Page 49 of Midnight Surrounds Us

“That’s not what I meant. I meant tell me what you think about yourself. Who youreallyare.”

Tapping speaker, I set my coffee on my bedside table then tossed my phone on my comforter. I lay back, resting my head on my favorite feather pillow that still smelled like Rye and breathing the scent of his shampoo deep into my lungs. I smiled when it relaxed me.

After the sex we’d had in my store and again in my kitchen before we hit my bed, I was more relaxed than I’d ever been in my life, but feeling his presence in my home, smelling him and imagining him coming back to me put me over the relaxation edge.

I yawned. “I don’t know. I guess I see a mom. A friend. A business owner and member of the community.”

Rye gagged, like he’d stuck his finger down his throat. “I didn’t ask for the bio you submitted to the Chamber of Commerce. Who are you, Aubrey? What do you love? What do you hate?”

“What’s with the third degree so early this mornin’?”

“I’ve wanted to know the answer to these questions for a very long time. The least you can do after the way you came for me last night—severaltimes—is tell me who I’m fallin’ for.”

Falling for? Heat flooded my cheeks. It rushed around my chest and made my heart race. Love wasn’t part of our deal. Sex, yes, he’d mentioned something that day at my store about things getting “heated.”

But wasn’t this the part of the story where one of us was supposed to pull away, create some kind of self-imposed obstacle we had to overcome? Nothing came to mind though. I just wanted to lay there listening to Rye’s voice. I wanted to remember how amazing he’d made me feel—like the main character of an epic, wildly sexy romance novel. At my age? I wasn’t about to waste it.

But had he put me on a pedestal I’d never be able to climb down from? The thought kept popping into my head.

Besides, if Rye’s and my story was a romance, then there had to be a happily ever after at the end. I wasn’t so sure I was ready for that. I had a pretty good guess my boys weren’t ready for it either. Micah still brought up his dad at every opportunity, still romanticized the life he’d thought we’d had back in the “good ol’ days.”

Maybe our genre wasn’t romance. Maybe Rye and I were in the middle of a grisly crime novel, but the bloody parts hadn’t happened yet. Or maybe it was self-help.How to Navigate Menopause and Your Later Years,Erotic Edition, with a note to the reader: Dear Reader, please hide this book under your bedor in your sock drawer. Better yet, hide it with your cleaning supplies. Kids never look there…

Yes, my boys were grown, but they’d always be my “kids.” Some things never changed.

“I thought we werefakedatin’.”

Rye didn’t seem to like the word “fake.” He rumbled when I said it and almost growled his next sentence. “Just answer the question.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. Um, well first, I’m a mom. That’s true. I’m a good mom. I’m not Martha Stewart, but I washed my kids’ sheets every week, and I make a mean apple pie?—”

“Ohh,” Rye groaned, his grumble quickly acquiescing to his insatiable libido. “I’m gonna need you to make that for me and feed it to me, naked in your bed.”

I tried not to imagine the mess that would make, but then I smiled like a fool when I actually pictured the act and how hot it could be if I covered my body with strategically placed dollops of apple-pie filling and demanded he lick it off.

Like he knew exactly where my randy mind had gone, Rye chuckled deviously.

“Anyway, I was always good at helpin’ my boys with school projects. They probably got their best grades on the dioramas and posters I helped them make. But then after Tommy passed and I bought the shop, I didn’t have a lot of time for that kind of stuff.

“That made me feel like a shitty mom, but I guess it also taught them that they couldn’t wait around for me to do everything for them. They had to figure stuff out for themselves.” I rolled my eyes. “They’re still workin’ on that.”

He laughed, and I let the sound wash through me, from my ears all the way down to my toes and back up again. It made me feel warm and cozy, and I snuggled into my soft mattress and pulled my covers up to my chin.

“What else?” he asked.

“I dunno. I guess… I’m a great friend. I didn’t really have girlfriends until I became a widow. Tommy didn’t like me spendin’ time with other people. God, sometimes I forget just how isolated I was back then.”

“I remember that,” Rye said. “But I also remember your wild smile, the way you were so free before you got married.”

“You do?”

“Oh yeah. Like it was yesterday.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How are you this person? How have you been here the whole time and I never knew?”

“Well, technically, I wasn’t ‘here.’ I was an hour away, and also technically, you weren’t ready to know, but I’m glad you do now. It’s a great birthday present.”

“Birthday? When?”

---