The whole house was clean. I’d gone through every room. Every shelf. Items were cleaned out, expired items were emptied, and the containers went into a recycling bin. Trace helped me. His shirt was wet from sweat by that afternoon, clinging to his very muscular and very ripped back, and I was starting to lose motivation about what we were doing.
Remembering the feel of him in the shower this morning, last night.
God. It was worse than it was before. I was just starting to feel how much I loved him, but it was full blazing by that evening. He helped with everything. Not one word bitching about it. He didn’t ask for anything. He saw what I was doing and moved to assist me.
“Don’t you have big bad Mafia stuff to do today?” I asked at one point, sitting back on my heels, my knees on the floor. I’d taken to scrubbing the kitchen floor because the grime between the tiles wasn’t coming out. He’d come to the doorway, seen what I was doing, and dropped down to use a washcloth on the other side of the kitchen.
He spared me a glance. “If you think I’m going to leave you when you’re terrified about seeing your mother again, you really have no clue what love means to me.” He paused. “It means being at your side in days like these.”
“If Ashton needed you—”
“I’m here. Stop trying to decide if you like me being here or if you want to chase me off. I’m not going to get scared off.”
My insides were all wobbly and bunched together. I gave him a shaky smile, reaching for my washcloth again. “I’m a bit of a mess.”
“I would be too. It’s fine. You can be a mess today.”
My smile wasn’t as wobbly. “Thank you.”
His eyes softened before he nodded. “I know you’re going to be pissed if you don’t scrub every inch of these tiles, so let’s get it done. Then we can move onto another impossible task before your mom shows up. I’m hoping we can clean up later too. Maybe another shower?” His eyebrows went up, and he flashed me a half grin.
We got back to work.
