Hold Me Close Read online

  “If it’s going to be weird in the morning,” he said, “I probably should.”

  She thought about Polly having to face a stranger over the breakfast table while her overtired and possibly bitchy friends giggled and whispered. “Yeah. That’s probably best. I don’t want you to go if it’s not going to be safe, though.”

  “I have four-wheel drive. I’ll be okay.”

  They both stood without moving until Effie took the two steps toward him and Mitchell met her halfway. She kissed him. Slowly at first. Then harder when his mouth opened and his arms went around her.

  “You really shouldn’t go out in this weather,” Effie said.

  Mitchell studied her quietly for a moment. “I can take the couch.”

  “You don’t have to...” Effie paused at the look on his face. “I mean, I have a guest room.”

  Mitchell kissed her again, then hugged her close. He said against her cheek, “It’s not that I don’t want you.”

  Effie laughed and nuzzled against his neck for a second, thinking of kissing him again. Or nudging her knee between his thighs and sliding her hands down his sides to cup his ass. She could seduce him. She’d already done it once, right? But Polly was here, along with a bunch of other people’s kids, and Effie had long made a point about not fucking strangers with her child in the vicinity.

  “God, I really do want you,” Mitchell said before Effie could answer him. “But with the kids all here...”

  “We don’t have to have sex, Mitchell. You can sleep in the guest room or the couch, your choice. But the guest room is way more comfortable.”

  Down the hall, she showed him the spare room and gave him fresh towels. A toothbrush from her supply of extras. A pair of sweatpants that were too big for her.

  He kissed her in the doorway when she turned to leave, and Effie let it linger until Mitchell had backed her up against the wall and her breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes, feeling his hands. His mouth. His tongue. And yeah, there it was, the press of heat and hardness on her belly.

  She opened her eyes. “Good night, Mitchell.”

  “Yeah,” he said after a second, his voice raspy rough. “Good night.”

  He left a note on her pillow in the morning, saying he’d snuck out before any of the girls could wake. He would call her soon. He’d put the borrowed sweatpants and the used linens in the laundry room. Mitchell’s handwriting was painfully neat and straight, nary a stray loop or slant. It was sweet, his intentions. His consideration.

  How long, Effie thought with a shudder, had he stood over her, watching her sleep?

  chapter thirty-five

  The house is big and quiet and, damn, she’ll admit it, lonely. Effie had insisted on having her own bedroom in the apartment, but it had been a pretense. She’d slept in Heath’s double bed or he in hers every night, waking in a tangle of arms and legs, often with Polly tucked up somewhere between them. In this house that her father’s death allowed her to buy, Effie has a king-size bed. She’d thought stretching out, waking up alone without an elbow in her side or stinking morning breath gusting over her face would be luxurious.

  All she feels is alone. She didn’t sleep well, either. Every small noise and creak had left her wide-eyed and straining in the darkness, trying to figure out the source of the sound.

  The worst had been the dreams. Back in the basement, the overhead scratch of Daddy’s footsteps, the orange light and then the glare. The sharp pieces of glass and ceramic stuck into the concrete floor. The stink. The fuzzy, blurry feeling in her head that had taken so long to get rid of.

  Effie has never been so happy to see the sun rise. She’s up and showered and making breakfast when Polly’s tousled blond head peeks around the kitchen doorway. The little girl carefully navigates the four steps down into the kitchen from the hall, biting her lip as she rubs her eyes and looks around the kitchen.

  “Where’s Heath?”

  Effie turns from the pan where she’s making scrambled eggs. “Pollywog, Mommy and Heath talked to you about this. About how you and I were going to live in this house, and Heath was going to live in his house. But you’ll still see him all the time.”

  Polly’s lip quivers, but she nods and doesn’t cry. She eats her breakfast more quietly than usual, though, and later in the afternoon she voluntarily takes a nap, something she hasn’t done in about two years. Effie pauses outside the door to listen to the soft huffing of her daughter’s breathing, and she gives in to tears she stifles with both hands clapped over her mouth.

  She and Heath have no formal custody agreement. He’s not Polly’s father. He and Effie weren’t married. Still, single parenthood has turned out to be harder than Effie ever imagined, and when Heath offers to take Polly for a weekend visit to give Effie time to work on her painting, she takes him up on it so she can have some time to herself. Polly looks so small next to Heath’s lanky, towering six-foot-five frame that Effie has to turn so she doesn’t watch them walk away.

  She spends Friday night and Saturday painting, working on finishing enough stock so she can open her Craftsy store with enough inventory to keep her from feeling stressed out. Optimistically, Effie hopes to have a steady stream of orders, enough so she doesn’t have to go back to working part-time jobs to support herself and Polly. It’s not vanity. She knows there are collectors who’ll be willing to buy her paintings. Maybe not for as much as that first one sold for, the one she actually drew in the basement, but these others will go. She feels it.

  By Saturday night, Effie’s hands are cramping and her head spins from the scent of the solution she uses to clean her brushes. She has paint grimed into every surface of her skin. She’s tired and thirsty and hungry and the paintings have stirred up an array of emotions she knows are probably good for the art but are hell on her sanity. If she were with Heath, she would take him to bed and slap his face and make him pull her hair while he fucked her. He would mutter her name in that pleading tone and she would come and come and come, and forget everything but that pleasure. She’d be able to get lost, at least for a little while.

  She can’t call him. Not for sex. They’ve only barely begun talking again after the fight about her moving out.

  Effie has slept with two men in her life. Heath, her first. Bill, her second. Tonight, she thinks, she would like to find a third.

  It’s both easier and more difficult than she expects. For one thing, she celebrated her twenty-first birthday nursing a toddler with an ear infection. Effie hasn’t spent a lot of time hanging out in bars, especially not alone. For another, she’s not very good at flirting. It’s like a complicated dance with a lot of fancy steps, and she’s stuck doing the back-and-forth shuffle.

  The easy part is finding a guy who offers to buy her drinks. The hard part is getting him to offer to take her home. Effie took a cab to the bar, a local divey sort of place, for the sole purpose of not having to worry about her car. But after three gin-and-tonics and a round of darts, her “beau” is showing no signs of wanting to get frisky.

  Finally, when the bartender is announcing last call, Effie decides to go for it. Jason, his name is, looks surprised when she asks him for a ride home, but then a sly sort of grin tips his mouth. In his car, when he asks her where to go, she gives him that same sort of grin.

  The sex is fumbling but adequate. Her orgasm comes at her own hand while he fucks her from behind, but she does manage one. After, Jason is gracious and offers the use of his shower.

  “You can’t stay, though. I mean, I’ll give you cab fare. It’s pretty late.” He runs a hand over his hair. His smile this time is guilty. “I...um... Look, I should’ve told you before. I have a girlfriend.”

  Effie doesn’t need his cab fare and she doesn’t want to sleep over, and she really doesn’t want to see him again. She frowns at his admission, though. “Oh.”

  �€