30. Woody

30

WOODY

The blinding orange behind my eyelids told me it was morning, and the scent of bacon told me breakfast was on. I shifted, happy to find I was still in Emery’s arms. As I woke a little more, though, I realized that the smell of breakfast could only mean one thing.

Emery adjusted around me. “Mmm. Good morning, beautiful.”

My cheeks heated, and I ducked my chin. “Morning. Looks like Stevie and your mom might be downstairs.”

“Looks like it. You okay with that?”

“Yeah. I mean, they already know about us, so...this is okay, right?”

“It is. Though...I will talk to Mom about her need to be chronically early. Thirty minutes is fine, but four hours is a bit much.”

“Do you think she was trying to catch us?”

“Well, I own this house, so she can’t catch me doing anything. But...did she want to see if you were here in the morning? Yeah, that sounds like something Dawn would do.”

“And you don’t mind that she knows that we...”

“My mom is aware that I have sex, Woody. It’s fine, but don’t let her see you blush or she’ll tease you into the next millennium.”

“I’ll try, but I make no promises.”

We extracted ourselves from each other, and I pulled up my jeans, but left on the large T-shirt I’d pilfered from Emery’s collection. Emery got dressed, looking like an entire snack in some old jeans and a well-worn plain white T. I made a note of it, thinking I should probably steal that one as well.

Before we headed down, he pulled me into a hug, and I buried my face in his chest. “Why do you smell so good?” I murmured.

“Pretty sure it’s just my deodorant, darlin’,” he said, tilting my chin up for a quick kiss.

That settled, he took my hand and led me downstairs, then into the kitchen.

“Mornin’, Mom,” Emery said, raising his brows. “You and I are going to have a conversation about boundaries a little later. I’d hate to have to revoke your key privileges.”

To be fair, Dawn did look a little flushed. “I have a lot to do today and figured I’d drop her off early.”

“That’s fine. But we both know why you’re here.”

“Sure do,” I said, pretending to have more balls than I actually did. I extended my hand. “Morning, Dawn. It’s nice to see you again.”

She batted away my hand and pulled me in for a hug. “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered.

Stevie was standing at the stove on her stool, flipping the bacon with her pink tongs. She watched as Emery pulled me back to his side and kissed the top of my head.

“Ewwwww. Why did you hafta go and fall in love with my friend, Dad!”

“Whatever,” Emery said, giving my cheek a raspberry. “You love him, too.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna see y’all kissin’ and stuff.”

Emery laughed good-naturedly as I stiffened at her words. He looked down at me, shaking my shoulders. “She’ll get used to us kissing. Don’t you worry about it.”

I blinked and a tear broke free.

“Woody?”

I turned to the side and wiped my face.

“Something wrong?”

I shook my head, barely able to compose the words inside my own head.

“You said that she loves me and she didn’t deny it,” I said, my voice wobbly.

Stevie handed the tongs over to her grandmother, stepped down from the stool, and walked up to me. Throwing her arms around my waist, she laid the side of her head against my belly.

“I do love you, Woody. Even if you and Dad are super gross.”

I pulled her in for a tight hug, and even Dawn let out a little sniff as she turned the bacon.

I looked up at Emery, and the warm affection in his eyes made me realize that I’d never really gotten that look from anyone. Sure, Rowdy loved me, but this was something different. It was genuine and easy for Emery. Like maybe I wasn’t that hard to love after all.

And yeah, we’d exchanged our I love you s, but I’d learned the hard way that you can say you love someone and not like them very much. You can still be judgmental of them and treat them poorly. But that wasn’t Emery. He let his love for me shine in the way that he treated me, and in the way that he regarded me always.

And that was the difference, I supposed, between real love and not.

This relationship was brand new, but some of the things I thought I’d never had—things that I’d given up on—had already come back to me. Or maybe they’d just been waiting there with me for the right guy.

“Woody?” Rowdy asked, strutting into the kitchen with the kind of attitude that could only come with having been railed over the weekend. “You spent the night here?”

“Yep. And it looks like everybody got home a little early, so I guess we’ll be eating breakfast together.”

Emery’s mom shot over her shoulder, “I’ll put a few extra eggs in the scramble, and we’ve got plenty of biscuits in the oven.”

Rowdy’s eyes widened. “Homemade biscuits?”

Dawn tsked as she moved the bacon onto a plate with paper towels. “Is there any other kind?

“Marry me,” Rowdy said, coming up to her and giving her a hug.

“Oh, honey. You’re not my type. But thank you.”

We cracked up, then hung together in the kitchen as Dawn finished scrambling the eggs, adding more cheese than seemed totally necessary.

We ate breakfast together and Stevie regaled us with her and her grandmother’s most recent adventures. They’d run into a little girl about her age who had the same medical alert bracelet, and her mom loved the idea of carrying her EpiPens in a fanny pack. It was good to see Stevie making friends.

I sat back, watching everyone chat and laugh across the table, and it felt like family.

It felt like home.