Page 58 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

IRELAND

E mpty boxes were strewn around the kitchen counter, grease stains on the cardboard the only sign the pizza had ever existed.

If you didn’t count the four of us sitting around the table, groaning at how full we were.

Cole recovered first, springing to his feet and saying something about finding a sweet before working on finishing the photos.

I shot a disbelieving look at Adair, who just shrugged.

“I need to shower,” Delly said with a yawn. “I still smell like hairspray and Miss Lenny’s perfume.”

She offered me a high-five on the way out, and I took it, only feeling a little weird about it.

I guessed it was better than patting her.

“Hey,” Adair said quietly once it was just us.

He was sitting across from me at the table, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed in front of him, and smiling like…

Like he knew something I didn’t.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes .

His expression smoothed to a blank canvas, which was even more suspicious. “What, what?”

Cole dropped his laptop on the table between us, but I kept my gaze on Adair for a few more seconds.

Hmm.

“Guys, we have a problem,” Cole announced, plopping into the chair. “I need to edit out Lenora’s nipples. They’re… robust.”

“Why?” I asked dryly. “Those will get her the most dance card bids.”

“ Because, dear Ireland,” Cole started, clicking on his laptop before turning it toward me, “I don’t wanna be complicit in whatever the name of this crime is.”

He scrolled through photo after photo of Miss Lenny, and the sight was somehow even more shocking than it’d been in person.

Miss Lenny in a sheer button up that was slid down her upper arms, smiling coyly over her shoulder. Miss Lenny in the same pose… facing forward.

“Oh, how about that one?” I asked after several more. “Reggie is mostly covering her boobs. You’d only have to camouflage the one nipple.”

I glanced up at Adair, who couldn’t see the screen from where he was sitting. “Wanna come over here and offer an opinion?”

“I do not.” He pointed to the empty chair beside him and set his foot on it. “I’m busy resting my ankle.”

Cole laughed and copied the photo of Reggie, the senior Jack Russel, and Miss Lenny to a new folder. “One crisis down.”

“You’re gonna stay up all night doing that, aren’t you?” Adair asked.

“You know it, babe. It’ll haunt me until it’s done, and Miss Arizona is counting on me. As is her dashing nephew and maybe even his scary boyfriend too. It’s all very motivating.”

I smiled to myself, subtly stretching the aches in my body.

Today had been a lot, but it had been good. It was late, full dark outside already. The cleanup had taken a while, but these pains weren’t punishing, just evidence of a day of meaningful work.

Once Cole was done editing the photos, Liem’s brother would put them on the website, and we’d start collecting dance card bids.

I went back to studying Adair, looking for answers to that weird look.

Cole took his laptop back to the couch and set it on the coffee table. “Addy, babe, can I move your crochet stuff?”

“Go for it,” Adair called back, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Get in a lot of crocheting today?” I asked, fishing for what might’ve happened between this morning and now.

“I finished the blanket for Rachel and Jillie’s baby. Then I started a new one.”

I hummed. “It’s a little obnoxious, you know.”

He frowned. “I thought you loved blankets.”

“Oh, I do.” More than he even knew, probably. “I mean that you look the way you do and act the way you do and also crochet. I keep waiting to come home and find you covered in Cheeto dust gaming or something else less attractive, but no. You crochet baby blankets.”

“Oh, I see,” he said, cheeks flushing despite his casual tone. “As Delly would say, you’re waiting for me to give you the ick?”

I must’ve pulled a face, because Adair chuckled. “I think we found it.”

I nodded. “That word is just awful. ”

He chuckled, tapping his long fingers on the tabletop. “Noted, Indigo.”

My skin prickled and I shivered, almost like the feeling of a rabbit running over my grave, but without the accompanying dread. Adair’s gaze trailed down my arms. His eyes snapped back to mine when he saw the goose bumps.

It was annoyingly endearing how surprised he looked to have drawn such a reaction from me.

“I’m getting pretty tired,” I said slowly, pointedly.

“Yeah.” He pushed his hair back, then roughed it up, his bicep flexing. “Me too.”

I tilted my head toward the bedrooms, and his answering smile was slow, but then his gaze cut to Cole in the living room, who was laser-focused on his laptop.

I raised an eyebrow that I hoped communicated, “Your problem.”

He got right to his feet and walked carefully to Cole, and I slid past them to go into my bedroom.

Despite how tired I was, my heart raced in anticipation.

I was about to be alone with Adair.

My boyfriend, Adair.

God, I still didn’t know what it meant, but I was trying to just… trust it. To not question it to death, to not put demands on answers about the future.

I knew better than most not to do that. About anything.

I hurried into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. My hair was still teased and makeup still dramatic. I had to give the jean jacket back to Delly for the rest of the shots, but when she clocked how bummed I was about it, she told me it was a donation, so I could have it if I wanted.

And I wanted .

But not as much as the man who just walked into the other side of the bathroom.

Adair closed the door and reached back, locking it without looking. I walked backward to mine, clasping my hand around it. “Not a word,” I warned before yanking on it to make sure it was locked.

He just smiled, his assessing gaze raking over me before he opened his arms.

It was such an Adair thing to do, and I walked straight to him and wrapped my arms around him.

He held me to him securely, sighing deeply as he nuzzled into the top of my head. “You had a long day.”

I pressed my face into his chest, inhaling his pine-and-fresh-air scent. “And probably still smell like hairspray,” I added.

He buried his nose in my hair, and I laughed, pulling back.

“A little bit,” he confirmed, keeping hold of me.

“Still want to help me with that?”

He licked his lips, glancing from me to the shower. “In there?”

“Unless you want to get my board and your scooter and roll back to the Zinnia House salon.”

His chuckle cut off with a choke as I stepped out of his hold and stripped off my top in one movement.

His eyes dropped to my chest, then back to my face, then back down.

You’d swear he hadn’t thoroughly buried his face there and explored me twice already by the way he was looking at me, all disbelief and unchecked hunger.

I shimmied my shorts and panties off, barely holding back a smile at the thick swallow that moved his throat. He picked at his T-shirt, pulling it away from his body as he drank me in.

I tilted my head to the side, not moving anymore or saying anything, giving him the opening to tell me what was making him anxious.

“You’re perfect,” he rasped. “More than I could have ever dreamed.”

Oh.

A herd of rabbits sprinted across my grave this time, competing with the butterflies flapping in my stomach, as I took a step toward him. “Shower with me?”

He nodded, gaze still raking over my body, and I turned to open the shower door. A choked noise came from him, and I flushed with pleasure as I turned on the shower.

Once it was a good temperature, I turned around and found Adair exactly as I’d left him, save for the arousal tenting his sweatpants.

My gaze lingered there, and he groaned as his dick twitched behind the material. “ Indigo, ” he warned, his voice deeper.

I shivered again, glancing back at his face. “Need help with the boot?”

He shook his head, but his fingers fumbled as he unstrapped the boot. He tossed it aside before peeling off the long purple compression sock.

I inhaled sharply, realizing this was the first time I’d ever seen his entire foot.

Our relationship was riddled with fun facts like that. Knew each other’s deepest desires and failures, thanks to all the notes we exchanged, but had never seen each other outside the campus of a retirement village.

I wanted to look closer, to ask him questions about how it felt, how it was healing, but I’d been standing here naked for so long now that it was threatening to become awkward.

After a quick once-over, I decided the senior safety features in the bathroom were enough for him to get himself into the shower safely—I’d heard him doing so without falling for quite a while now—so I stepped inside, giving him space to decide what he was comfortable with.

I left the door open as I washed my face, getting rid of the makeup that hadn’t already melted off. My fix on the shower had held up well, the pressure just right without being a safety hazard.

My heart skipped when I heard shuffling nearby, and then one of my classical music playlists filled the room.

Adair had them all now, and he’d chosen one of my favorites for ballet.

I held my breath, skin tingling as I kept my gaze anywhere but on the opening of the stall as “The Swan” from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens filled the room.

Just as the strings joined the lilting piano, I felt him.

Turning slowly, I wasn’t even sure where to look first.

Adair was even more imposing without his clothes, taller and broader, though he didn’t hold himself like those were fundamental truths. The only time I saw him with the unbridled confidence that most handsome, broad, six-foot-three men had was when he was in his scrubs, working a job he loved.

Or… when I smiled at him.

My nerves went haywire, and I became hyperaware of the stream of water hitting the sensitive skin of my lower back and legs, imagining they were his fingers tracing me. My nipples pebbled as I looked at his plush lips, remembering the warmth of his mouth.