Page 88 of Shelter from the Storm

They’d invited Edith and Manny to eat with them today, but Edith was at a holiday craft fair in Leesburg with some friends, and Manny had joined her, offering to serve as driver and bag carrier for the elderly women. Manny was as protective of his aunt as she was of him. It was one of the sweetest relationships Theo had ever seen.

Jace and Mila were hanging out with him and Gretchen in the living room. A football game played on TV, even though none of them had a vested interest in either team.

“Where were you guys last night?” Mila asked. “You missed a fun night bowling.”

“We had dinner with Edith, then stuck around to watch a movie,” Theo replied.

Edith had been missing Gretchen. Over a week had passed since the Briggs showdown, yet he and Gretchen continued to share the cabin, neither of them quite ready to separate. The sex was incredible and addictive. The pull he felt toward Gretchen wasn’t a mere tug anymore. He was locked in a vise grip so tight he’d never break free. Never want to break free.

Gretchen had admitted a few days ago that she’d never experienced so much lust in her life. He had to agree. In some ways, they were almost feral, coming together in a rush of passion and heat every single night. Hell, he’d had so much sex over the past week, his dick was sore, but that didn’t stop the damn thing from getting hard enough to drive nails into concrete every time Gretchen took her clothes off.

Ten weeks.

Gretchen had arrived in Gracemont ten weeks ago, and it had truly been the best seventy days of his damn life.

Theo wanted nothing more than for the two of them to remain in that cabin for the rest of their lives, raising a brood of kids and living happily ever after.

But Gretchen wasn’t there yet.

She had feelings for him, that much he knew, and he was certain she was starting to understand how serious he was about the two of them going the distance.

However, as she’d explained last night as they were driving back from Edith’s, she’d never really been on her own. She had been dragged from her childhood home to the residential home to Briggs’s house. And while her single-girl pad wasn’t an apartment, but a room in Edith’s home, it felt like her first taste of true independence. She was supporting herself financially and making her own decisions.

Theo got it. He hated it, but he got it. She’d never felt any sense of control over her own life, and considering her only experience in a committed relationship was with a grooming, abusive asshole, he could understand why she didn’t realize she would still be free to do those things in a relationship with him. In her mind, committed relationships didn’t include freedom.

Theo would never break those wings she was just now beginning to spread, but this was another one of those damn “have patience” things, because telling her he wouldn’t hold her back wasn’t as effective as showing her.

So, they agreed that after tonight, they would return to their normal lives. He’d move back into his room at the farmhouse, and she’d return to Edith’s.

“Oh my God,” Gretchen exclaimed, digging her phone out of her back pocket. “I have to show you Edith’s invitation to dinner last night,” she said to Mila and Jace, who muted the game. “It’s hilarious.”

Theo chuckled, because Gretchen had shown him the text yesterday, the two of them puzzling for ages over why Edith had sent it.

“I made the mistake of teaching Edith how to use emoticons in texts. Originally, she wanted to know how to make the heart or thumbs-up over people’s comments.” Gretchen and Theo shared an amused look. “I should have stopped there, but I didn’t.”

Theo jerked his thumb toward Gretchen. “She created a monster.”

“Yesterday, she sent me this.” Gretchen clicked on the text, then turned the screen toward Jace and Mila.

Mila’s eyes widened, while Jace frowned in confusion.

“Why the hell would she send you that?” he asked.

Gretchen laughed. “Right? Theo and I asked when we got to her house what she’d been trying to tell me with the peach and eggplant text.”

“What did she say?” Mila asked, grinning widely.

Theo imitated Edith. “She put on her reading glasses, squinted at the screen, and said she thought the peach was a tomato. It was her way of telling us we were having eggplant parmesan for dinner.”

“Jesus!” Jace howled with laugher. “Did you explain what those symbols stand for?”

“Oh sure, Jace,” Gretchen replied sardonically. “I’m totally going to tell my eighty-two-year-old roomie she basically texted me that she wanted sex.”

They laughed loud enough and long enough that several other Storm family members came into the living room to see what was so funny. After retelling the story three more times, Theo had laughed so much his stomach hurt.

“Before I forget,” Mila said to Gretchen. “We’re doing a girls’ night out on Wednesday at Whiskey Abbey. You’re coming.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “You’re getting as demanding as Remi. Maybe I have plans with my girl.”

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