“Here, I saved you a seat.”
“I, um…” I glance back at the open bedroom door. Shit.
I wonder if she’s going to cry if I back out now. Eight-year-olds are pretty tough. She should be fine.
My fatal mistake is looking into her puppy-dog eyes. I snap my mouth shut and lower myself onto the edge.
Ohhhh. It’s soft. The mattress topper beneath my ass feels heavenly. It curves around my hips and coaxes me to stay.
Don’t get too comfortable and don’t touch anything!
I cock my knee onto the bed and leave my other foot on the floor, ready to bolt at the sound of the front door opening.
“How much do you have to read?” I brush a fresh wrinkle out of the duvet. The longer I sit here, the more I’m surrounded by his masculine scent. Sutton might be a dick, but he sure smells good.
I blank my mind and try to forget about the fact that I’m sitting on his bed.
“Mrs. Johnson says I hafta read for thirty minutes every night.”
“All right.” I lean back gingerly against the wooden post. My hand flutters between us. “Go on then. Show me what you’ve got.”
Nellie grins that toothless grin and flips open to her bookmarked page. She reads confidently, only stumbling briefly over some of the tough words. I help her sound them out, and she continues as if nothing happened. She changes her voice with the different characters, and I laugh along with her to the funny parts as I become engrossed in the book.
A throat clears from the doorway. Nellie slaps the book shut, and I jump.
“Aw, dang it. I lost my page.” She flips the cover back open and fans through the pages.
Sutton stands in the entrance, looking rather intimidating in his uniform, partially in shadow from the darkened hall.
“Nellie, time for bed.”
A pressure squeezes my lungs at his lack of acknowledgment.
“You did a great job tonight.” I rise quickly and give her room to scramble off the edge.
Her arms wrap tightly around my thighs, and her head slams into my middle. With her chin in my stomach, she looks me in the eyes.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
I scan Sutton’s face, finding him unreadable.
“I’ll have to talk to your dad about that.”
“’Kay.” She lets go and marches to the door. “We had a great first day together. I think we’re going to be best friends.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth at her innocent yet complicated declaration.
“Brush your teeth, Buttercup. I’ll be right back to say good night.” Sutton’s instructions to his daughter give me a burst of adrenaline to hightail it from his bedroom.
The problem is I have to squeeze past him to do so, and he doesn’t seem intent on moving.
I stop breathing, squishing my lungs as small as possible to slip past. My shoulders are rigid, and I keep my chin held high. His shadowed eyes follow me before the rest of him. His gaze feels like hot lasers on my back as we walk together up the stairs.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how was your day?” I ask sweetly, rounding on him in the kitchen.
“Whose idea was it to go into my room?”
“I’m not big on tattling on eight-year-olds, but I also think you should know the answer to that.”