I squirmed as my dad took off his boots, but for some reason froze when he tilted his head up to look us over. His eyes missed nothing as they ran over the way Trevor and I sat on the couch, but he didn’t comment on it. “Missed my pretty mug, did ya?” he joked, rising back up.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Trevor joked back, his body relaxing even further.
“You staying for a bit? I need to take a shower, but I won’t say good-bye if you’ll be here when I get out.”
“I’ll be here,” Trevor replied.
My dad nodded and headed toward the hallway, but paused when Trevor called his name.
“There’s some water on the floor I forgot to clean up,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t wanna know why you were in my shower,” my dad said with a wave of his hand, not bothering to look at us. “I’ll be out in a bit.”
“Was that necessary?” I asked as soon as my dad disappeared. “Really?”
“I didn’t want him to fall and break a hip,” he replied.
“Why didn’t you just clean up the water?”
“Because I was too busy trying to figure out if you were going to give me the freeze again,” he said, seeming almost embarrassed. “I completely forgot.”
I laughed.
Chapter 17
Trevor
I’d gone back and forth at least a thousand times as I drove south to see Morgan and Etta, but by the time I’d made it to Sacramento I’d been sure I was doing the right thing. When Bram had accused me of making excuses about why I hadn’t gone after Morgan, I’d denied it, but once I’d taken a good long look in the mirror, I’d known the truth. I’d been too much of a chickenshit to go after what I was dying to have. I’d been too worried about what people would think and how my mother would react, and terrified that Morgan would laugh in my face.
My fears were ridiculous. I’d known that since the minute she opened the door, sweaty and dirty, and had looked at me like a piece of chocolate cake she wanted to take a big bite of. I knew in that moment that there wasn’t a goddamn thing on earth that would make me give up that look, not my mom or anyone else. I didn’t care what they thought.
I have no idea how I’d been so ignorant for so long, but in the hour I’d been at Morgan’s I’d realized so many things. She hadn’t been indifferent. She hadn’t tried to push me away. I honestly didn’t believe that she’d even consciously done it.
The woman I was in love with just didn’t have any idea how to let someone love her. She didn’t have any good friends, and as far as I knew she’d never had a steady boyfriend. Morgan was stunted, for lack of a better word. Stuck in a place where she was unable to let anyone outside her family get close to her.
It was going to be hard, loving someone like that. Not the feeling—I knew that the feeling wouldn’t go away. It was the action of loving someone like Morgan that would be difficult. She didn’t accept it graciously. She didn’t assume it was her due. Morgan actively distanced herself from caring gestures and intimacy; it was like she didn’t trust anyone’s motives when they were trying to be kind.
“I wasn’t going to freeze you out,” she said, rolling her eyes as she flopped backward on the couch. She laid her legs over my lap and got comfortable, and I missed the warmth of her against my side. “I was just thinking.”
“That usually doesn’t go well for me,” I joked, squeezing her foot.
“I don’t think I can give you what you want,” she said, looking at my face but not making eye contact. “I’m never going to be the needy girl who asks you to fix all her problems.”
“Good,” I replied, surprising her enough that her gaze finally met mine. “I want a woman, and I don’t want one who can’t stand on her own feet.”
“But—”
“Just as long as she lets me know what the problems are, so I can listen. Maybe give some advice if it’s needed.”
“That’s not true,” she argued. “You just made this whole big deal about how I never ask for help, blah.”
I was so frustrated that I wanted to shake her, but I didn’t let any of that show in my voice when I replied. “I want you to include me,” I said. “Just let me in.”
Our conversation was interrupted as her dad came out of the bathroom. The man had taken the shortest shower in the history of running water, yet he was obviously clean and he’d already pulled his hair back into a neat ponytail. I was a little impressed, even though I would have been happier with a few more minutes alone.
“I hear your sister ran off with Frank,” he said to Morgan as he made his way into the small kitchen. “You know about that?”
Morgan froze and then climbed off the couch to follow him.
“Not in advance,” she replied as soon as she’d reached the kitchen. I followed slowly, unsure whether I was intruding or not. “Olly called me this morning to let me know.”
“Yeah, he’s the one who gave me a heads-up, too.” Stan said. He looked at me and lifted the coffee carafe in his hand. “Coffee, Trevor?”
“No thanks,” I replied. I glanced between him and Morgan, wondering what I was missing. Earlier Morgan had nonchalantly said that Miranda was on a trip with a family friend, but the minute her dad had brought it up, she’d gone stiff as a board.
“She was here when I left for the shop,” Stan said, sitting down at the table with a sigh. “She must have left right after.”
“It was a shitty thing to do,” Morgan replied, sitting down across from him in front of a second mug of coffee.
“Needed to feel the wind on her face,” Stan said contemplatively. He gave Morgan a small smile. “Been there a time or two myself.”
“She could have at least said something.” Morgan crossed her arms over her chest, her face scrunched up in annoyance. “And what the hell did she do with all of her stuff?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe she took it to Frank’s.” Stan sighed. “Would you have let her leave?”
I sat down at the table so I wasn’t looming over them, but kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t a part of this particular conversation, and I really didn’t want to overstep. Besides, the fact that I was keeping quiet was probably why they felt so free to talk about it in front of me.
“It’s not like I would have tackled her and locked her in,” Morgan grumbled, taking a sip of her coffee. “I just would have pointed out what a horrible idea it was.”
Etta started crying in the other room and Morgan sighed, setting down her mug as she stood from the table.
“I’ll be right back,” she said quietly, leaving the room.
It didn’t take long before Stan’s focus moved to me, and I forced myself not to fidget under his close regard.
“I don’t think she realizes what a force she is when she sets her mind to something,” Stan told me, his lips tipping up in the corners. “She mighta been surprised when Miranda snuck off, but I’ve seen it coming.”
“Has it happened before?” I asked, glancing toward the quiet hallway.
“Not so much the sneaking,” Stan replied. “But Miranda’s had itchy feet for as long as she’s had the space to run. I just never curbed it the way Morgan would’ve.”
I nodded in understanding. Henry and Shane were the same way. They’d just gone about it differently, choosing to join the military instead of riding off on the back of a motorcycle.
“Haven’t had a chance to thank you for what you did up in Oregon,” he said, giving me a nod. “Stepped in and helped my girls the way you did.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I replied.
“Doing it anyhow,” he shot back. “Not sure how it all came about, but Ranna was sure thankful that you let them camp out at your place.”
“They’re welcome anytime,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “You too.”
“Ah well, I appreciate it,” he said with a chuckle. “Can’t think of a reason I’d be up in that tiny town you call home, though.”
“Hopefully there’ll
be a couple reasons,” I said, glancing over my shoulder again.
“It’s like that, is it?” Stan asked knowingly. “I had a feeling.”
“Not sure I can convince her,” I confessed, meeting his eyes.
“I had a feeling about that, too.” He took a long sip of his coffee, then set it down on the table, lacing his fingers as he leaned forward on his elbows like he was about to tell me a secret. “My daughters didn’t have an easy time of it,” he said quietly. “Living with their mother and then getting shuffled around in the foster care system.”
“I’ve gotten the impression it was pretty bad,” I replied. I hated that they’d had bad experiences, but I knew it wasn’t unheard of. I’d been in some pretty bad homes before I’d ended up with Ellie and Mike, and I imagined that it was much worse for two pretty little girls.
“They don’t talk about it much,” Stan said, staring at the table. “But they’re both still dealing with the aftereffects, I think. Miranda’s a runner, takes off when she’s upset. Morgan’s a fixer. My oldest takes care of everyone, but wouldn’t let you know if she was on fire.”
“I’ve noticed,” I said wryly.
“I’ll tell you the secret to dealing with her,” he said, chuckling a little. “You watch. Watch her and when you see something, you help without asking.” He shrugged. “That’s the key. She’ll never ask for it, no sirree. But if you step in and do it, she’ll accept it.”
“That’s it?” I asked, staring at him in confusion. It wasn’t exactly the big revelation I was hoping for.
“That’s it,” he confirmed. “If you’re looking to change her, you won’t. At this point, it’s ingrained in her very nature.”
I stared at him dumbfounded. How did you live with a person who refused to let you in? How did he do that with his own daughter? I had no idea what to even say.
“She loves ya,” he said. “I know my daughter better than anyone, and that’s clear as day.”
“She’s not so sure,” I replied with a scoff.
“It’s like you’re not hearing a word I say.” He lifted up a fist and tapped it against the side of his head. “She’s not going to ask for anything, kid.”
He looked at me expectantly, then scoffed when I continued to watch him in complete confusion.
“Telling someone you love them? It’s nothing but asking them to love you back. Otherwise, the words would go unsaid, bud. You’d show it, but you wouldn’t have to say it.”
I slumped back in my chair as he stood from the table and set his empty mug in the sink. Without a word, he went out the back door and I heard the faint sound of the garage door opening once he was outside. He’d dropped his words of wisdom and left, like some kind of wizard from a damn fantasy novel.
I sat in that kitchen chair for a while, going over his advice and trying to understand his perspective on love. In my family, love had always been something freely given. The words were thrown out like confetti. When you said good-bye, you told the person you loved them. When you were happy, or sad, or sitting quietly together, saying I love you was commonplace. They were words that had never come with any strings attached.
When I could hear Stan firing up some sort of power tool in the garage and Morgan still hadn’t come out of her room, I headed down the hallway to check on her. The bedroom door was open just a crack, and inside the room that was just barely shaded by a pair of curtains, Morgan and Etta were fast asleep on the bed.
The room was kind of messy, and I wrinkled my nose at the smell wafting from the garbage pail in the corner. Without making a sound, I moved toward the stench and realized as soon as I stepped close that the pail was full of dirty diapers waiting to be washed. With Stan’s words in my head, I lifted the pail, holding it as far from my face as I could, and carried it into the hallway.
I’d been doing laundry for half my life. Cleaning diapers couldn’t be too hard, right? Stan laughed as I carried the diapers toward the washer and dryer against the back wall of the garage.
“Better be careful,” he advised, gesturing with the sander in his hand. “She’s got some complicated routine she uses to clean those.”
“No shit?” I asked, setting the pail down so I could take a step away from it.
“No shit,” he confirmed. “Might want to Google it.”
I was pretty sure Stan hadn’t ever used the internet, but I followed his advice. There were about fifty different links telling me fifty different ways to clean those fucking diapers. Soak them, don’t soak them, use half the amount of detergent, use the recommended amount of detergent. Some of the websites even advised to use some special shit made for cloth diapers, but I ignored those, assuming that they were trying to sell their own brand of laundry soap.
“Does she soak these?” I asked Stan finally, yelling over the noise of the sander.
“Nope,” he yelled back.
“Well, shit,” I mumbled, pulling up another website with a routine that didn’t involve soaking.
It took me at least half an hour to find what looked like a reputable cloth-diaper company’s diaper-washing recommendations. Pulling the diapers out of the pail was like that Halloween game when you’re a kid when they’d blindfold you and then put your hand into a bowl of spaghetti noodles or wet gummy bears. I had no idea what I was going to encounter every time I dipped my hand back into that pail, but I just kept doing it until there wasn’t anything left to grab.
“Brave man,” Stan said, coming up beside me to peek into the washing machine. “Don’t know why she can’t buy regular diapers like everyone else.”
“I don’t know either,” I replied, holding my contaminated hand out to the side, careful not to touch anything.
“What are you doing?” Morgan asked suspiciously from behind us, making me and Stan both jump.
“Laundry,” I replied, awkwardly holding my hand as far from her as I could as I turned around. “Did you have a good rest?”
“Why are you doing—” She must have caught a whiff of the diapers because her nose wrinkled and her eyes widened. “Please tell me you didn’t do anything to Etta’s diapers.”
I shook my head quickly, scooting the pail behind me with my foot. “I just put them into the machine.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said in relief. She checked inside the washer, then leaned around me. “Oh, Trev,” she said softly, starting to snicker.
“What?” I asked, spinning around, my hand waving wildly in the air. “Is there something on me?”
“No,” she choked out, reaching for the pail.
I took a big step back as she pulled the liner out of the plastic pail and tossed it in on top of the dirty diapers.
“All you have to do is pull the liner out and empty the diapers into the machine and then throw the liner in with them,” she said, her eyes wide as she tried not to laugh. She kept glancing at my hand as I held it straight out beside me. “Did you—” She giggled, then cleared her throat. “I’m guessing that’s the hand you used?”
“You could have told me,” I hollered at Stan, who was over at his workbench snickering.
“Thank you,” Morgan said, her eyes shining as she reached out and started the washing machine. “Washing diapers was next on my to-do list.”
“You’re welcome. Uh, I really need to wash my hands,” I mumbled.
“Come on.” She grabbed my wrist and towed me back into the house
As soon as we reached the sink, she poured soap into my hand and turned on the faucet, making sure the water was the right temperature before she stepped out of the way. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, staying close by my side as I scrubbed my hands.
“I know.” I looked down at her while I continued to scrub. “But it needed to be done.”
“Sorry, I fell asleep. You should have woken me up.”
“You obviously needed it,” I replied, twisting a little to kiss the top of her head. I love you, I thought.
“Yeah, it’s been kind of a shit show around her
e lately,” she confessed, leaning against the counter. “I haven’t found a new job yet and we’ve all been tripping over each other. By the time I get to bed at night, I can’t fall asleep because my mind is too full of junk.”
“You can’t stop thinking about my junk, huh?” I teased, reaching for a towel.
“Yes,” she replied, deadpan. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
I laughed and turned to her, smoothing the hair back from her face gently. “It’ll all work out, beautiful,” I said softly. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I can’t believe you drove all the way down here.”
“I told you,” I said. “I missed you.”
“Still.” She looked past me and twisted her lips a little. “I’m not sure what you were hoping for.”
“Yeah you are,” I chastised.
“We live in different states,” she pointed out, pulling away from me.
“Semantics,” I replied immediately. “Come home with me tomorrow. Problem solved.”
She started to laugh, but the sound cut off when she realized I wasn’t joking.
“I can’t just go to Oregon with you,” she said, looking at me like I had two heads.
“Why not?” I took a step forward and she took a step back. “You’re not working right now.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
The more I thought about the idea, the more sense it made. She wasn’t sure about me yet. Something was holding her back. I had a feeling if we were in the same place for a while, things might be different. Long-distance relationships could work, but they needed a solid foundation first. Besides, I just really wanted her with me and I needed to get back to work before the company started imploding.
“Etta isn’t in school yet,” I continued. “And your dad would probably be stoked to have the house to himself again.”
“I wouldn’t decline the offer,” Stan said, moving past us to the sink. “Don’t mind me, just need to wash the grease off my hands.”
“Jesus, Dad,” Morgan griped. “In a hurry to get rid of us?”