Sugar or not, I’m fucking hungry.
And there’s nothing better than cereal at night.
“Oh, all the time,” she says, bending over, searching the shelves, and pulling out…Jesus Christ, a box of the healthy cereal the girl who buys my groceries threw in a couple months back—one that I’ve never opened.
I shake my head.
But it’s mostly so I don’t swat that sweet ass of hers, just to see how she’d respond.
She pushes by me, and I hear the rattle of cereal hitting the porcelain bowl, turn to face her. She’s eyeing my carton of milk like it’s the spawn of Satan.
“It’s not oat or almond or some shit,” I mutter.
Her mouth tips up. “You said your fridge was empty, I’m checking to see if it’s expired.”
“It’s not.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much.”
It’s her smile that does it—prideful, mischievous, a hint of sweet.
It’s her smile that unravels everything.
Seven
Marie
One second,he’s grinning, laughing along with my teasing.
The next, his expression flattens out, goes completely blank, hazel eyes turning cold and hard, amusement gone.
My mind screeches to a halt.
What the hell happened?
What the hell did I say?
“Are you?—?”
He blinks and charming is back…albeit behind a thick wall of ice. “Enjoy the cereal,” he murmurs, reaching for his bowl, his laptop and phone. “I need to do some work so I’ll just catch up with you later. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Jace—”
He’s already striding away, barely pauses to glance back at me over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
A terse question.
And I’m reminded that I don’t know this man at all.
The circles beneath his eyes are a dark black, the lines around his face and mouth heavy and deep.
Some weird urge has me wanting to tell him to not stay up too late.
An even weirder one has me wanting to close the distance between us and hug him tightly.
I don’t do either of those things.
Instead, I find myself saying, “Thanks for the cereal.”
