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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MOVE-IN DAY

JADE

The overfilled garbage bag fights with me as I try to pry it from the other bags wedged into the small trunk of my car. I probably should’ve listened to Garret and just used boxes for the clothes, towels, and sheets, but I didn’t and now I’m left struggling with this stupid bag. I could ask Garret to help me but that would just prove he was right all along and I can’t give him the satisfaction after I insisted, repeatedly, that garbage bags were better than bulky boxes.

I manage to pick up the bag, then try to hold it while shutting the trunk with my elbow, my keys dangling from my fingers. I take a moment to reposition it.

“Need some help with that?” I can’t see Garret, but I can hear his voice and I know he’s laughing at me.

“No. I don’t need any help,” I say, realizing we’re now reliving the scene that played out last year when we met.

“It looks heavy,” he says.

“I can handle heavy.” I say it like I did last year, annoyed. “Besides I used better garbage bags this time. I went all out. Name brand. Double reinforced sides. Even has a handle on top.”

“I see that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a gentleman and offer my assistance.”

I feel his hands brush against my shorts as he reaches under the bag. I keep hold of it, my arms tightening around the middle causing two white towels to bulge out the top.

“Jade,” Garret says calmly. “Let go of the bag.”

“I’m perfectly capable of carrying it myself.”

“I know you are, but I’m here and I need something to do.”

“Then go unpack the boxes. That’ll give you something to do.”

“Jade, if you don’t give me this bag, my hands will have no choice but to wander below the bag and do things that are not entirely appropriate given that our neighbors are watching us right now.”

I glance behind him and see an older couple sitting on their porch. “You wouldn’t dare. You know how embarrassed I would be if you—” I stop as I feel his hand extending beyond the bottom of the bag, his fingers touching my shorts.

“Fine. Take it!” I let go and he catches it, then easily transfers it to one arm.

He gives me a quick kiss. “That was easy.”

I shake my head and take a box of kitchen supplies from the back seat and follow him inside. I set the box on the floor and assess our new digs. The house is about the same size as the townhouse we rented last summer but it’s just one level instead of two. The bedroom is down the hall from the living room and looks almost exactly like our last bedroom. It has a king-size bed with a nightstand on each side and a wide dresser along the wall that leads to the bathroom. It’s a large room with lots of windows and a big walk-in closet.

The house has been completely renovated. The kitchen has new white cabinets, light-colored granite countertops, and stainless-steel appliances. The walls have all been freshly painted a soothing grayish-green color. The bathroom has a new countertop and sink and new tile on the floor and walk-in shower.

It looks like the owners bought all new furniture, too. It has a beachy feel like the furniture at our last place. The living room tables are the color of driftwood and have a distressed look. The overstuffed couch and two chairs are covered in a bright white canvas-like fabric. Light blue throw pillows add some color.

The real estate agent showed us what the place used to look like and it was pretty bad. The people who bought it fixed it up to use as a summer vacation home, but they didn’t want it to sit empty the rest of the year, which worked out perfect for Garret and me. Of course we’ll be homeless next summer, but I’m hoping we can spend the summer with Harper and Sean again, maybe on a different beach.

Most of the houses around us are also summer vacation homes and now that it’s almost Labor Day, people are starting to leave. The neighbors on one side of us are already gone and the ones we just saw outside are moving back to their regular home in a few days, at least that’s what the real estate agent said. So it’ll be quiet around here, which will be good for studying.

“Hey.” Garret comes up behind me, scooping me up into his arms. “Need a break?” He drops me on the couch and lays over me, brushing the loose strands of hair from my face.

“Let’s get the rest of the bags from the trunk and then we’ll take a break.”

He smiles. “I think we should take a break right now. I’m kind of turned on at the moment and I don’t think I should go back out there in my current state, you know, with the neighbors watching and all.”

I smile back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He pushes his hips into me. “I think you do.”

“How could you possibly get turned on while moving?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this but. . .” He lifts off me little and slips his hand under my tank top. His lips touch my neck, kissing just under my ear, and he says, “There was this really hot girl out front just now. Round, little ass. Tan, perfect legs. And the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Still can’t. And now I can’t help myself. I have to touch her.” His hand moves down to my shorts, unbuttoning them and tugging the zipper down.

I was not at all in the mood for sex, all hot and sweaty and tired from moving. But now he’s got me fired up and ready to go, as he always seems to do.

“And what would your wife think of you looking at this girl? And touching her?”

“I think she’d tell me to go for it. Because if I’m not mistaken, I think she was checking out the guy outside moving boxes. In fact I think when he took his shirt off, she was kind of staring. It was shameful, really. I mean, she is married.”

He’s right. I was totally watching him as he moved boxes; his muscles flexing, beads of sweat on his tan skin. And then he took his shirt off and I was staring. I know. It’s crazy. I see him every day, with and without a shirt, and yet I was still staring at him.

“She really shouldn’t stare.” I bring his face to mine and kiss him, gently at first, then forcefully as I feel him press between my legs, his bare chest against my skin, which is now exposed since he managed to get my tank top off during this flirtatious interlude.

The blinds on the window flutter in the breeze and I look and see the back door open, the screen door allowing anyone walking by to get a glimpse of us on the couch, or more if they stopped and looked.

“Not here,” I whisper. “Let’s go to the bedroom.” I latch my arms around his neck.

“What about your husband?” He sits up and I hang on to him, wrapping my legs around his waist. “And my wife?”

“I don’t think they’ll mind.” I look him in the eye as he carries me to the bedroom. “It’s not every day you meet someone you have this kind of chemistry with. That raw, uncontrolled passion that just takes over. You have to give in to something like that, you know?”

His eyes don’t leave mine as he lays me on the bed, stripping my clothes off and then his own. His skin glistens with sweat, his hair wet from it. We’re both hot from the late August heat and now we’re even hotter from our short round of foreplay on the couch.

As if on cue, we both go at it like we really are two strangers who just met in the driveway and were instantly attracted to each other in such an intense way that we just had to give in to our desires.

Then we lie there, sweating even more than before, catching our breath. Moments later, we look at each other and say at the same time, “Shower?”

I laugh as he gets up from the bed and goes in the bathroom, starting the water. I yank the elastic from my hair and shake it out a little as I walk in there.

Garret’s watching me. “After you.” He holds the shower door open, guiding me in there with his body. As the water cascades over us, he turns me around and takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

And a few minutes later, we have officially christened the shower. I was thinking we would do this later tonight or maybe tomorrow, but who am I kidding? Garret and I are still crazy about each other. Marriage hasn’t changed us a bit. In fact, we might even do it more now than before. I haven’t really kept track, but it seems like we do. And I like that about us. I like that we still can’t take our hands off each other. That I still think about him when he’s not around. That I still get that little fluttery feeling inside whenever he walks in a room. I thought all that would change when we moved in together last May, and when it didn’t, I thought it would change when we got married last month. But so far, it hasn’t.

“What are you thinking about?” Garret asks. We’re both lying on the bed, each wrapped in a towel, still wet from the shower.

“You.” I stare up at the ceiling.

“What about me?” He reaches over and slips his hand around mine.

“About how you still get to me. How I still can’t resist you.”

“Still?” He laughs. “What does that mean? Did you think you’d be sick of me by now?”

“No. But I see you every day so you’d think by now I’d get used to your extreme hotness and somehow be immune to the effect it has on me.”

“That almost sounded like a compliment, even though you expressed some annoyance with me toward the end there.”

I flip on my side, my fingers trailing over his muscular chest. “My annoyance is not with you. It’s with me, and my inability to control myself around you. This could be a real problem now that I need to focus on school again. I have a difficult class load this year.”

He turns to face me. “I think you can make time for both this,” he kisses me, “and your class work.”

“I don’t know. You can be awfully distracting. Look what you did just now. I would’ve been done unpacking if it weren’t for you distracting me.”

“It wasn’t entirely my fault.” He runs his hand over my shoulder and down my arm.

“I’m pretty sure it was your fault. It all started with you insisting on taking that bag from me.”

He smiles. “It did all start that way, didn’t it?”

“Yes, and now here we are, married, moving into a new place, and starting a new school. Just think how different everything would be if you’d let me carry that bag last year and—”

He kisses me before I can finish. “You’d still be in the same place, Jade. We’d still be here together. I would’ve made sure of it.”

He releases the towel that’s fastened around my chest.

“Garret,” I say, the towel falling down around me.

“What?” He lowers me back down on the bed, kissing my neck, his hand on my hip.

“You’re distracting me again. I need to unpack.”

“You can’t lie around in a towel on a bed and not expect this to happen. If anything, I would say you’re the one distracting me .”

I laugh. “Okay, that’s fair.”

I unhook the towel from his waist and we let ourselves get distracted one more time. Then it’s time to get back to work.

“I’ll go get the rest of the bags.” Garret takes a clean shirt from his box of clothes. He used boxes. He wouldn’t use my garbage bags.

“Do you care if I turn the air on?” I slip on one of Garret’s t-shirts because my bags of clothes are still sitting in the trunk. “It’s so hot and stuffy in here and the breeze isn’t helping much.”

“Go ahead and turn it on. I’ll close the windows.”

While he does that, I locate the thermostat and turn the air conditioning on. Cold air blasts from the vents.

“They must’ve installed a new air conditioner, too. This air is freezing.” I say it to Garret but notice he’s already back outside, getting my bags from the car. I drag the other bag to the hall closet and take out the sheets and towels, arranging them on the wire racks.

We don’t have much to unpack since the place is furnished but it still seems to take forever. Just hanging up clothes or stuffing them in dressers takes longer than you’d think. Then we unpack the boxes of bathroom stuff and cleaning supplies and kitchen items and it ends up taking the rest of the day to get everything put away. I guess we could’ve waited and unpacked later, but Garret’s dad is coming here this week and I want everything put away and organized before he arrives.

I used to not care about things like that. I wasn’t the most organized person when it came to household stuff. My dorm room was kind of a mess. When I needed to clean up, I just tossed whatever was lying around my room into a drawer or in the closet. But now I feel the need to put things where they belong and not be so messy. Garret’s not messy so maybe I’m learning from him. Or maybe I’m just growing up and the sloppiness bothers me more than it did before.

“Let’s go return the van, then grab something for dinner.” Garret’s standing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water.

“Just a minute.” I run back to the bedroom and rifle through a box, looking for a hair elastic. I can’t find the one I tossed on the floor before the shower sex. It’s probably under the bed.

I take one from the dresser and put my hair up while walking to meet Garret at the door.

“Ready?” He holds the door open. “Just follow me. The rental place is only a few miles from here.”

I get in my car and he gets in the van.

We rented the van to move our stuff because our cars are too small to carry everything. Yesterday we drove Garret’s car up here and dropped it off. Then this morning, he drove the van and I drove my car. Between all the packing and the driving the past couple days, it’s no wonder we’re both exhausted. We could’ve hired movers, but it seemed silly when we don’t have that much stuff.

After we return the van, we stop at a fast food place for dinner. I’m really tired now and I just want to hurry up and eat so I can lie on the couch and watch TV for the rest of the night.

When we get back to the house, Garret puts his arm around me as we walk in the door. “So what do you think? Does it feel like home?”

I glance around at the living room and the kitchen. The boxes are gone and everything looks neat and clean.

“Not yet, but it will.” I take his hand and lead him to the couch. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Second thoughts about what?”

“This.” I motion to the room. “Living here. Going to school here. Living in California.”

“Of course not. Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s a big change. You grew up in Connecticut. And now you’re on the opposite coast, really far away from your family.”

“ You’re my family now. And this is a big change for both of us. This isn’t exactly Iowa. And you’re far away from your family, too.”

“I guess. But after high school, I was ready to leave Iowa and I didn’t want to go back. Not that it’s a bad place. I just wanted a change.”

“And so do I. I liked growing up in Connecticut and yes, I’m comfortable there, but I’ve moved on. I have a new life now. And I like that we’re starting our life together someplace new. A place that neither one of us is from. It makes it seem more like ours.”

“But what about the college? We kind of rushed into deciding to go there. Maybe we won’t like it.”

“You could say that about any college. We just have to go there and try it out. If we hate it, we can always transfer somewhere else. But I think we’ll like it.” He picks up the TV remote. “You want to watch a movie?”

“Let’s just watch TV.”

He clicks the TV on, then leans back on the couch and puts his arm up. “Come get in your spot.”

I scoot under his arm, nestled against his chest. “You know I always fall asleep in this spot.”

“I know. Go ahead and sleep. I know you’re tired.” He kisses my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I fall asleep right away. Normally I wouldn’t be able to sleep my first night in a strange place. But Garret makes everything seem familiar. As I told him not that long ago, I’m at home when I’m with him. It doesn’t matter where I live, as long as he’s there, I’ll feel safe and at home.