Perfect Chaos

“I didn’t.” I laugh nervously, rewinding through my mind to check if she’s right. It doesn’t matter. Even if she is, I’ll still deny it.

“Yes, you did.” She pushes herself out of my chest and looks up at me. “I’ll never get married,” she says determinedly.

“Me neither.” I’m not lying. Once bitten and all that.

“And I never want kids.”

“Me neither.” I can literally feel the trembles in the ground from my father turning in his grave. He’d kick my arse if he were alive. Being a grandparent was high on his bucket list, and it’s still high on Mum’s.

She eyes me warily, and though my instinct tells me to look away, feeling like she’s seeing past the lip service I’m giving her, I hold her stare. Did she only get involved with me because she deemed me safe? I represent everything she hates in a man, but I’m safe. No chance of me falling for her. No chance of me proposing or impregnating her. But what if—

“Good.” She reaches up and pushes her lips to mine. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“Same paragraph and same sentence.”

I’m lying through my teeth.I REALLY HAVE MADE MYSELF at home. Not only have I stayed over at a woman’s place for the first time in . . . forever, I’m now in her kitchen finding what I need to make myself a coffee.

As I pour the milk into the cups, I hear movement behind me, and, stupidly, I deflate a little, disappointed that it doesn’t look like I’ll be delivering Lainey’s coffee in bed after all. “I was making—” I turn and find Martha at the kitchen doorway, rubbing at her sleepy eyes. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were Lainey.”

She’s wrapped up in a bright pink hooded dressing gown with rabbit ears attached. And she’s looking a little bewildered. “You stayed over?” she asks, looking at the mugs in my grasp.

My eyes drop to the mugs, too, but I soon realize that she’s not staring at the mugs at all. She’s staring at my boxers. Shit, I really have made myself at home. “Yeah.” I shoot her an awkward smile.

She grunts and wanders over to the kettle, flicking it on. “Well, I guess a body like that is good enough reason to break the cardinal rule.”

A body like that? Normally, I’d be smug, but I’m intrigued instead. “The cardinal rule?”

“No men at her apartment.” She gets a mug and stuffs a teabag inside. “But like I said, with a body—”

“Lainey’s never had a man in her apartment? A man’s never stayed over?” That lost smugness has been found, and it’s smugger than you could believe. I’m her first, too?

Martha turns, stirring her teabag in her mug. “Never.”

I force my grin of victory into hiding. I’m fucking delighted. “Well,” I sniff, “I must be special.”

“You’re also her boss. How’s that gonna work?”

Bye-bye, smugness. “I don’t know.” I’m honest. “My partner has a very low opinion of my”—I suck back my intended words and replace them with something a little more diplomatic—“personal approach to life.”

“He’ll think you just want one thing from Lainey, then?”

“Yes.”

“And do you?”

“No.” I shock myself with my instinctive answer and judging by the quick widening of Lainey’s sister’s eyes, she’s quite shocked, too. “I mean—”

She grins around the rim of her mug, making me squirm on the spot. “So you don’t just want to fuck her?”

I scowl, disgusted by her question. No, I don’t just want to fuck her, and the notion people will think that bugs me. “Nice talking.” I pass her swiftly, feeling her laughing eyes on my naked back.

“One thing, Tyler,” she calls. I don’t want to turn around. I have a feeling I’m not going to like whatever she says next.

“What’s that?”

“You hurt her, then I’ll castrate you myself.”

Now I do turn around, because I need to see how serious she is. A second’s glance tells me she’s deadly serious. “I have no intention of hurting her.”

“And what about you?”

She’s lost me. “I just told you, I have no intention of hurting her.”

“I mean, what if she hurts you?”

I recoil a little, too much to go unnoticed. “Do you think she will?”

“Yes.” She shrugs, so matter-of-factly, and I can’t deny it hurts. A lot.

“Because of what her ex-husband did?”

Martha recoils this time, eyes narrowing. “She told you?”

“That she was married? Yes. I’ve also been teaching her to swim.”

“She’s been in the water?” she blurts, even more shocked.

“Twice.” I can’t help but feel so fucking proud of her.

Martha’s eyes drop to the kitchen floor and dart, like she’s trying to process that information and what it might mean. If she finds an explanation, I hope she shares. “Wow,” is all she says.

“Were they married long?”

“Don’t talk to me about him.” The spite in her voice is cutting.

“What happened?”

Her gaze jumps back to mine, suspicious. “He was an arsehole.”