Page 71 of The Pretenders of Copper County
Because over the past week, I’d found myself remembering. Remembering the hobbies and interests I hadn’t made time for. Remembering my friends and family, the oneswhose safety I’d prioritized so much, I’d cut them out of my life. Remembering the decisions I’d always said I’d make sometime in the nebulous future about whether I wanted a partner, or children, or a permanent home. Remembering… well,me.
And it had felt fucking strange at first, let me tell you. Like the pins-and-needles feeling of blood rushing into a constricted limb. But Chris’s words at the dock the other day kept coming back to me—it’s like he doesn’t want anyone to know him—and that wasn’t the way I wanted to live…
I just hadn’t realized it until this sweet, sweet man had crashed “entirely unpredictably but low-key unavoidably,” as Chris himself might say, into my path.
And so… I’d talked to him. I’d shared with him. More than I had in years because Chris was so easygoing and open, it was hard not to reciprocate.
So, in between episodes ofJohn Ruffianthe past few nights, I’d opened up. I’d told Chris stories about growing up in the Hollow.
I’d told him what it was like having a big family—how there was always someone around or underfoot, and I’d have killed for quiet and privacy—and then felt a little shitty about how much I took my siblings for granted when Chris explained how quiet his own childhood had been.
I’d told him what it had been like when my dad remarried and then, later, when my stepmother, the only mom I really remembered, left town.
I’d even told him about Seth and my first blowjob in the Grove back home, describing the awkwardness in detail because Chris was strangely fascinated by my teenage antics, and hearing him laugh out loud made mefeel lighter.
Talking to my family today, just taking that first step toward telling the truth, made me feel lighter still.
Because it turned out Chris was right. There was something pretty fucking amazing about having people know you. See you. Accept you. Care about you. It was worth the risk to let yourself be seen.
As I walked back to the car to wait for Chris, I knew I should have been thinking about my job like the professional I claimed to be—checking my email to make sure Janissey had come through with the proof I’d asked for, anticipating ways that Dante and Nicky and the Evanoviches might still pose a threat, wondering what the new assignment Janissey mentioned might involve.
Instead, all I could think about was taking Chris back to the campground, laying him out on our bed in the cabin, and showing him that I sawhim, every awkward, adorable, magnificent inch of him.
And then maybe Thursday night, I’d take Chris to Vega’s uncle Bennett’s house so the man could watch a meteor shower without having to steal a telescope to do it. Because Chris made things pretty and soft for other people and deserved to have people make things pretty and soft for him.
So lost was I in thoughts of Chris that when I heard the man himself calling my name excitedly from down the block, I turned to greet him with an unrestrained smile on my face…
A smile that died when I saw him leaning out the passenger-side window of the world’s largest and ugliest RV, grinning from ear to ear.
“Guess what, Reed?” he shouted. “I found uscampers!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHRIS
“She was sohappy when I said we had room for her,” I told Reed later, hurrying after him to the caretaker cabin, which was kind of tricky since his stride was a million times longer than mine, and I’d had to stop to get my groceries from the back seat. “And her husband was so relieved. I think I—well, Wrigley Campground, really—just saved their marriage.”
He paused in the act of unlocking the door to give me an eyebrow lift.
“Seriously! Dolores is actuallyverykind when she’s not annoyed at Bob. And she likes charcuterie! She helped me pick out all of this stuff—” I hefted the two enormous shopping bags from Lyon’s Imperial. “—which are reallypremiummeats and cheeses, so I could make them a board tonight. She’sverywell-versed with cheese and told me all about her favorite cheese shop in the city. I kinda wondered if she’d ever been to the Cellar. But obviously, I didn’t ask her,” I added quickly when he glanced at me again. “I didn’t even mention the place.”
Reed threw open the door and stalked directly to thebedroom. I followed after tossing my bags into the little fridge in the kitchenette.
“And I thought it was kind of perfect timing since you just finished cleaning up the RV parking spots down by the lake. And she didn’t bat an eyelash when I gave her the price. And Watt was thrilled when I told him—how lucky was it that he was right there in the bakery at the time?”
Reed grunted noncommittally as he crouched to take off his boots and throw them in the closet. His thin T-shirt clung to his back and arms distractingly as he hunched over.
“Look, I know you’re probably annoyed that I brought home campers, and I’m sure it has something to do with my safety, but wetalkedabout this, Reed, and if you’re upset, I really wish you’d say so instead of—mmmph.”
In one lightning-fast move, Reed stood, stripped my sweater over my head, grabbed me around the waist, and crowded me face-first against the bedroom door. A second later, his warm chest plastered to my naked back.
He dipped his head so his nose grazed my neck right behind my ear and inhaled deeply. I wasn’t sure why that was so, so very hot, but it was.Oh, man, it was.
“Chris?”
“Y-yes?” I asked breathlessly.
“I’m not upset.”
