Page 52 of Castaway Whirlwind
“It’s ok. You know I don’t mind cleaning.” She even gives me a wink, which is why I feel comfortable saddling up behind her to kiss her neck and wrap my arm around her waist.
“Too bad they’re here and the baby’s awake. If you wanted to—onlyif you wanted to—I’d…”
She drops her head back, slipping her fingers between mine and pulling my arm tighter around her. “You’d what, Daddy?”
When she arches her neck, I kiss the edge of her jaw. “I’d pay you to wash the dishes after taking off your sexy little—”
“Pay her for what?”
“Heck.” I turn, finding Max scrubbing a towel over his wet hair with the shower still running in the bathroom, which is why we didn’t hear him come out.
“Nothing. It was a joke,” Layla says, giving Max a strained smile while loading the dishwasher.
“Sure.” Max tosses his towel on the bed and then digs through his suitcase, pulling a gray T-shirt and black athletic shorts on over his boxers, which I really hope were clean and not the ones he’d been wearing all day. “You don’t need to do all that,” he says to his sister. “Cora will take care of it.”
“Or you could, since it’s partly your mess,” I challenge with a raised brow.
Max laughs as if I said something outrageously funny. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.”
Cora comes out next, buck naked other than the towel she’s patting across her chest to her armpit. “Oh, shit,” she squeaks, quickly covering herself. “I didn’t know y’all were back already.”
I immediately turn around, having never wanted to see any woman other than Layla naked for the rest of my life.
“What were you thinking? Get back in there and get dressed,” Max snaps at Cora, his earlier humor gone.
For a split second, Layla’s face falls, but then she locks down her reaction and starts tidying the rest of the kitchen silently.
“Speak up, darlin’,” I encourage.
She drops a plate too hard in the dishwasher. “It’s fine.”
“You know it’s not.”
She holds my gaze for a beat, twisting her hands before saying to her brother, “Don’t snap at Cora. It’s not her fault.”
With Cora tucked out of view in the bathroom, I turn to see Max’s brows shoot up, taken aback, confirming what I knew within minutes of meeting him—Layla wasn’t the only one whose head was filled with their dad’s bullcrap.
* * *
While Layla and I sit on her bed with our bowls of the Tuscan kale soup I made for dinner, Cora gets up from the table every few minutes to bounce Gauge around the apartment—all ten feet of available space. I’d feel guilty about letting him nap so long in the truck, disturbing any sleep schedule they might have, if I hadn’t had to babysit him at the diner for so long.
Layla looks at Max several times, as do I, wondering when he’s going to jump in and take a turn as Cora’s soup grows cold. When he doesn’t, Layla quickly finishes her bowl, then reaches for Gauge. “You sit and eat. I’ve got him.”
“Thank you,” Cora says with genuine gratitude, shooting Max an annoyed look but ultimately remaining quiet.
I rinse mine and Layla’s bowls and spoons, then turn to leanagainst the kitchen counter with my arms and ankles crossed. “This isn’t going to work.”
“It’s fine,” Layla says, flashing me wide eyes, silently telling me to stop. She might have spoken up earlier, but she won’t be able to deconstruct everything she was taught in one night.
“I meant the apartment. Not enough space for everyone.”
Layla is quick to say, “I can make a pallet on the floor. I don’t mind.”
“You’re not sleeping on the floor, darlin’. Now that Jake and Jack have been taken care of and the bedroom door has been replaced, we can move back to our house.”
She frowns down at Gauge. “I really don’t mind.” Of course, she doesn’t.She doesn’t want to leave her nephew.
I rub my hand down my face, tugging on the end of my beard before I reluctantly offer, “We have plenty of bedrooms to spare if you want them to stay with us.”
