11

ERICK WOKE UP on Wednesday morning to the prettiest sight he’d ever seen in his life. The first hints of dawn had started peeking over the trees and spreading sunlight across the lake. And there was Clover, her pale hair down and around her shoulders, kneeling on the edge of the bed with a white sheet wrapped around her, watching the sunrise through the wall of windows in front of their bed. As she watched the sunrise, he watched her.

A long slant of light slid across the dock and slipped into the bottom set of windows. The white sheets turned gold, and like a cat, Clover stretched out into the light, lying on her side and facing the lake. Erick crawled over to her and without a word spooned up behind her, kissing her naked neck and shoulders. They were leaving the cabin in a couple hours so they should make the most of the bed and the view and each other while they could.

“You’re in the manly way again,” Clover said.

“Am I? Sorry. It’s all the cedar,” he said, and she chuckled.

She started to roll over to face him and he stopped her with a hand on her hip.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “Don’t miss the sunrise. First good one we’ve had all week.”

Clover stayed on her side facing the windows and Erick kept kissing her back and running his fingers through her hair. No doubt about it, he was hopelessly addicted to this woman. He’d been relieved to an embarrassing degree yesterday when Clover said she wanted to keep seeing him after this week. He congratulated himself on playing it cool, but he’d been dancing with happiness on the inside. As long as he could get through Thanksgiving without doing something spectacularly stupid like calling all her immediate family assholes to their faces, they could maybe, just maybe, have something very special here.

Erick ran his hand over Clover’s soft stomach and her hips and thighs. She breathed softly and with pleasure at his touch. He’d done everything he could to help her make up for lost time this week. There wasn’t an inch of her body he hadn’t touched or kissed, a sexual position they hadn’t at least attempted or a fantasy they hadn’t talked about. He couldn’t believe she’d actually tied his hands to the bed yesterday after they got back from rowing. Most women he’d dated had been uncomfortable with that sort of thing, which he told Clover. She’d replied, saying, “How will I know if I like it or not unless I try it at least once?” And since he didn’t have a good answer to that question, they’d blissfully decided to try it all.

But this morning all he wanted to do was make love to her while the sun rose and the lake woke up all around them. He lifted Clover’s leg and draped it back over his thigh. With his fingers he tested her wetness, making sure she was ready for him. They’d had sex late last night and she still felt damp and open. She took his fingers inside her easily and with a soft moan of pleasure. He rubbed the head of his cock against her outer lips as he teased her clitoris with his fingers. Just as the sun flooded the room with light, he entered her deeply and with a long slow thrust.

He groaned as he went into her. Her heat was pure bliss wrapped around his cock. In this position he couldn’t thrust hard or fast, which was fine by him. He thrust gently and leisurely instead, taking all the time in the world because he could do this the rest of his life as long as it was with Clover.

“You’re so hot inside,” he whispered into her ear between sucks and nibbles on her earlobe. “I love your pussy.”

“It loves you,” she said.

He slid his other arm under and around her and took both of her breasts in his hands and squeezed them as he pumped his hips into her. Clover moaned, arching her back to take more of him. Erick loved how much she loved his cock and wasn’t afraid to show it and say it and enjoy every inch of it. As the sun showed its full face over the top of the tree line and the glorious peak of Mount Hood glowed in the distance, Erick rolled onto his back, dragging Clover with him and on top of him. He licked his two fingers and rubbed her where they joined. She was so wet, wet and swollen, swollen and throbbing. With his other hand he pinched her nipples lightly, caressed them, pulled them, anything to keep Clover breathing like that, like she was on the edge of coming and wanted to live on that edge. They both were at the edge of something terrifying and beautiful like that ancient active volcanic peak rising up over the lake. Erick rolled his pelvis to deepen the penetration and Clover gasped, a sound of unbridled ecstasy. He felt her orgasm on his fingertips as a thousand nerve endings exploded all at once. Hearing it and feeling it was too much. His head came off the bed and his stomach tightened to the point of pain. He lost all control and released inside her, flooding her until his own semen dripped out of her and back onto him. It was dirty and sexy all at once and he doubted Clover had any idea how much it meant to him that she let him come inside her body, how much it meant that she didn’t simply let him, that she wanted him to, that she liked it no matter how messy it was. Life was messy and he wanted life with this woman, a long and messy and happy one.

With a sigh of contentment, Clover rolled off Erick and lay on the bed with her eyes closed and a smile on her face.

“Okay,” she said. “I am now officially the happiest woman on earth.”

“That’s a relief,” he said, then licked her nipple for no other reason than it was there, it was beautiful and he could. “I can call my weird kid again. She might ask for it in writing.”

“I’ll write it down. I’ll write it down in triplicate and get it notarized. And you can go carve it in cedar—Here Lies Clover Greene, Happiest Woman on Earth.”

“Carved in cedar? That’s permanent, Clover.”

“My happiness is permanent. Nothing can bend it, break it or ruin it.”

“I can ruin it.”

“No, you can’t,” she said, looking at him through narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“I can ruin it in one sentence.”

“Try it. I dare you.”

“Okay, here goes.” Erick hated to see her happiness dissipate but he had to do it. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we have to go—”

“No, don’t say it.”

“I have to say it. We have to do it.”

Clover groaned and this time it wasn’t the happy sexy kind of groan. It was a groan of misery, pure misery.

“Say it,” she said. “Wait.” She grabbed a pillow and pulled it onto her face. “Now say it,” she said from underneath the shield of her pillow.

“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and...we have to...”

Clover groaned again.

“Go...”

The groan got louder.

“Grocery shopping.”

Clover slapped both her hands onto the top of her pillow and pressed it down onto her face as if to smother herself. Erick easily lifted the pillow off her face.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “It’s early. We’ll get dressed right now and go immediately. We can get in and out before the crowds show up. How’s that?”

“But I don’t want to get out of bed. Can’t we stay here until, I don’t know, Sunday?”

“No, we can’t. We have to at least pretend to be grown-ups. I’m a parent. I’ve gotten very good at pretending to be a grown-up. You said your parents were leaving today. They could already be on the road to Oregon. They’re going to expect turkey, yams, cranberry sauce and you and me putting on a damn good show of being happy to see them. Right?”

“You’re right. You’re definitely right,” she said as she slowly dragged herself out of bed, the sheet wrapped around her like a bath towel again. “We might as well get this over with.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“But you better have sex with me after grocery shopping,” she said as she shuffled off to the bathroom, the sheet trailing behind her like a wedding dress train.

Erick reached down and grabbed the end of the sheet, pulling it off her with her next step.

Naked, she spun around and glared at him.

“That was rude.”

“You’re going to the shower and you can’t shower in a sheet. I was only trying to help.”

Sighing and shaking her head, Clover turned around again and once more headed to the bathroom on the second floor.

“You’re lucky I’m in love with you,” she said as she started climbing the steps, naked as the day she was born. “Or I’d be offended by this boorish behavior.”

Erick rolled onto his back, smiling up at the ceiling. Knotty pine, beautifully finished, probably original. Wait.

What?

Erick sat straight up just as Clover disappeared through the bathroom door. He walked up the steps and tapped on the door.

“Clo?”

“What?” she yelled over the sound of the shower water coming on.

“Did you say you were in love with me?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, just checking.”

“Is that a problem?” she asked. He heard the sliding shower door open and close.

He shrugged. “No. No problem. But you have to stop telling me stuff like this, you know, like this.”

“Like what?”

“First, you told me you’d never had sex before while my penis was literally already inside your vagina.”

“You brought it up.”

“And then you tell me you love me on the way to the bathroom to get ready to go grocery shopping? You’re kind of burying the lede here.”

He heard more movement from inside the bathroom. The door opened and he stood back as Clover stood not only naked but soaking wet in front of him.

“I’m in love with you,” she said. “I know we’ve only been together for four days but by my calculations we’ve spent over seventy-two hours in each other’s company since Sunday evening. If your average date is four hours long—dinner and a movie, for example—then seventy-two hours is the equivalent of eighteen dates. And eighteen dates is more than enough time to decide if you’re in love with the person you’re dating. Most people know by the third date, I hear.”

“I like that you did the math.”

“I did. I’m a businesswoman. Businesswomen do the math. I realized it this morning while I was watching the sun come up and I felt so happy you were there. As beautiful as the lake is and the mountain and the trees and the sky, it was you being there that made me so happy. I thought you should know that so I told you first chance I got. Did I need to wait for a full moon or something?”

He peeked over her shoulder at her naked backside.

“Looks like a full moon to me.”

“Can I get back in the shower now?” she asked. “I’m cold.”

“I can tell. And yes, you can get back in the shower.”

“Thank you.” She turned around and started to close the door on him but he stopped it with his hand. She spun around again, hitting him with water from her hair. “Now what?”

“I—”

Clover slapped her wet hand over his mouth and, all of a sudden, he thought of another type of sex they should try.

“I don’t know what you’re going to say but I don’t want you to tell me that you love me, too,” she said. “I mean, I do, but if you said it now, I wouldn’t believe you meant it. I’d be afraid you said it because I said it. I want you to say it when you’re ready, not just because I said it. Got it?”

He nodded behind her hand.

“Good,” she said. “Do you have something to say to me that isn’t a declaration of love?”

He nodded again.

“Okay,” she said, removing her hand. “Say it.”

“I want to fuck you in the shower.”

“You can,” she said. “But not today. We’re in a hurry.”

She shut the door in his face, and he sighed the sigh of a man with an erection and nowhere to put it. But the sigh turned to a smile when he remembered this—Clover was in love with him. Well, damn.

While Clover was in the shower he pulled on his clothes and found his phone. It was only six thirty, which meant Ruthie would be asleep for, oh, five more hours at least. Now was a good time to text her since she wouldn’t see the message yet.

Clover is officially the happiest woman on earth, he typed. You aren’t allowed to give me the silent treatment anymore.

He hit Send with a smile, then set the phone down to start making coffee. He’d had his back turned to the phone for only a few seconds when it buzzed with a reply.

Good, Ruthie wrote back. Glad to hear it. I approve this message.

Why are you awake so early? he replied.

Go back to sleep, he ordered. It freaks me out when you’re awake during the day. Be a vampire like a normal teenager.

He set his phone down again, not expecting any further messages from his daughter, who had very likely stayed up all night playing violent zombie-themed video games with her brother and hadn’t yet gone to bed. But he heard the buzz again and picked up his phone.

Are you and Clover really a couple now? Ruthie had written, and Erick sensed her anxiety in the question.

No, it’s cool, she wrote back. Then she sent him another message right after. I love Clover.

Erick stared at his phone and blinked a few times. Did his child actually use the words I was wrong and I’m sorry to him? She did. It was right there in black and green.

That means a lot coming from you, he replied. I feel a great deal of fatherly affection toward you right now. I might even pay your cell phone bill without yelling at you for going over your text limit again.

I’m canceling your cell phone, he wrote back, and then took his own advice and switched the phone off. But not before Ruthie sent him one final message. Just the word No in all caps with approximately seven thousand o’s. Some days it was good to be the dad.

* * *

WITH ERICK’S HELP, Clover survived the grocery shopping trip. It was busy but not packed when they arrived and they were able to buy everything Erick said they needed before the real crowds turned up. Erick had picked up all his grilling stuff from his house and brought it over to hers, setting it up on the deck he’d repaired on Monday.

He looked right standing on her deck, setting up his Big Green Egg and waving at her when he caught her looking. He looked right on her deck, right in her house, right in her life. She hoped her family would see him the way she did. He was a good man, a good father and a good person with a big heart. It was so obvious how great he was, and yet Clover couldn’t shake the feeling that tomorrow was going to be a disaster. Her family didn’t say what they meant like Ruthie and Erick did. They spoke in a sort of code that disguised insults as compliments and questions as disapproval. Her mother had mastered the art of smiling and asking, “You’re wearing that?” in such a way that those three words conveyed better than a billboard the message, “You aren’t wearing that, ever, not if I have anything to do with it and it’s your funeral if you do because you’ll be dead to me.” It was actually pretty impressive how much subtext her parents and her siblings could fit into so few words.

She couldn’t think about that now. She thought about salad instead as she made a grape-and-walnut salad from a recipe she’d found on the internet. Erick had made a list of all the Thanksgiving basics and he’d promised to help her make them. Except for the brownies for dessert. Those she could make with her eyes closed. Her nieces and nephews would be thrilled to have Aunt Clover’s brownies and ice cream for dessert while everyone else ate pumpkin pie. She’d never made a pumpkin pie before but Erick swore to her it was easy as, well, pie. He’d made them every year for Ruthie’s school’s fall festival since it was Ruthie’s favorite dessert. Another thing to love about Erick—he was a great dad to Ruthie. Maybe other men wouldn’t be comfortable raising a girl on their own, learning to bake pies for school events and going to PTA meetings, but Erick didn’t seem to mind. He’d said he hated the term Mr. Mom because it implied that fathers who cooked and cleaned and helped with homework were exceptions instead of what they should be—the rule. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Erick had survived raising a complicated and difficult child with a penchant for arson all on his own and had come out on the other side with a healthy sense of humor and a daughter who’d put her pyromaniac ways behind her. If anyone could survive running the gauntlet of her family on Thanksgiving it was Erick.

The only question was...would she survive running the gauntlet of her family?

She was going to need a whole lot more lavender wipes.

Erick kicked her out of the kitchen around three in the afternoon with orders to rest. She didn’t take orders well but she did stay out from underfoot by vacuuming, dusting and putting the extra leaves in the table to accommodate the whole family minus the kids who would eat either on the deck if the weather was nice or in the living room if it wasn’t.

When everything was finished, they went out for Thai food for dinner and came home to her house, ready for bed by nine. Not for sleep, but definitely for bed. After Erick had worn her out with some vigorous sex, they settled into sleep. Very quickly, she’d gotten used to falling asleep with Erick’s arm draped over her side and waking up with him next to her. She wanted to fall asleep like that, wake up like that, every day and every night. He’d told her today that Ruthie was “stupid happy” they were together, which made Clover “stupid happy.” Now if they could only convince her family they, too, should be happy for them instead of digging and picking and looking for something to dislike about Erick.

“You’re stressing out again,” Erick said into her ear. “I can tell.”

“How can you tell?” she asked.

“You’re huffing a lavender wipe like it’s an oxygen mask and your plane just lost cabin pressure.”

“I hate that my family does this to me,” she said. “I wish I could enjoy having them around instead of panicking about what they’ll say to you.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? They hate me?”

“Yes. And that is the worst. Because I love you.”

“I’m not sleeping with your parents or your sister or your brother. I mean, I might, but I’d like to get to know them first.”

She slapped his hand.

“Fine. I won’t sleep with any members of your family,” he said. “My point is...if they hate me, who cares? As long as you like me, that’s all that matters. You do like me, don’t you?”

He slid on top of her.

“I kind of like you,” she said. “A little.”

“Are you sure you only like me a little?” He pushed her thighs open with his knees.

“I’m warming up to you.”

“Maybe you even love me a tiny bit?” He settled on top of her with his cock only an inch or two inside her. She lifted her hips to take all of him into her.

“Maybe a little...”

Erick made love to her until she admitted once again that she did, in fact, love him. Worn out with sex, she fell fast asleep, distracted by her happiness. She woke up the next morning rested and refreshed from a good night’s sleep. She dressed in jeans and her favorite navy blue turtleneck. Erick wore his khaki cords and her favorite long-sleeved navy blue sweater of his, the one that accentuated the broadness of his shoulders so well. They spent all morning in the kitchen mashing potatoes, stirring cranberry sauce and baking bread.

At one o’clock on the dot, Clover heard the sound of a car on her gravel driveway. Her stomach sank and her throat tightened. Erick bent and gave her one last kiss for luck.

“Here we go,” she said.

“It’s going to be fine,” he said. “No scenes. No drama. And nobody is going to be mean to either of us.”

The doorbell rang and Clover took a deep breath, put on her best fake smile and opened the door.

Her mother and father stood on the front porch. Her father had a suit on and her mother wore a tweed skirt with a white blouse and jacket. Chic as always.

“Hey, there,” Clover said, holding the door open for them. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Oh, it’s so good to see you, too, sweetheart,” her mother said as she stepped through the door.

“This is Erick. Erick, this is my father, David, and my mother, Valerie.”

“Everyone calls me Val, Erick,” she said. “But I’ll get to you in a minute. I have to hug this girl of mine first.”

“Take your time,” Erick said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Clover and her mother hugged and it was nice, comfortable. Maybe she’d been worried for nothing. Then her mother pulled back and looked Clover up and down. “Oh, so we’re having a casual meal today, I see. Wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have made the effort.”

Clover forced her smile wider. She saw Erick’s eyes flash in shock. All she could do was keep smiling as she hugged her father.

“I think she looks good, dear,” her father said to her mother while they hugged. “Put on a few pounds since last time but you can’t really tell.”

Erick opened his mouth and she knew he was about to say something. She shot him a warning look.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said into her ear when her parents stepped into the office to take off their coats.

And she could only reply with three little words.

“Told you so.”