Page 85 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
“To bed,” I tell her when we’re done, pulling off my own shirt and lounge pants as I crawl into bed with her.
She acts up again, trying to kiss my neck, her hands cupping my cock, but I know she can’t be sober yet, so I flip her around so her back is to my chest and pull her in tight, wrapping my arms around her and cinching her close.
She yawns. “I feel like I’m being swaddled.”
“Just until you can be trusted.”
“You’re such a daddy,” she murmurs.
I almost point out that I am literally a daddy, but I know what she means. “I like taking care of what belongs to me,” I say simply.
“Do I belong to you?”
Her words hang in the air, curious, dangerous, still undeniably drunk. She wouldn’t ask this sober.
She wouldn’t admit to wanting to know the answer sober.
I just hope that she’s too drunk to remember the way I hold her closer and quietly admit, “I want you to, Madelyn. So fucking much.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maddie
It feels a little risky and a little wrong—okay, a lot wrong—but I wake up in the morning in Bram’s bed and burrow into his chest. I should run upstairs before the girls wake up. I definitely shouldn’t enjoy the fact that his sweet, unconcerned face with his lips just slightly parted is the first thing I see when I open my eyes.
I fell asleep with him holding me tightly to him and it was soothing enough that I fully understood the magic of Temple Grandin’s hug machine. I fell asleep wishing that I could feel this safe and looked after every night.
Last night, as I brushed my teeth, I watched Bram from the corner of my admittedly fuzzy vision. The panic I expected to feel while standing alongside someone who I was also sleeping with as we brushed our teeth never materialized.
That’s probably due to the fact that I haven’t been that drunk since my last year as an undergrad, during Model UN, when we used the bathtub in our room to make trash can punch. Luckily, the alcohol likely killed any bacteria lurking in the bathtub of that particular Holiday Inn Express.
Along Bram’s forehead are the beginning of very faint worry lines, and I can’t stop myself from tracing each crease.
Bram’s eyes open slowly, blinking until I come into focus. “There you are,” he says.
“I’m sorry about last night. I was definitely a drunk brat,” I tell him. Most everything after Junie panicking and running is a little blurry, but I’m sure I did or said things to embarrass myself. I’m certain I puked on Leo. So I don’t know in entirety what I’m apologizing for, but I do know I was a handful.
“I like when you’re a brat,” he says through a yawn. “And you are a very adorable drunk, but I was worried for your safety. I know I’m too overprotective. I just...” His gaze wanders down to where my palm is pressed against his bare chest and he covers my hand with his, like my touch alone is enough to regulate his beating heart.
We kiss. It’s slow and soft. We’re quiet. I sling my leg over his hip so that he can slip inside me as we lie on our sides.
When we come, I bite down on his shoulder to stop myself from making a sound.
I allow myself to stay like that with him for a few more moments before I sit up and scoot off the edge of the bed.
He stretches his arm out across the span of mattress between us. “You could stay,” he says. “You could just sleep in here at night. We go to bed after the kids and wake up before them.”
I turn my head to the side to catch a glimpse of him. “Bram...” I can’t give him what he’s asking for. I can’t give myself what he’s asking for. Because I feel something happening. As much as I want to ignore it, I have this sense of unraveling, and if I give in to a simple request like sharing a bed, my heart won’t be able to unlearn the feeling of waking up next to Bram Loe. Even if him and his stability and his perfectly structured and full life is the last thing I need right now.
“It wouldn’t have to mean anything,” he says, but his voice is flimsy and unconvincing. “But I like being around you, Maddie. There’s nothing wrong with that. People who just have sex can enjoy each other’s company.”
“I like being around you too. But I think it’s better if we don’t. I don’t want to confuse the girls.”Or either of us, I nearly add.
“Right,” he says, his tone returning to logic. “Of course.”
JUNIE CALLS THATafternoon in near tears and fumbles over her words. She apologizes to an excessive extent and explains that she and Leo have a history of sorts. She’s vague, but says she lurked in the shadows like a real-ass Mothman to keep an eye on me until Leo left, but he never did leave and then Bram showed up and... well, since Junie knew I was safe, she called a car and went home to her genetically analyzed cats.
I plan on digging deeper to find out what the hell it is about Leo that is severe enough for her to literally hide from him, but those are buttons to push a different time, when she is far less tearful.
