Page 13

Chapter Thirteen

Bash

Lainey talks to her dough.

Actually, she talks to it in all stages. She keeps the starter in a jar in the fridge and knows by smelling it when Dough Goldberg is “happy” or “hungry.” She’s been obsessing over it for two days now, mumbling over fermentation, flour and proofing.

None of it means anything to me, but it’s pretty fucking cute. Alarms sound on her phone every hour—if not more often—and she runs to check on her dough, stretch it and poke it. That dough is getting way more action than I am.

We had a weekend Netflix marathon so she could stay close to the damn dough. I tried to get her to go out, but she refused. Now it’s Sunday afternoon and my kitchen is messier than it’s ever been as we work to make dinner for our friends.

The pasta sauce we made from scratch with tomatoes from the farmers’ market is simmering, a splatter hitting me in the face as I push a button on my phone to answer the call that’s coming in. I put it on speaker since my hands are occupied cooking.

“Hey, Mom.”

“You actually answered.”

I roll my eyes. “Sorry, I was busy the last couple of times you called.”

“I understand. I’m nothing special, just the woman who spent twenty-three hours in labor pushing you out of her vagina.”

Lainey meets my eyes and grins from the other side of the kitchen.

“So how are you, Mom?”

“Good, good. We had the church garage sale yesterday and I worked it from seven a.m. until five p.m. I’m still tired.”

“I’m sure the Lord appreciates your efforts.”

“Sebastian Patrick, don’t joke about the holy father.”

I gather a pile of chopped carrots into my hands and move them from the cutting board into a bowl. Lainey wanted to include every vegetable that exists in this chopped salad, and she’s working on two homemade dressings for it: buttermilk ranch and balsamic vinaigrette.

“Sorry, Ma,” I say perfunctorily.

My parents are devout Catholics. I’m not, but I still go to church with them when I’m home for Easter and Christmas.

“What’s this I hear about Lainey’s fiancé breaking up with her? Is it true?”

I lock eyes with Lainey. She waves her hands and shakes her head, silently telling me not to mention to my mom that she’s here and we’re on speaker.

“Lainey was the one who broke up with him.”

“Good. He has a look about him. I never trusted him. And he’s already been seen out with another woman. Shameless.”

I cringe, wishing Lainey didn’t have to listen to this.

“Lainey and I are making dinner for some friends right now.”

“You are?”

“Yep. Spaghetti, salad and Lainey’s sourdough bread. With flourless chocolate cake for dessert.”

She sniffs. “I guess our invitation to dinner got lost in the mail.”

Lainey laughs silently.

“I’ll invite you guys for dinner soon,” I say.

“That’s more like it. We’re not that far away, you know. You could come home for a weekend.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“I heard you sigh. Why are you sighing?”

I shake my head. I love my mother, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t an only child. I could use some siblings to spread her love out among them.

“I was sighing over the spaghetti sauce, Ma. It splattered me.”

“Well, turn down the heat. You don’t want it to scorch.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Is Lainey there? Can I talk to her?”

I grin at Lainey, whose eyes are like saucers. She shakes her head adamantly.

“Let me see.”

Lainey mouths, “no.” She was raw the first couple of days after the breakup, but she’s back to her usual self. I smirk at her.

“Yeah, she’s right here.”

Lainey glares at me as she walks over. “Hey, Mrs. Stone. How are you?”

“Lainey, how are you, honey? I’m sorry to hear about your breakup, but I think it’s for the best.”

“Thank you. I think so, too.”

“Your mother already has grandbabies, so there’s no pressure on you. Me? I may never have any, and I’ve come to accept that. All I get is my granddog.”

I roll my eyes dramatically.

“Oh, don’t say that, Mrs. Stone. Bash is great with his friends’ daughters. You might still have a chance.”

“He is? You think so?”

I shoot Lainey a scowl because now my mom will ride me relentlessly about when I’m going to settle down.

“Yeah, I think he just needs some encouragement,” Lainey says.

I pick up the phone and take it off speaker. “Hey Mom, we have to go. Lots of work left to do on dinner.”

“Okay, keep that heat turned down. And call me sometime so I know you haven’t forgotten your parents exist. We used to wipe your butt, you know. Show some gratitude.”

“I will, Ma. Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I end the call and give Lainey a look. “What the hell was that?”

She shrugs. “You fucked around and found out. How did your mom hear about me and Shane breaking up?”

“Probably just neighborhood gossip. Maybe your mom told her.”

“It’s probably the only time anything gossip-worthy will happen to me,” she quips.

She has her hair pulled up in a high ponytail, a loose strand resting against one of her rosy cheeks. I want to pick her up, set her on the kitchen counter and kiss the hell out of her. Find out just how pink those cheeks can get. Pull her body flush against mine.

“Can you keep an eye on things while I get a quick shower?” she asks.

My cock twitches with interest. I had to do another round of Stormi the Meateorologist last night before my balls exploded, but with the sound off since Lainey was upstairs. I couldn’t get off until I stopped watching Stormi and started imagining sneaking into Lainey’s room.

I fantasized about her waking up to find me getting into bed with her. She blushed and asked me what I wanted. I told her to be a good girl and undress for me. Just the thought of touching her pussy was enough to get me there.

When I lost my virginity, it was to a woman who was twenty-one. I was eighteen. I was so damn careful in high school, busting my ass to make it in hockey and unwilling to risk getting someone pregnant.

Every woman I’ve ever been with has been experienced. Bare pussies, sexy tats, sometimes even pierced nipples. I’ve always enjoyed women who know what they want in bed and aren’t afraid to ask for it.

But Lainey’s innocence is like a drug to me. I’m sure she’s not a virgin, but she’s shy. I imagine she’s a passive participant, and Shane probably only did the bare minimum. Does she even know how mind-blowing sex can be?

In my fantasies, she has no idea. She gasps and blushes and presses her knees together. I’m so wound up wondering how she’d respond if I tried anything.

I can’t, of course. Not when she’s fresh off a breakup. But fuck, it’s killing me to spend so much time with her and never touch her. Or worse, only touch her in a platonic way.

When she came home from Columbus that night, all I wanted was to fuck the hurt away. I’m not that guy, though. I ignored my urges and only offered her comfort.

“I got it,” I tell her. “You want me to cut up the bread?”

Her eyes flash with alarm. “No! Don’t touch it.”

“What if I just fondle it a little bit?”

She laughs. “You’re such a creep. Don’t fondle my sourdough.”

“Just some dirty talk?”

A light flush blooms on her cheeks. That’s...encouraging.

“Have at it, as long as you’re done when I get back in fifteen minutes.”

She goes upstairs and I hear her turn on some music. She loves ’80s songs. I’m just glad she’s not curled up in a corner listening to “Everybody Hurts” by REM on repeat. She was so upset the night she broke it off with Shane I thought she might be down for a while.

Lainey’s resilient, though. And brave. That time she showed up at my house to tell me she had feelings for me, I reacted the way an adult should act when a minor tells them that. I told her we couldn’t get involved and I couldn’t take her to her prom.

I admired her courage, though. When her parents suggested that maybe she become a science teacher instead of reaching for her own goal of getting a doctorate to become a microbiology researcher, she told them she knew what she wanted and she was going to get it.

People told me I’d never make it in hockey. Especially after I got cut from my high school team. But their doubts were fuel to my fire. I refused to be outworked.

I’d be so damn proud to have Lainey on my arm. She’s a strong, smart, beautiful woman who doesn’t let anyone put her in a box. It might not be fair for me to shoot my shot with her when she’s ready, but I don’t think I could forgive myself if I didn’t at least try.

“No way!” Lainey laughs as she scrolls through the photos on Suki’s phone from yesterday. “How long did it take to clean him up?”

“Hours,” Carter grumbles. “It wasn’t just him. There was mud all over the house. Wait ’til you get to the one of the shower.”

Mara is sitting next to Lainey, and she howls with laughter when she sees one of the pictures.

Suki told us she and the girls were walking Darling yesterday and he bolted for the muddy front yard of a house under construction.

By the time they got home, Darling, Suki and all the girls were covered in mud.

A few months ago, Carter had a contractor build onto their garage. They added a big bathroom with an oversized walk-in shower for Darling because he got too big to fit in their regular tubs and showers.

“Aw.” Lainey meets Suki’s gaze. “The one of Darling putting his snout right up in Carter’s face.”

“That’s my favorite,” Hallie says.

I snicker because I was the first one Suki passed the phone to, and I saw how pissed Carter was as he scrubbed their pet pig. He even had to wash mud off his ass.

“No more walks,” Carter says. “He gets plenty of exercise in the yard.”

“I agree,” Suki says.

We finished dinner, which turned out amazing. Harry raved about Lainey’s bread, which actually was the best bread I’ve ever tasted. Now we’re all sitting around my dining room table, which is being used for the first time ever, talking over after-dinner drinks.

“Olivia, how are the figure skating lessons going?” I ask.

“Good. It’s fun.”

“She’s doing great,” Carter says.

They set her up with private lessons with Sam Granger, a former Olympic figure skater who lives in Cleveland. Charlotte plays hockey and Hallie takes all kinds of different lessons but loves gymnastics most.

“You guys did so much work on that amazing dinner. Let us clean up the kitchen,” Suki says.

“No, we’re not worrying about any of that until later,” Lainey says.

She and Suki keep talking, but I don’t really hear what they’re saying. I’m completely hung up on how Lainey looks tonight. She’s wearing a little black thing she called a romper.

It’s low cut, a one-piece outfit with wide, short sleeves and shorts. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and when I was close to her in the kitchen earlier, I smelled perfume on her that I swear is laced with sex pheromones.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh and smile as much as she has tonight. Harry brought her a bottle of wine and a candle and I caught myself feeling a flare of jealousy when she hugged him.

There’s no reason to be jealous—Harry’s gay and has recently been on a couple of dates with a landscape architect who apparently has delicious biceps .

I’m just so sex-starved that I’m low-key jealous of anything Lainey strokes.

She wrapped her hand around the neck of a bottle of wine earlier, and yeah. ..I started to get hard.

“Tomorrow’s gonna hurt,” Carter says to me.

I tear my gaze away from Lainey. “Huh?”

He smirks. “The workout tomorrow. After all that food.”

“Oh. Yeah, probably.”

No one’s mentioned Shane all night. Could it really be this easy? Is Lainey already over him?

I don’t want to be the guy she falls into bed with right after a breakup and regrets. But I don’t know how long I can keep pretending I just want to be a friend to her.

How long is long enough to wait? A month? It hasn’t even been a week. And hell, she might not even want me back.

Wouldn’t that be ironic if, now that I’ve come around to finally see the incredible woman she is, she’s over me?

I can’t even think about that.