Page 178 of Jaded

I laugh, more ghosts prancing out into the night. “Well, now that you’re myboyfriend, I guess you’re part of it.”

“I like that,” he says. “A lot. Both of those things, actually—the boyfriend thing and the family thing—I’m gonna stop talking.”

“Come home with me?” I ask, and maybe I’m begging, because I don’t want to face the vastness of my room all alone. “Not for, um, not like a booty call. I mean, the kids will be there, but like down the other hall—shit.”

I wince, but Olli just laughs. “Well, Iamyour boyfriend now.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you to think that we have to do anything,” I say, and I mean it. “If stuff happens, it happens. If not, it doesn’t.”

His brows knit together, and I realize he’s studying me—since this is even newer territory for me than it is for him. Aside from the occasional relationship, the no-strings-attached booty call is much more my style.

But not with him.

Never with him.

“I’m serious.” I twine my fingers through his again, just like when we walked up the driveway together, and squeeze. “I’m so fucking tired I don’t think I want to do more than sleep anyway.”

“Same,” Olli admits. “But you’ll owe me.”

That makes me smile all the way back to the truck.

“Is Olli coming back with us?” Syd asks as I climb in behind the wheel.

I can’t even muster a properly put-out sigh. “Yes, he is.”

“For the night?” Syd leans over the center console to peer at me. “With you?”

I tilt my head back against the seat rest. “Yes, okay? Yes.”

Syd squeals, and I have to replay that sound in my head over and over the whole ride home.

But it doesn’t matter, because Olli follows me to my townhouse. Parks in my driveway and shadows me through my front door. I’m suddenly self-conscious.

It's so . . . plain. Nothing like Olli’s soft, worn cottage bursting with plants, that bears his soft scents, that already feels like home, melded to fit Olli’s sunshine sweetness.

Maybe he just brings home with him wherever he goes. Maybe heishome.

“Not too bad.” Olli’s head tilts to take in the tall ceilings, the hardwood floors, the remodeled kitchen with its glossy counters.

Syd helps me move boxes off the spare bed and tug on clean sheets for Avery. She goes into her room, Avery into his, I make some vague threats I hopefully won’t have to follow through on, and then it’s just Olli and me, out in the kitchen.

“I have a TV in my room, over my bed,” I say, because I’m so damn tired. “Want to watch?”

“Yes. Please. I’m ready to drop,” Olli sighs, and I twine my fingers through his for the third time tonight, lead him back down the hall to my room. This, at least, feels a little less stark and sterile, with a queen-sized bed plumped up with pillows and downy blankets.

I flip on the TV while Olli slides out of his jeans and beneath the covers. I follow suit, divesting myself of all save my boxers before I tuck in beside him. It’s natural, so natural, to nestle in like this, the two of us side by side, pretending to watch the murmuring screen while the darkness of sleep claims us all too quickly.

Olli and I spend the night like that, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Chapter 46

Olli

IwakeupinNat Taylor’s bed.

Tucked into his side like a baby sloth. Breathing in his soft, faded cologne and cheap soap. Listening to the heavy rise and fall of his breath.

I’m still wearing my shirt. He didn’t try to take it off last night. Not that I thought he would, but like . . . You develop certain expectations. A dude wants to take you to bed, you figure, even if he says he’s not gonna try anything, things are gonna come up, you know, south of the border, and . . . things will get tried.

---