Page 13 of Phoenix

“You like a little bit of coffee with your creamer,” Riggs teased.

“Yeah, I just need the caffeine to get rid of this awful headache, but I’m not a fan. I either drink tea or water when I get up in the morning,” she admitted.

He pulled a frying pan out of a cabinet near the stove and got to work making her some breakfast. “Don’t go to too much trouble, Riggs.”

“It’s not any trouble,” he assured.

“Did Aggie say when she’d be home?” she asked. “I have to work tonight.”

“She didn’t know what time she’d be home. I promised that I’d watch Lydia if she didn’t get back in time for your first shift,” Riggs said.

“I can’t ask you to do that, Riggs,” she insisted. She didn’t know what she’d do if Aggie didn’t show up on time for her to leave for work, but she hated to impose on Riggs.

“You didn’t ask, I offered,” he simply said. “Any more questions?” he asked.

“Um, yeah—how did I get in your bed without any pants?” she asked. He turned and looked her up and down and smiled when she tried to pull her sweater down to hide her legs.

“I like that you didn’t bother to put your pants back on,” he said.

“Well, they’re really hard to put on,” she insisted.

“Yeah, they were hard to get off too,” he said. She could feel her cheeks heat and she knew that they were probably bright red.

“Why was I in your bed?” she asked.

“I’ve already explained all that, honey. I wanted to keep an eye on you in case you got sick,” he repeated.

“So, nothing happened?” she asked.

“No, nothing happened,” he promised. “I would never take advantage of you while you were passed out, honey. That’s not who I am. Plus, when we have sex, you’ll know it because you will be fully awake and screaming out my name.”

Once again, her cheeks heated, and she stared at him as though he had lost his ever-loving mind. “You said, ‘When we have sex’. You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

He shrugged, “I’m confident it’s going to happen,” he admitted. “I think that we had chemistry last night at the bar. And you’re legal now, so there’s that.”

“I believe that eighteen is the legal age,” she said. “Plus, I told you that age is just a number.”

She sat down at the table and covered her face with her hands. “God, what Aggie must think about me. She probably believes that I’m a whore who’ll go home with the first guy who asks me,” she grumbled. Phoenix hated that she had to live with that same stigma while she was a pregnant, single woman. Everyone looked at her with so much pity that she wanted to scream at them to stop. What if Aggie started looking at her that way? She’d never be able to face her grandma again.

“Aggie didn’t even bring up you being here. She asked if you were, and I told her yes, and she left Lydia and went to the hospital. She wasn’t concerned about if we slept together or not, and you shouldn’t be stressing over any of this,” he insisted.

“Please don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t stress over,” she spat. “My grandmother found me having a sleepover at your house. I’m betting that she thinks we’ve slept together now.”

“Mrs. Aggie is the coolest grandma I’ve ever met. I’m betting that she doesn’t care if we sleep in the same bed or not. But honey, I’m telling you that nothing happened. Would it be so bad if it did?” She wanted to insist that it would be bad if they had sex since she had sworn off men, but there was something about Riggs that had her wanting to throw her stupid rule of swearing off men right down the drain.

“I can’t do this right now,” she mumbled. “Thanks for getting me home, well, almost home, safely. I’m going to take Lydia back to Aggie’s and put her down for a nap. I have my first shift at Savage Hell tonight, and I don’t want to screw it up. I need this job.” What she really needed was a hot bath and a few more cups of coffee to help clear her head, but he didn’t need to know that. Phoenix needed to put some distance between them so that her brain could start firing on all cylinders again because she wasn’t thinking straight while being in the same room with him.

“You don’t have to leave, honey,” he insisted.

“It’s for the best.” She picked up her daughter and grabbed the diaper bag from the family room. “I’ll just grab my pants and shoes later,” she said.

“You can’t go out there with no pants on, Phoenix,” he said.

“Sure, I can,” she insisted, “it looks like I’m wearing a sweater dress anyway.”

“At least go out the back door,” he said. “You’ll have more privacy that way.” She wanted to ask Riggs if he was embarrassed by her, but she was afraid of what his answer might be, so she didn’t. Phoenix simply nodded and walked to the back door. She was going to exchange some pleasantries, like see ya’ later, or something stupid like that—but she didn’t. Instead, Phoenix walked out the screen door, letting it slam shut behind her as she took her daughter home. Her walk of shame might look different now, with a baby attached to her hip, but it still felt the same—sex or no sex.

Riggs

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