He hesitated before unbuttoning his jeans. He hadn’t slept in anything other than his underwear since college. He didn’t even own a pair of pajama bottoms. First thing in the morning, he was buying a pair. No, twenty pair. Maybe thirty just to be safe.
A moment later he lay down so close to the edge of the bed that his left shoulder hung off the side. His awkward position was still not uncomfortable enough to block out the scent of her on his pillow. It smelled warm and feminine and faintly of peppermint.
He lay there stiffly, eyes resolutely closed, keenly aware that she too was still awake. He searched for something to say. “I never knew you liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Damn, was he smooth or what?
He heard her roll over in the dark and prop herself up on her elbow. “Doesn’t everyone?”
He turned just his head to look at her, but found himself eye to eye with Peyton. Her tiny face was seven inches from his. Her lips pursed as she dreamed about eating. He remembered his niece doing that, from all those long years ago when he used to help feed his sister’s kids. Lacey would be in college now. He felt a powerful punch of longing. The kind he normally kept buried deep inside. To push it back down, he rolled up onto his elbow to look at Wendy.
At least he understood the longing he felt when he looked at her. Pure sexual desire. He got that. He could control it—at least, he thought he could. God knew, he’d controlled it so far. But this unfamiliar longing to reconnect with his family? That was new and terrifying territory.
He doubled his pillow under his head, allowing him to look over Peyton to where Wendy lay. She’d moved the night-light in from the nursery, a glowing hippo that cast the room in pink light and made Wendy’s skin look nearly iridescent. When he looked back up at her eyes, her gaze darted away from his, as if she was all too aware of the desire pulsing through his veins.
He could see she was about to lie back down, so he said, “No, not everyone loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Most people don’t even know they were a witty and subversive comic book before becoming a fairly cheesy movie marketed to kids.”
She gave a playful shrug, smiling, either because the topic amused her or because she was relieved he’d stopped looking at her like something he wanted to lick clean, he couldn’t tell which.
“That’s me, I guess.” She imitated his hushed tone, obviously no more willing to wake Peyton than he was. “A fan of things witty and subversive.”
“Yeah, I get that. What I don’t get is how I never knew it until now.”
“Oh.” She gave another shrug, this one self-effacing.
“For five years, you’ve dressed like the consummate, bland executive assistant.” Whispering in the dark as if this made the conversation far more intimate than the topic was. “Bland clothing in a neutral palate. Demure hair. Now I find out you’ve been hiding a love of violet nail polish and eighties indie punk rock.” He nodded toward her boxers. “Not to mention the Turtles.”
She frowned. “Punk rock?”
“The Replacements T-shirt you had on the other day.”
“You recognized them?” She gave him a pointed once-over. “And yet you don’t seem like a fan of eighties alternative.”
“I’m a fan of Google. And you couldn’t possibly have been old enough to attend the concert where that T-shirt was sold.”
“I’m a fan of eBay. And of defying expectations.”
“Which brings me back to my original question. Why didn’t I know this about you?”
She paused, seeming to consider the question for a long time. Then she sank back and stared at the ceiling. He watched her, lying there with her eyes open as she gazed into the dark, long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer at all.
Finally she said softly, “Working at FMJ…” Her shoulders gave a twitch, as if she was shrugging off her pensive mood. “I guess it’s been the ultimate rebellion for me. When you’re from an old oil family, what’s worse than working for a company that’s made their money in green energy.”
“We do a lot of other things too,” he pointed out.
“Well, sure.” She rolled back to face him. “But even then, it’s all about innovation and change. My family is all about tradition. Maybe when I was working for FMJ, I never felt like I needed to rebel.”
He felt his heart stutter as he heard her slip. When I was working for FMJ, she’d said. Not now that I am working for FMJ, but when I was. But she didn’t seem to notice, so he let it pass without comment.
“Working at FMJ,” she continued, her voice almost dreamy, “I felt like I had direction. Purpose. I didn’t need to define myself by dying my hair blue or getting my navel pierced or getting a tattoo.”