Chapter Twenty-Five
The first thing I noticed in the morning was then bed.
The thick cotton sheets were of excellent quality, the base board was of dark finely carved wood. The coverlet I was tangled in had a pretty pattern of flowers on it. It was easily two times bigger than my own.
The second thing I noticed was that I shouldn't be there.
It was a Saturday morning. Had I skipped the game? I belonged in my own narrow bed, Jenny sleeping in the bed opposite, the sounds of Mom and Daddy awakening intruding on my dreams. The contrasting sounds of seagulls was completely foreign to me.
As I sat up and the sheet slipped of me, I blushed at my state of undress. The night came back to me in a flood-the library, the drive, being carried to the bed. The slickness of our bodies from the rain. What we'd done. What we'd not done.
I slipped out of bed and my feet danced at they touched the cold floorboards. I picked up the first garment I could find-his hooded sweatshirt. I put it on. It came up to only my mid thigh. Without even running a brush through my mused curls, I walked slowly downstairs.
He was making pancakes. I stood still for a moment before announcing myself, not wanting him to stop doing an act that endeared me so greatly.
"Hey," I said at last. He turned around at once and I smiled at the sight of his bare chest.
"Hey. You should wear my clothes all the time," he said, indicating all the skin that his sweatshirt left exposed. I sent him a jokingly scathing looked and hopped up onto the counter beside the stovetop.
"You can cook."
"Not really. Just pancakes and uh pasta. Dad said it was something I was supposed to know how to do," he explained. I laughed.
"Yeah, girls dig it. But look real hard while you can, because my Daddy is going to kill me when I get home. And you, most likely," I said.
"No, my Mom will take care of that. But I think I can take her," he said cockily.
"You know she's even taller than me?" I said, sticking out my lower lip.
"Well, you're pretty much as little as it gets," he said.
"Hey! I'm not little… everywhere!" I defended, my cheeks reddening.
"Never implied that you were," he said.
"You're nice," I said. He glanced sideways at me and smiled in his most adorable way. How could I have ever not noticed how hot he was?
"Okay, breakfast's ready. Come here," he commanded, stepping in front of me. He held his hands out, and I grasped them firmly as he helped me down.
The two of us quietly ate the pancakes at the kitchen table. We relaxed into old habits, acted almost as we had in our old, irretrievable days as best friends.
"Okay, what next?" I asked, a half hour later, after we'd finished eating and loading our dishes into the dishwasher. My glance strayed to the bright scenery outside the window and he followed my eyes.
"Apparently the beach," he said.
"I don't have a suit," I objected.
"'Aint nothing wrong with that. Um, go look in the third room on the right, third floor. Tess'. She'll probably have something for you to borrow.
Lauren was considerably taller than me, but I was also slimmer and more developed. It took me a while to find a pink string bikini. I also managed to find a brush and carefully brushed out my hair, managing to arrange it into a semi presentable state.
We met on the warm dry sand. He smiled when he saw me and took my hand in his, but didn't kiss me or try to. We ran into the water and played in the waves, anchored by one another. We chased each other along the sand. He pretended it was remotely a contest.
"I had a creepy interaction with your grandfather," I said, much later as I lay on a towel.
"Ew. What happened?" he asked curiously. Sawyer had never known him.
"Well, he said if I knew what was good for me I wouldn't go near his grandson, because if I did I might derail your chances of an NBA future," I said.
"Creep. Did he see us, on the basketball court?" he wondered.
"I figure. I hate it when I think I'm doing private things and it turns out I've actually been watched," I confessed.
"Okay, time for me to admit something. Last night wasn't the first time I've seen you naked," he said, I rolled over and squinted at him, his shape silhouetted in the bright sunlight.
"What? When?"
"Oh, that time you went swimming I came over to talk to you and I looked into the backyard and there you were," he said. I blushed again-I hadn't just been swimming, I'd been skinny dipping. Big difference.
"God, that never even occurred to me. Who let you inside?" I asked curiously.
"Peyton."
"Argh, she never mentioned it. I'll certainly be having words with her when I get home."
'Which will be never, if I have any say in it," he said. I smiled before turning back onto my stomach.
My cell phone rang, disrupting the easy moment.
"Daddy?" I asked tensely.
"No, it's Mom. Where the hell are you?" she asked, curious more than angry. Daddy would have been worried.
"Um, with Sawyer, at the beach house," I admitted.
"Oh my God! Did you?" she asked.
"Mom! And no!" I cried.
"Almost?"
"Very nearly. I'm not going to get pregnant, I promise. I'll be home later today or tomorrow, don't worry about me," I said.
"I'll try not. Your father has a delivery, if we're lucky he won't have to find out," she said.
"Yeah, I hope so. My love to Jenny and Lala, and for both our sakes, don't freakin' tell them, okay?" I asked.
"Sure. Have fun," she said.
"So, are you dead yet?" he asked as I'd hung up the phone, dropping onto the sand beside me.
"Not quite. We're going to hide it from my Daddy."
"Okay. Mom and Dad are in New York for the day for some benefit thing," he said.
"Lucky."
"It's what happens, with a pro basketball player and a retired pop star," he said.
"I wonder what the country will think of us-NBA's best, and what?" I asked, pausing at the thought of my future occupation.
"Come on, I've heard you sing," he pressed.
"Yeah, well I've heard you sing," I retorted.
"No way in hell," he said assuredly.
Author's note: So I know the almost sex was completely unbelievable, but whatever. Oh, and this is shaping out to be many, many more chapters. A good thing, seeing as it's the last story in the series…
