Pieces of You(56)

“Hurry up and eat so you can get ready for Claire. You don’t want her to smell you like that.”

“Seriously, Mom. Don’t start with this. I already told you Claire has a boyfriend.”

“So she says. I’ve never seen her with him. I’m practically her mother. If she’s so serious about him, she should bring him here to meet me.”

“You’d better not tell her to bring him here unless you want me to end up in jail.”

She purses her lips as she fluffs a pillow to put under my leg. “You will not do a thing if she brings him here. Claire is allowed to move on, though I really don’t see how she can just throw you and your child away like that.”

“She didn’t throw our child away.” I snatch the pillow from her hands before she can attempt to place it under my leg, and she throws me a surprised look. “If you say anything like that to her today, I swear to God I’m getting a hotel room tonight.”

“You’re not getting a hotel room.”

I shake my head at her and she rolls her eyes as she leaves the room. I can already feel I’m going to regret asking Claire to come today.

I eat my breakfast then shower and get ready. As I look in the mirror at the tattoo on my chest, I imagine taking Claire aside to show it to her. She traces the letters and I shiver at the sensation of her fingertip on my skin; something I’ve been craving so badly for the past year has turned into an obsession since I saw her again two months ago. I press my lips to her fingertips then lay a soft trail of kisses all the way up her arm until I reach her shoulder. Her perfect shoulders. Then I taste the skin on her neck and she moans softly. That’s when I take her face in mine and kiss her the way only I can kiss her.

Fuck. I want her so fucking bad. Rachel’s right. I have to man-up and tell her.

The doorbell rings and I pull on my T-shirt. I grab my crutches and hobble out of the bathroom. When I reach the top of the staircase, my mom is leaning out the front door, hugging someone.

“Let her in,” I say from the top of the stairs.

My mom lets go and opens the front door wider, but it’s not Claire.

“Come on in, honey,” my mom says, beckoning the girl inside.

Her loose, light-brown curls are pulled back into a neat ponytail that tumbles down her back. She looks a bit timid as she steps inside and flashes me a shy smile. Something about her looks very familiar.

“This is my new assistant manager at the shop,” my mom continues. “Do you recognize her?”

I do my little hop routine down the stairs until I reach the foyer to get a better look at this girl. She looks very uncomfortable as I look her over, taking in her round brown eyes and full lips. I can’t tell if she’s wearing makeup and she’s dressed pretty plainly in jeans and a black T-shirt bearing the bakery logo.

“Melina?”

Her eyes light up when she smiles. “I can’t believe you remember my name.”

I can’t believe I remember it either. She stayed with us for less than three months when I was fourteen. She was twelve and I tried my hardest to stay away from her because I was going through all sorts of changes. Girls were just beginning to change from pests to conquests and I didn’t want to go there with her. She was incredibly awkward—braces, frizzy hair, hand-me-down clothes.

She’s still a little awkward, but only in the way she carries herself, not in her appearance.

My mom closes the door behind Melina. “Come on in, hun. I have that cake stand in the kitchen.”

I’m tempted to watch her as they walk into the kitchen, but I restrain myself, which is a good thing because right then the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it!” I shout toward the kitchen.

I open the door and Claire is standing on the doorstep looking more beautiful than ever. Her soft blonde hair hangs loose over her shoulders and she’s wearing a regular pair of skinny jeans, but it’s the shirt that makes me want to take her upstairs and rip her clothes off.

I stare at the shirt for a moment, incapable of tearing my eyes away. “You cannot do this to me.”

“Do what? Senia gave this to me a couple of days ago and I thought we’d get a good laugh out of it.”

She steps inside and I sigh as I get a closer look at the Chris Knight T-shirt she’s wearing.

“Where’s your mom?” she asks as she sets her purse and car keys down on the small table in the foyer.

I want to pull her into the coat closet and slip my hands under her shirt, but then a dark thought hits me. Maybe she only wore the shirt so my mom doesn’t go ballistic on her over Abigail.

“She’s in the kitchen with one of her employees. Come upstairs with me. I want to show you something.”