Page 62 of Only Between Us

SIENA:We try to fix it the same way this all started. I’ll come around to your practices, shoot some content with your knee looking better than ever. It’s the least I can do.

SIENA:Your knee’s still doing better, right?

BRATTWOOD:It’s not at a hundred percent, but we’re getting close. You’d really do that?

SIENA:On two very important conditions: One, you wear those ass-hugging shorts of yours to make it worth my while. And two, I myself won’t ever be required to participate in physical activity. That’s all you, honey.

BRATTWOOD:You got something against physical activity?

SIENA:If it doesn’t end in a screaming orgasm, I don’t want it.

So much for the boundaries.

Brooks had been oddly sentimental after we’d left that coat closet. But in the days since we’ve been home, we’ve settled into a groove where all rules are perfectly adhered to, and any teasing stays entirely verbal. No orgasms to be had.

Unless you count the ones in the privacy of my own apartment, where Brooks only makes an appearance through vivid memories of that coat closet.

SIENA:Ignore that. When can we start?

BRATTWOOD:I’m coaching the Huskies Tots and Touchdowns camp at the stadium this weekend. Maybe you can trespass your way in to join.

SIENA:Easy. Security’s really lax there. Is that the camp with mini humans stumbling around for a football?

BRATTWOOD:Yeah, they run it once a year. Haven’t missed it since I played at UOB.

BRATTWOOD:This plan has lowered Josh’s voice by a solid two decibels. My eardrums thank you.

I gasp a laugh, relieved that he’s managing to crack jokes through the mess I’ve made.

SIENA:Speaking of thank-yous, I found something interesting in my overnight bag when I unpacked it tonight.

BRATTWOOD:More interesting than the sex toys you travel with? Because I found those pretty damn interesting.

BRATTWOOD:Also, you would be one of those people who doesn’t unpack for days after they get home from a trip.

SIENA:I am who I am. Can you explain how a whole stack of men’s T-shirts that I don’t own found their way into my bag?

Specifically, they were a whole stack of men’s T-shirts that smelled pleasantly like Brooks’s piney scent.

BRATTWOOD:The idea is that you’d wear one of them to sleep.

BRATTWOOD:And that either you shred the one you stole from your ex, or sink it to the bottom of the bay. Either works for me.

My chin jerks back noticeably enough for Shy to shoot me in inquisitive look. I suspected the T-shirt donation had been made in jealousy, but I never expected Brooks to readily cop to it.

The jealousy is unnecessary, anyway. My wearing that shirt had nothing to do with nostalgia, and everything to do with the fact that I hadn’t done laundry in a while, and Tom’s shirt was the last sad and crumpled option in my drawer.

Brooks putting his shirts in my bag, though? It’s a ballsy move.

And I am thoroughly charmed.

“Oh, I know that look well.” Carla eyes me over the top of hercards. “It’s the look Evan gives me about a split second before he jumps my bones.”

“Mom,” Shy groans.

Evan gives his wife an exasperated look that reminds me all too much of the way Brooks shakes his head whenever I say something out of pocket.

Mom giggles, falling against the back of the sofa. “Leave the girl alone, she’s in love.”