“Okay,” she said. “All dressed.”
She followed me downstairs and took a seat at the little kitchen table while I grabbed ingredients and turned on the coffee maker. She didn’t seem shy or awkward, and we chatted about foods we liked to start the day with as I threw some bacon and eggs on to scramble. I wasn’t feeling shy or awkward, either, which surprised me. Our conversation flowed like any other we had, easygoing and nice.
As I sat to eat, she teased me about overcooking the bacon, and I noticed she hadn’t stopped smiling the entire time we had been downstairs. Neither had I. Even though neither one of us were broaching the subject, it sure felt like we were both in agreement that we were pretty damn happy about it. As I finished up the plate, I realized it was a lot later than I thought it was. The morning birds must have gotten a late start, and that day was my day to open the bar up and get the lunch menu started.
“Well,” I said, picking up our plates and bringing them to the sink, “I have to head in to work. But you’re free to stay here and eat whatever you can find and watch whatever you want on TV.”
“Oh, cool,” she said. There was an awkward moment, the first since we had woken up, where I didn’t know what I should do. Should I kiss her? I felt like that might be too much. Instead, I grabbed my coffee mug, if nothing else so I had something to do with my hands, grabbed my keys and wallet with the other, and ran upstairs to change into my work clothes.
As I walked by the kitchen, she was standing in the living room, and she turned to me, a big smile on her face. She had pulled a blanket around her and was still holding the coffee mug in her hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
I grinned, not knowing if everything included last night or not. Then I nodded and headed out the door to work.
18
Becca
It had been a week of living at Tyler’s place, and every single night had ended in bed with him. This was despite the fact that he had a very functional and cute little extra bedroom for guests. I had even gone through the trouble of putting a few things in there the first day I had been there, just in case our tumbling into bed had been an aberration. By the second morning, I got everything out of there, back in my bag under his bed, unsure of where it would go next.
One morning I woke up to Tyler having done my laundry, and my clothes were stacked by type on his dresser. Casually he mentioned that he had an empty drawer on the top in case I wanted to keep anything in there. So I shoved all my clothes into the one drawer and called it a day. It wasn’t like there were a lot of them. Aside from the couple of dresses I had, which hung from a hook on his closet door, most of the things I had brought with me to my brother’s were now spread across his bedroom.
The sex was incredible, which was helping me not feel as bad about it. Tyler seemed to know exactly where and how to touch me and did so with confidence and passion. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and I was insatiable for it. The second he got home, late at night from the bar, I would be ready for him, and by the time he had been home for more than ten minutes, we were usually already making noise in the bed, and his clothes would be spread over the floor.
Yet, in the back of my mind, when I was alone, I felt guilt over the betrayal of my brother. Not just for me, but also for how Tyler must feel about it. It was his best friend, and I knew it bothered him that he was keeping this secret from him. Or maybe not so much a secret as a blurry situation that he had not quite cleared up. It was most certainly up to me to clear the air with Nick and let him know what was going on, mostly because I hadn’t really broached the subject with Tyler, so aside from saying we were sleeping together, he wouldn’t have much else to say to him anyway.
I was going to have to talk to him soon. Both of them, really. But I still wasn’t ready and looking down to see yet another missed call from Nick didn’t help. The pressure to do or say something was heavy, and I just wanted to avoid it at all costs. At least for now.