him. “It’s still salty.”
We laid together for a while, just gently exploring each other’s bodies. My skin was hyper-sensitive, and just having Noah drag his fingers across the sides of my hips and waist felt better than full-blown sex with the last few men I’d slept with.
We didn’t sleep much. It was probably only shortly before dawn that we finally ran out of energy and collapsed into a tangled, naked, beautiful mess.
When I woke up, it wasn’t because Naomi was pounding on the door. I woke up because she was standing at the side of the bed and looking at us. She was holding her stuffed panda bear tight against her chest.
My eyes locked onto hers. She had the same deep blue eyes as Noah. She tilted her head at me and waved. “Good morning, Miss Lacey Larsen.”
Thank God the sheets were up over our bodies, and she could only see my head. I was naked beneath the sheets.
Noah must have just woken up and seen her now, because I felt his body stiffen against mine.
“Naomi,” he said, his voice sounding as guilty as I’d ever heard it. “What—what’s up?”
“Um,” she said. “I’m hungry. Did you and Miss Lacey Larsen have a sleepover?”
“Yes,” he said. “We did.”
Naomi looked us over. “Can I sleepover next time too?”
I smiled nervously. “It’s a grown-up sleepover.”
She frowned. “Okay. Can we eat now?”
“Yeah,” Noah said, “we’ll be down in just a minute. Then we’ll go to the buffet. Sound good?”
Naomi nodded. She took her panda by the hand and dragged it out of the room.
Noah jumped out of bed and shut the door. “Shit.”
“She was going to find out sooner or later.”
He paced back and forth. “I didn’t want her to find out like this.”
I honestly felt relieved, but I could tell Noah was upset. I didn’t like lying to Naomi or hiding things from her. Having her find us like this felt like just ripping a bandage off, and the hardest part was already over now.
“It will be okay,” I said.
Noah sat down on the bed, and I took his hand, then sat up next to him. I rested my head on his shoulder. I spoke in a soft voice, right near his ear. “I, um, I know it’s only been a few days. We never really talked about what has been going on. Not exactly. I feel scared to put myself out there like this, but if it makes you feel better, I really like you. I feel happy when I’m with you, especially when I’m with you and Naomi. I don’t know where exactly this is going, but I just know that every time I think about it going somewhere, I feel good and safe. When I think about it not going anywhere, I get this tight feeling in my stomach. A bad feeling. I don’t like to think that way. I like to look at the glass as half full. Or all the way full maybe. Yeah, this thing with you feels like an all-the-way-full glass.”
His jaw clenched, but he nodded as I spoke. “I feel the same way, Lacey, and it scares me.”
“It doesn’t have to be scary.”
“I don’t want to hurt her. Or you.”
“I’m a big girl. I don’t want to hurt Naomi either.”
“I’ll talk to her,” he said, standing up. “You can shower first.”
I got in the shower while Noah went down to watch Naomi. When I finished, I went to my room and put on another outfit I’d been excited to try on. It was a long denim skirt that went down to the middle of my ankles, and the front of the skirt had about a dozen buttons running all the way from the waistline down to the bottom. The skirt was high-waisted, going all the way up to the narrowest part of my waist. I wore it with a black, shoulderless, long-sleeved shirt of thin fabric. The shirt was slightly asymmetric, going up a little bit higher on my left shoulder than my right, and it just barely made it down to the waistline of the skirt, so when I moved around it would occasionally show a hint of my midriff.
I went downstairs, and Noah had made coffee for both of us. My mug was steaming hot on the counter. I took a sip. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said. “I’m going to shower now.”
He went upstairs, and Naomi looked at me, but didn’t say anything.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“You were in the same bed with Daddy.