She dozed off, too, going in and out as the sun warmed her from her bedroom window and Elec’s body heat created a warm cocoon under the duvet.
Snapping awake for no obvious reason, Tamara had the sudden realization that between the shower sex and the talking and the napping, a fair amount of time must have gone by and her kids came home at three o’clock. Craning to see over Elec, she eyeballed the clock.
Two forty-seven.
Oh, Lord. She could only be eternally grateful that her kids hadn’t discovered her exactly the way she was at the moment. They still had time but it was cutting it close.
“Elec,” she whispered.
He just sighed in his sleep.
“Elec.” Panicking a little, she shoved him and threw back the blanket. “Get up.”
“Why?” he muttered, his eyes still closed.
“The school bus gets here in ten minutes.”
“Oh, shit,” he said, eyes popping open. With a dexterity that both impressed and reared envy in her, he leaped off the bed and ran into the bathroom.
She was still struggling to disengage herself from the damn blanket, but she was grateful that he immediately understood the importance of the school bus arriving and how he couldn’t be there when it did. Her kids would find it weird that she was in her bathroom showering on a Monday at three o’clock, but she could explain that one away. Elec naked in the bed next to her? Not so easy to get around.
When she managed to get herself out of the bed, she yanked open a dresser drawer and pulled on some panties and a T-shirt, forgoing a bra for the moment. Dashing into her closet, she found a pair of jeans conveniently on the floor next to the hamper and she shoved herself into them. Then she went to find Elec, who was still in the bathroom. He was on his knees in his black underwear wiping puddles of water up off the floor with a towel.
“What are you doing?” And why was he still mostly naked?
“We made a mess, and it’s my fault, so I’m cleaning it up.”
While the movement did wonderful things to his butt muscles, she didn’t have time to drool over it. “Don’t worry about it. Get your pants on!”
“Done.” He tossed the towel aside and stood up with his jeans in his hand. He stepped into them, then jumped a little to get them into place.
Tamara tried to move around him to shoot her hair with the blow-dryer really quick and she misjudged and bumped him. Elec lost his balance since he was only half in his pants and he crashed into the wall.
“Oh, sorry!” she said, reaching out like somehow that was going to help him.
He started laughing as he finished pulling his jeans on. “This will be really funny if we don’t get caught.”
She grinned back, despite having one ear trained for the school bus roaring up the street.
“The key here is not to get caught.”
“Should I climb out the window and shimmy down the trellis?” He pulled his shirt on and ran his hand through his hair.
“I don’t have a trellis.” Tamara dragged a hairbrush through her hair, towel dried it, and called it good. “And since your car is in the driveway, I don’t imagine going out the window will throw anyone off the scent.”
“Good point.” He looked around the bathroom. “I had shoes around here somewhere.”
“Here.” Tamara found them under her vanity and shoved them at him. “At least get downstairs. I can explain you in the family room. I can’t explain you in the bedroom.”
“I don’t think you can explain the wet hair, since it’s probably not at all believable that we just happened to go swimming. Don’t worry, I’m out of here.” Elec grabbed his shoes, kissed her hard. “Next Monday?”
She nodded, which was insane. They were on the verge of being severely busted by her children and she was agreeing to continue this madness?
“I’ll call you!” he said, and took off running.
He was across the bedroom in two seconds and she could hear his bare feet pounding down the steps. The front door flew open and a car door did likewise before she was even halfway down the stairs. Picking up her own pace, she made it to the front window in time to see him back up out of her driveway and head down the street. He passed the school bus three houses down the cul-de-sac.
She could only hope her kids weren’t the least bit observant.
Or that a major spit-wad fight had ensued on the bus right when Elec had driven by so they would not notice that a certain race car driver had just left their house.
Tamara twisted her wet hair around and around and rested her head on the windowpane.
Wasn’t she too old to be sneaking a boy out of her bed?
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELEC couldn’t get Tamara out of his mind all week, and knowing it was probably going to annoy her, he still couldn’t stop himself from calling her on Friday from his coach. Evan wasn’t back yet and he was feeling a little lonely.
“Hello?” she said, sounding breathless and surprised.
“Hi,” he said eloquently, settling back into his couch and trying not to smile in the empty room. It was a sign of how far gone he was that just the sound of her voice cheered him right up. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. Just put the kids to bed. How is Michigan?”
“Cold. It’s the first of June and I don’t think it got to be more than sixty-five degrees today at practice. Makes for an easier time in the car on the track, but tonight it makes me want to build a bonfire. Roast me some marshmallows.”
“You know I have a fire pit in my backyard but I’ve never used it. I’m not exactly firewood savvy. I grew up in Seattle, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that. How’d you end up in Charlotte?”
“I came for the sociology program at the University of North Carolina and because I wanted an adventure. Considering how shy I was, that’s kind of a joke in retrospect, but I was proud of myself for moving all the way across the country.”
“You should be proud of that. That’s a big deal. So you came to school, and then you met Pete.”
“Yeah. So I stayed.”
Elec propped his feet up on the coffee table and crossed his free arm over his chest. He was glad that Tamara was willing to talk to him, that she hadn’t even questioned why he was calling. “So how long have you had the fire pit?”
“It was here when we bought the house, which was the year Petey was born, so nine years.”
“And you’ve never used it?”