Parrish stood to clear our plates. He looked back over his shoulder and asked, “What claim can they possibly have on her?”
“They adopted Beth when she was fourteen. They’re her parents as far as the law is concerned. They say they can provide her a steady, two-parent household with everything she could ever need.”
I stood up and joined him at the sink to help with the dishes.
“Bullshit!” Parrish snapped. “That’s complete… malarkey, and you know it. Don’t play that game with me, Diesel Church. You can’t possibly think that.”
I leaned in and kissed him quickly, pulling back almost as fast as if it hadn’t happened. “Thank you,” I said gruffly. “You’re a good… friend.”
He blushed and turned back to the sink. “You deserve a good… friend, so that’s… good.”
As we began to clean up the dinner mess, I could hear the guys outside turning off their equipment and crunching their way off the property.
The two of us washed up in awkward silence—awkward only because I kept trying to figure out how to get from dirty dishes to kissing him again and then how to get from kissing him again to letting him leave here without first getting him naked beneath me in my bed.
Parrish seemed almost more awkward than I felt. “So, um, time to talk hopes and dreams? Or…” He sighed and reached to put the final plate away. “Maybe I should just go.”
I leaned over and kissed him again without warning, pressing my lips against his firmly enough to make sure he knew that him leaving was the very last thing I wanted.
He made a little mph sound and then clutched the front of my shirt in his hands. Even though my hands were still wet, I reached up to cup his face so I could hold on to him and taste every bit of his kiss.
For that moment, none of this was pretend. It was him and me in a life-changing moment right there in the middle of my kitchen. I wanted him for real, not pretend. And I wanted him with a passion and desperation I’d never felt for anything else in my life. My feelings for him were so sudden and so strong, it damned near terrified me.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered against my mouth.
“No,” I said, lying straight through my teeth.
Parrish pulled back and looked up at me. His honeyed brown eyes were so warm and soft, I wanted to lose myself in them. “Is it… was it okay?”
I barked out a laugh so sudden and so loud, poor Parrish jumped and widened his eyes.
I held his face and met his eyes. “Darlin’, okay doesn’t begin to describe what that was. But just to be on the safe side, I think we should for sure practice some more.”
Parrish’s grin was a little shy but also relieved. “That’s probably smart. Do you think maybe we could move to the sofa?”
So that’s how we ended up making out on my sofa for the next hour and a half. I’d never “practiced” so hard for anything in my life. We were both hard and aching, humping each other through our clothes but acting like it was all simply preparation for fooling the caseworker.
It would fool them alright. If they came here looking for a man moony-eyed and half in love, they were gonna find him, no problem.
9
Parrish
“So we kissed last night. Again. That makes three nights in a row. Not that anyone’s counting,” I told Miss Sara from my usual stool in the kitchen bright and early Wednesday morning. “Except me. I’m totally counting. And I suppose, by default, you’ve been counting too, since I keep telling you about it.” I stuffed a piece of Miss Sara’s candied apple bacon in my mouth and mumbled, “I totally shouldn’t’ve told you about it, should I?”
Miss Sara smiled as she pulled a tray of pumpkin muffins from the oven. “You haven’t shocked me senseless yet, Parrish, honey. It’s been a couple years since Garvey died, but I’ve had a kiss or three in my time. Go on.”
“Well, there’s not much else to say.” I shrugged. “It really was just kissing. A lot of kissing. Did I tell you Colin at work asked if I’d had lip fillers the other day?” I smiled and touched my mouth with my fingertips.
Miss Sara chuckled and started arranging some sunflowers in a big blue pitcher.
“I guess maybe they looked a little swollen, but when I asked Diesel, he said…” I hesitated. “He said they looked fine.” He’d actually said I looked fucking gorgeous, but it felt funny admitting that out loud. Like Miss Sara might get the wrong idea and start to think he’d meant it. Or worse, start to worry I’d believed him, which I totally hadn’t, even though I’d really wanted to. “What do you think?”