Goldie shrugs, folding the last burp cloth before moving onto the towels. I fold Jett’s blanket, and he swipes it from the pile just as fast. “I say you see where it goes, and don’t let musty Dusty define your choices.”
I snort. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”
She winks. “I try. Now let's finish this laundry so we can call on that listing your dad found yesterday. I’m going back to the city tonight. I want to go back knowing that you’re taking a step forward.”
“If I get to know Beau, isn’t that a step in the right direction?”
She nods. “Yes, but that’s just for matters of the heart. We need you moving forward on a new studio too. I love you, girl, but drivingWheel Get Youjust isn’tthe business.”
“It’s bugging the shit out of my parents, too,” I add with a smirk.
“So let’s go call the studio and see if you can get an appointment.”
“Ba-ba-da-ba!” Jett bites into my thigh with enthusiasm, looking for anywhere to sink his swollen gums. He’s been teething so badly, working on cutting his first top teeth, but all in all, my happy little guy has been a trooper.
“Okay, let’s go call.”
* * *
Everything isheeheehee you hang up firstuntil you’ve been up all night with an angry eight-month-old who is growing teeth and uses your nipple as his personal bite guard.
“I’m sorry, Jett, okay, you have to take the binky right now, okay?” At the stop light, I reach back and fiddle with the pacifier, palming Jett’s face, coating my fingers in snot and drool.
My stomach is in knots after a night of no sleep, and the idea of having that sizzling chemistry and off-the-cuff banter with Beau right now is just… stressful.
Only three weeks, and he’s being introduced to therealside of me.
He’s out front, pushing the chocolatey hair off his face as he grins at me, neck bent slightly so he can see through the front windshield. He’s wearing his black leather jacket, and god, do I fucking love it. I lovedGreaseas a girl, and he’s so giving me the panty-tingling Danny Zuko vibes. My heart skips a beat hearing the door pop open.
Jett’s war cries are how Beau is welcomed as he slides into the backseat.
“He’s teething,” I say right away, not defensively but exhausted and explanatory–like every mom of an eight-month-old, I guess.
“Hurts, huh?” Beau asks, but when I look in the rearview mirror, I see that he’s talking to Jett. His voice wraps around Jett’s cries, lessening them when he says, “it’s okay to cry when it hurts. And it won’t hurt forever.”
After fishing around in his pocket for a minute, Beau pulls out a small bottle of hand sanitizer. He squirts it on one hand and rubs them together, stashing the bottle back into his pocket before taking the chucked-aside pacifier from the car seat.
He holds it up, analyzing it. Jett grows quiet except for some leftover snorts and coughs.
“I mean, it’s a placeholder, and in life, you gotta get used to placeholders. Do they stink?” Beau leans forward, sliding the pacifier between Jett’s lips. I can hear his latch and his sucking, and my body relaxes. Beau taps the end of the binky, then Jett’s nose. “Sometimes they stink, but it makes you appreciate the real thing more.”
“The real thing,” I add, “being my boobs.”
He holds my brazen gaze in the rearview for a moment, hand gripping the edge of the car seat like it might blow away. “I can’t imagine wanting you and being given a plastic version instead.”
“Rubber,” I say, so fucking glad that the light is red.
“They make a lot of great things with rubber, but when it comes to rubber or you,” he shakes his head, and the smoky rasp of his voice is making everything between my legs warm and fuzzy. And wet, too. “All I can say is, I’m team Jett. I get why he spit it out.”
The joke about my breasts is making me flush, so I change the subject, despite the fact that it didn’t feel creepy or awkward.
“You got him to take it.” I pause, wondering if I should say this or not. But it doesn’t have to mean anything but what it is, so I say it. “He likes you.”
Beau’s eyes flick to mine in the mirror. I’ve never met anyone who could pull off boots and a leather jacket, much less a man that didn’t wear eyeliner and have his ears pierced. It’s only just now that his heady scent drifts my way, an erotic commingling of spice and clean skin and a hint of amber, like maybe he wore his jacket with cologne a few days ago and it’s lingering.
Except if he wore his jacket a few days ago, that would make it Friday. And why would he wear cologne on a Friday?
Oh Jesus, Beck, get a fucking grip.I squeeze the steering wheel as I let off the brake, our lane of traffic slowly diffusing through the intersection.