Make Me Yours (Bellamy Creek #2) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,33
always had to wash and dry the wedding china on holidays before we went to bed. It took forever.”
“I’d stay and help you, sis, but I have to get Blair home. Sorry.” Griffin gave her a grin that said he wasn’t the least bit sorry, and Cheyenne stuck her tongue out at him.
“Cole, why don’t you stay and give Cheyenne a hand?” My mother suggested, wrapping her scarf around her neck.
“That’s a great idea,” Darlene said brightly. Then she sort of bent over and rubbed one hip, her expression agonized. “I’d help her myself but I’ve been on my feet a lot today and the doctor said that isn’t good for my joints.”
“You should just get to bed, Darlene,” my mother said, shepherding Mariah toward the front door. “Cole will be more than happy to stay and help Cheyenne.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Cheyenne smiled at me and shook her head. “I can handle them.”
But Darlene beamed at me, reaching over and snatching my coat out of my hands. “That’s so nice of you, Cole. I’ll just hang this in the front closet.” Before she left the room, she and my mother exchanged a look that had me wondering if the whole helping-with-the-dishes thing had been a setup.
Either way, ten minutes later Cheyenne and I were pushing up our sleeves in the kitchen, the house dark and silent except for the running faucet and the hum of the dishwasher.
“I’ll wash, you dry?” she asked, adding dish soap to the side of the sink she’d plugged and lined with a towel.
“Sure.”
She took a plate from the stack to her left and placed it in the warm soapy water. “Oh! I almost forgot.” Slipping her rings and bracelets off, she set them on the windowsill above the sink. “So I don’t scratch anything,” she explained.
“Oh.” I glanced down at my wedding ring.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to take it off.”
“It’s fine,” I said, working it off my finger and placing it on the sill next to her jewelry. For some reason, I felt compelled to explain why I still wore it all the time. “Mariah once told me she likes when I wear it, so . . .”
“I think it’s nice,” she said. “I like a guy who wears his ring. It says something about him, you know?”
I nodded, my attraction to her growing even stronger. “Still, we’d better be careful with these dishes.”
“Damn right, we’d better,” she deadpanned. “This is my fucking wedding china, Cole. If we even look at it wrong, I might end up a spinster.” She laughed as she gently scrubbed the plate with a cloth. “My God. Is she not totally ridiculous?”
“She’s pretty bad,” I agreed, taking the plate from her and carefully drying it with the soft clean towel she’d given me. “But mine wasn’t much better tonight. Did you have the feeling something was up between them as we were saying goodnight?”
“Yes,” she said. “And it’s probably my fault because I made the mistake of telling my mom you bought me dinner last night. In her mind, I believe we are now betrothed.”
I laughed. “That’s all it takes, huh?”
“Apparently. Tomorrow I’ll be pregnant because we washed dishes together after dark.”
“Wow. Guess I should have worn the rubber gloves.”
She snort-laughed. “Right.”
“Good thing they don’t know about the phone call last night.”
Her body tensed, and then she giggled shyly. “Um, yes. A very good thing.”
We worked in silence for a minute, during which I was entirely too aware of how close she stood.
“I thought it might be weird today,” she said, her voice a little quieter. A confession. “Seeing you.”
“I worried about that too.”
“But . . . it wasn’t.” She handed me another plate. “I mean, maybe it was a little weird sitting next to you at the table with our families right there, because I kept thinking about it, even though I was trying not to—”
“Same,” I confessed.
She stopped what she was doing and looked over at me. “Really? You were thinking about it too?”
“Every fucking minute.” The tension between us pulled taut, and I knew I had to say something to diffuse it or I’d end up kissing her. I cleared my throat. “But you were right.”
“About what?”
I focused on drying the plate in my hand, even though it was already dry. “About staying friends.”
“Oh. Of course,” she said, starting to wash the same dish again. “Absolutely. Friends.”
“Which is why we can’t—shouldn’t—mess around.”
“No. Definitely not.” She handed me the plate without looking at me.