Page 23 of Stone
She held her hand in front of her mouth. “Brush my teeth because my breath smells awful, and then I'd love to change clothes.”
“All right. Do you want me to walk you over to Locks’?” he offered.
“Nope, you get ready. I’ll run home, freshen up, and then we can go. Should I take the girls with me?” she wondered.
Stone stared at the woman he was coming to care entirely too much about. He’d told himself he’d stay away, but each second he spent with her pulled him in deeper.
“Whatever you’re most comfortable with,” he said.
“We’ll run over to my house and Blake’s to let our moms know we’re going with you!” Phoebe called from around the corner.
They were listening?Naomi mouthed.
“Guess so,” he chuckled, shrugging. He wouldn’t really expect anything less after what he’d seen since coming to Bluff Creek.
“Sounds good!” he called back. He held his hand out so Naomi could use it to get off the swing bed. Since it moved when you did, it was tricky the first couple of times.
Stone dropped a kiss on her forehead, grinning at the blush on her cheeks.
“See you in a minute for breakfast. My treat,” he said.
She nodded and waved as she put on her shoes before walking off.
Stone was happy to see the triplets were settling in with the other kids, but when he thought about Bluff Creek when those girls were adults, he shuddered. Who knows what they would get up to.
Chapter Thirteen
Naomi sat at the table, wondering if she or Stone would get a word in. When she’d gone back to change, her sisters asked where she was going. Suddenly, it wasn’t just her, Stone, and the girls. It was Stone with five women and six girls.
Luckily, they’d all paused long enough to order, but there were at least three different conversations going on.
“At least someone invited us since our own brother didn’t,” Emerson scoffed as she plopped down at their table, followed by Harriet, his youngest sister, who had everyone call her Harry.
“To be fair, I invited the girls and Naomi to breakfast, and it spawned from there,” Stone defended, sipping his coffee.
“Spawned? Did he just compare us to salmon?” Tori gasped.
“Chill. He was just commenting on how his relatively quiet breakfast exploded when we all invited ourselves along,” AJ said.
Naomi bit her lip, waiting to see Tori’s response. AJ’s peacemaking between the sisters was a toss-up as to whether it would work or cause a bigger explosion.
“All right, but he’s buying breakfast,” Tori relented, glaring at Stone.
“I would love to buy breakfast for all of you,” Stone reassured her.
Naomi fucking hated continuing to compare Stone to Jared, but this interaction said everything. Stone had no problem going toe-to-toe with her sisters, but he also wasn’t mean about it. Jared would have resorted to name-calling or grabbing her hand and making her leave.
“Let’s get down to business, though. We,” Phoebe said, pointing to herself and her friends, “had no idea that Stone had an outdoor swinging bed on the side of his house. It seems like a great place for us to have a sleepover.”
Naomi had to admit it was a fantastic place for a sleepover. She only wished she would have woken in Stone’s arms.
“Stone has an outdoor swinging bed?” Tori asked.
“Yes, it’s where we found Mom and Stone this morning asleep, Aunt Tori,” Regan said.
“His arm was wrapped around her,” Taylor added.
“And his face was close to her head,” Beck confirmed, nodding.
