“Are we gonna have a ridiculous conversation about something meaningless, or are we gonna fuck? And before you answer, I’ll give my choice. Fuck.”
Like I didn’t know his choice.
“I will point out right now you bleeding is never insignificant,” I stated.
“So noted.”
“And should such an incident occur in future, I wish to be made aware immediately that you’re bleeding before proceeding further with anything else.”
“An incident such as that is never gonna occur again, sweetheart,” he growled.
“Promise anyway,” I demanded.
“Jesus, I gotta quit fucking you so hard. You’re all about the bossy these days.”
I pushed ineffectually (though, just to say, I didn’t put much effort into it) at his chest, and said, “Stop joking around. This is serious.”
Though, my point might have been weakened by the fact I was kinda smiling and also kinda laughing.
He went in, nipped my lower lip playfully, and lifted his head just as he raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying you want me to quit fucking you hard?”
God, he was gorgeous.
“It’s really, really good you’re hot, you diving through a window makes you hotter, you coming to my rescue makes you even hotter, and you being a hard-ass makes you hotter even than all that, because if you didn’t have all that going for you, I’d be off in a huff and you wouldn’t have sex for a week.”
“Like you could go that long without my dick,” he teased.
“Don’t force me to perform that experiment.”
He burst out laughing.
I kissed him in the middle of it.
A little while later, he fucked me.
Hard.
And it wasn’t only awesome because the sex was awesome.
It was awesome because I didn’t have to admit out loud that there was no way I could go that long without his dick.
But that message was sent anyway.
* * *
The kids racing around screaming in glee echoed in the huge space.
Juno, and two of her cousins.
And Birch and I were hunched together, looking at the screen on my phone.
At Mom.
On FaceTime.
I’d just given her a tour of where I might build my meditation studio: Auggie’s warehouse.
“You’re going to do what there again?” Mom asked.
She had never been a vibrant woman. Even in my younger years, she’d seemed dimmed by Dad.
She wasn’t vibrant now.
So much not, Birch’s hand found mine and his fingers curled around so tight, they crushed mine.
I didn’t make a peep.
It was the first time he’d seen her.
“Meditate,” I repeated. “And yoga. Maybe have a small café. There’s definitely the space for it.”
“Be careful with some of that stuff, Pepper,” she warned wearily. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that things that seem good can just be trendy and they can end up…not so good.”
Gently, I replied, “People have been meditating for seven thousand years, Mom.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“And it’s not a done deal,” I continued. “It’ll take a lot of money to switch this place over, and I want to make a living with it, but I’ll never get rich on it. I’ll have to have a good plan and it might not work.”
Her response to that had my heart squeezing.
“You built a life for you and Juno from nothing with no help, Pepper. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I won’t,” I said, but it sounded more like a wheeze.
“I love seeing you two together,” she whispered, and I could see her staring at her screen hard, seeing me and Birch on it. “You were always so close.”
“And Saff’s good,” Birch put in brusquely, shifting the subject. “She and Jon are in Utah. Settling in, like you. It all went down like it was supposed to. It went great. We’re all good.”
We were all good.
Mom’s friend got her to the oncologist right away, and the doc was considering Mom for a trial. It was promising, not a cure, but it maybe could prolong her life.
Just a little bit.
And Saff and Jon had been in touch and they were all shacked up and loved up.
Yeah.
All good.
Though, Dad wasn’t good.
He’d lost his mind when Mom and Saffron disappeared. And the extent to which he’d done that probably had something to do with the fact his wives, his kids, the other deacons’ wives and kids, and several million dollars of the church’s money had disappeared with them.
Two things had occurred since then.
Dad had officially met Auggie, on my doorstep, after I’d not taken his calls or returned his texts, and he’d come over, pounding on the door, demanding to know if I knew anything about Saff and Mom.
I had not opened the door. I hadn’t gotten anywhere near it.
Aug did.
And he reported to me he’d explained rather thoroughly that Dad was not to contact me for any reason ever again. And the same went for Juno.
Dad, being Dad, did not heed this advice, though he’d never shown at my door.
But the second thing happened after he continued to try to get in contact with me other ways.