Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)(83)

“It’s just better, Jacob.”

There was something final in her tone. She plugged in the pump and started blowing up the mattress while I watched, deflated.

Even when I was getting more, it was still not enough. It still wasn’t real.

I stood there hoping the mattress wouldn’t fit. It did.

When she was done, she sat on the bed and gave it a little bounce.

I frowned at her. “Well, what are we going to do if someone knocks on the door?”

She shrugged. “I’ll just shove it in the plant room.”

“And you think you can do this fast enough?”

“Sure.”

Then, almost on cue, someone knocked on the door. She looked at me and her eyes got wide. Then she bolted to her feet and grabbed the mattress.

She lifted it sideways. “Help me!” she whispered.

I crossed my arms. “Don’t you think you should be prepared to execute this plan on your own? I might not always be available. What if I was in the shower?”

“You’re not in the shower!” She was shuffling sideways, holding the clunky mattress against her legs.

“Well, we have to plan for the worst-case scenario, don’t we?”

She knocked over a lamp. “Jacob!”

I was grinning. “Nope.”

She made a guttural shrieking noise and tipped over a planter. It fell sideways and dirt spilled onto the hardwood.

I started cracking up.

She squeezed down the hallway, knocking picture frames onto the floor the whole way to the plant room. It was so funny I didn’t even care she was leaving a path of destruction in her wake.

A moment later a door slammed, and she came back looking flustered. She stopped in front of me breathing hard, her ponytail crooked, and she jabbed a finger at my chest. “You and me? We are about to have our first fight.”

It was all I could do to try and keep my face straight.

Someone knocked again.

She gave me a narrow-eyed glare and stomped to the door and opened it.

It was Jewel.

“Hey! What a nice surprise!” Briana said, a little too brightly. “Come in!”

My sister stepped inside and paused to take in the scene. A lamp on the floor, frames all over the hallway, plant on its side, Briana’s hair a mess. I came up behind her and slipped an arm around her waist.

Jewel looked back at us. “Uh…what the hell are you guys doing in here? Your house is trashed.”

Briana smoothed her hair down. “We were having sex. Things got a little wild.”

“You should see what she did to the bed,” I said.

Briana snorted.

Jewel nodded slowly. “Okaaaay. Well, good. Gwen says you guys look sexually frustrated.”

Briana and I blanched in unison.

“Here’s the melon baller I borrowed. I’m gonna go now.” And she left.

I turned to Briana after the door clicked closed.

I cleared my throat. “I’m not sexually frustrated,” I lied.

“Well, I am,” she scoffed.

I felt heat rising up my neck. There was such an easy solution…

She crossed her arms. “I’m not talking to you for five minutes. I am very mad at you.”

“Am I getting the glitter?”

She sucked in air. “Thin ice, Maddox.”

My lip twitched and she tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it.

She went to my room, presumably to unpack her bags into my closet. I grinned after her.

An hour later I was at the kitchen table with her, eating a plate of the food she brought. It was the best meal I’d had in as long as I could remember. Chicken thighs in a brothy sauce. Her mom was an excellent cook. “You said there’s going to be more of this?”

She pulled her knee up under her chin. “Jacob, double down on your deep-freezer space.”

I poked at my food a little. “I’m sorry you have to be here while your mom’s in town.”

“I don’t mind being here.”

I raised my eyes to her. “You don’t?”

“No. I totally don’t. It’ll be so fun. And we can carpool to work.”

“We can finish watching Schitt’s Creek,” I said.

“And we can walk Lieutenant Dan together and do the sofa-shopping thing—this will be so good for Instagram. Also, I want you to know that I’m going to give you your space. If you need to disappear into the plant room or whatever, I totally understand.”

I doubted there would be much of that. I didn’t want to disappear when she was around. I wanted to be wherever she was.

I gave her a key, sheets, and a blanket and pillows for her bed. I set up the coffeepot like I always did for the next morning—only I made twice what I normally did, and even this small thing made me smile.

We’d be together all the time, in the same place. The idea of it made me feel elated.

I never thought I’d want that. I could never imagine wanting someone all the time. And even this wasn’t enough, because she was in the other room at night and not with me.

From this point on, and for the first time in my life, I slept with the door open.



For the next week we fell into a routine, and I was the happiest I’d ever been.

We bought a sofa. It wouldn’t be delivered for another week, but we drove the old armchairs up to the cabin anyway and spent the night. We went swimming off the dock and she made me practice the lift from Dirty Dancing with her, which meant I got to touch her, even though nobody was there to see it. Made my whole day. Then we dried off and walked to the restaurant and had dinner. She didn’t bring up the story I told her about me talking to her in the rain there. So she didn’t remember. It was just as well.