Page 149 of First-Time Caller
“Don’t be jealous,” I tell her, knocking her shoulder with mine. “You’ve gotten piggybacks too.”
I remember a frostbitten night in late February, her bare thighs beneath my palms. I wanted her so badly that night it hurt.
Her eyes shine up at me, a secret smile on the curve of her lips. I lean forward and drop a kiss to it. Maya screeches on my back.
“Don’t be gross! I’m literally right here.”
“Then close your eyes,” Lucie mumbles. She pulls back, her eyes darting up to her daughter. “Do you still have the key to the back entrance?”
Maya huffs. “Of course I do. It’s cruffin day, Mom. I’m not an idiot.” She clicks her heels against my sides. “Onward, noble steed.”
I give a halfheartedneighand Lucie’s laugh wraps itself around me like ribbons.
This is how our Sundays go.
I wake up next to Lucie draped over me in a bed with too many blankets, her ear resting over my chest and my fingers tangled in her hair. Apparently even in sleep, I’m a possessive bastard. Usually, a lanky body barrels into the room and we go across the street for cruffins. Sometimes Jackson meets us with his sisters and the girls disappear upstairs, chattering about Aragorn and Legolas and whatever else teenagers talk about. And sometimes it’s just me and Lucie, sneaking into the corner booth that Patty always manages to save for us, no matter how crowded it is.
We push our way through the crowd to our usual table and slide into the booth while Maya disappears upstairs, yelling something about dragons over her shoulder. Lucie watches her go with a fond smile, a little wistful at the edges.
I squeeze her thigh beneath the table. Old habits die hard, and all that.
She turns to me and I drop a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Because I want to. Because I can. I spent so long being afraid of this, I never realized how much I was missing.
She tilts her head to the side and offers me her mouth again, lips parted, eyes closed. I sink my fingers into her hair and tuck her farther back in the booth, kissing her slow and hot and wet. Just the way she likes.
Lucie pulls away with a hum, her eyes still closed. I brush my thumb over the light freckles beneath her eyes.
“You want your usual?” she asks.
“Please.”
She disappears to the counter while I recline in the seat. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Patty’s place is the same place Jackson dragged me to all those months ago. When he gave me a pep talk and told me to get it together. I can’t believe I forgot a name like Skullduggery, but I blame the lack of headless cupids for the confusion.
I let the bustle of the café wrap around me like a blanket, waiting for Lucie to come back. Later today, we’ll go to my parents’ house for dinner. Maya and my dad will slip off to the garden in the backyard for hours and they’ll come back in with pink cheeks and mud on their knees. Lucie will help my mom cook something on the stove while I do my best not to ruin a salad, and they’ll laugh and whisper and laugh some more. And I’ll try not to let my heart beat out of my chest, my life so much fuller than I ever allowed it to be.
Lucie slips back into the booth next to me and I curl my arm around her shoulders.
“Missed you,” I murmur into her hair.
She gives me a look that is somehow both exasperated and pleased. “I was gone for three minutes.”
“I can miss you in three minutes,” I tell her. I nudge her ear with my nose and let my hand on her thigh drift higher. “I can do a lot of things in three minutes.”
“Don’t I know it.” She sighs happily, letting her head drift to my shoulder. “You’ve become a bit of a sap, Aiden Valen.”
“I guess so.” I look down at the empty table in front of us. Maya will reappear shortly, demanding her cruffin. She and Jackson bonded deeply over their shared love of the baked good. “Order not ready yet?”
Lucie shakes her head. “Too crowded today. Patty is going to call me when it’s ready.”
“How is she going to—”
Patty appears suddenly on the counter at the side of the café. She catapults herself up and grabs one of the heavy wooden beams that anchor either side of the coffee bar, narrowly missing a disheveled-looking guy with headphones over his ears.
“Brooks Robinson,” she bellows, her voice like a foghorn. “I’ve got a café au lait, a coffee, and five cruffins for Brooks Robinson.”
Lucie starts to slide out of the seat next to me. My hand clamps down on her thigh.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
