stretches across his back muscles. Pulling my back to his chest, he brings my sheet over us, followed by a blanket, with a sense of familiarity that it doesn’t seem he should have since he’s only slept here once before.
“Where are your keys, babe?” he whispers, running his fingers through my hair as he pulls it from my neck and shoulder, making room to press his face against me.
“In my purse on my desk,” I answer, suddenly feeling exhausted with the comforting weight and warmth of Max. “I love you, Max.”
“I love you too,” he says softly. “So much it hurts.” I feel the heat of his lips press against my neck and let out a deep breath as I fall further into him.
The next morning I wake up feeling a silent panic radiating through me, not because I fear being caught with Max in my bed again, but because my leg moves easily without having to unlock from Max’s grip. My body lurches up and I look around my empty room, and let out a deep sigh when I confirm what I already know: Max is next door.
Kyle and Mindi are the first to arrive as my dad and I cook breakfast. Dad goes out to help get the girls organized as Kyle takes a short reprieve, likely from Mindi.
“Hey!” I cry, throwing a kitchen towel at him.
Kyle’s face turns up in an innocent grin, the same one that both of his daughters know how to emulate perfectly. “We like our coffee the same way, and you’re my sister,” he says, setting my coffee mug back on the counter.