“I ordered it for you.”
“What account is this linked to?” I ask, still staring at the name, like it’s just dawned on me that it’s my name now.
“I ordered it the day I flew to Rapid City to collect you.”
“We weren’t even married then,” I say a little too loudly as Knight takes my hand, pushing the cart with his other, and glancing at his watch before he steers me toward the food outlet.
“No. But I knew we would be.”
Why does he make all this craziness seem so normal?
Along with a smaller version of the studio’s date book, Knight picked up a wall-mounted interactive electronic calendar, which is sort of like a huge tablet that shows all of your appointments for each day.
Honestly, it feels a little extra, and the price tag was insane, but the moment he saw it, Knight put it straight in the cart with half a smile twisting at the edges of his lips. We picked up some groceries, but he insisted on browsing the homeware aisles, and even though I tried to resist, I ended up choosing lots of cute bits of decor, along with more towels, a new bed set, and a huge new rug for the living room floor.
“Oh, we should get pizza,” I say excitedly when we get to the front of the line for the food outlet.
“One pepperoni and one barbecue chicken pizza, please,” Knight tells the server brusquely.
Pulling out an identical card to the one I’m still clutching in my hand, he pays for our food and some drinks, then balancesthe pizza boxes on the cart and guides me away from the food outlet and toward the exit.
“You don’t want to sit?” I question, pointing to an empty table that just opened up.
“Let’s put this stuff in the car, then we can sit on one of the benches outside.”
Pressing the button to open the car, Knight loads our haul into the trunk, not allowing me to help. Once he’s finished, he carries our food in one hand, then reaches for me with the other.
I fall asleep in the car on the way back home, and Knight wakes me up when he lifts me out of my seat. “I can walk,” I protest.
“You’re tired. I’ll carry you.”
“What time is it?”
“Twenty-one thirty-five hours,” he says, his voice soft.
“I don’t know why I’m so tired,” I say on a yawn, snuggling into his chest as he carries me through the house and up the stairs.
“You could be pregnant.”
“No, I couldn’t,” I protest weakly.
“Your first appointment is at 1100 hours tomorrow?” he questions.
“Yep, my client, Camden, lives about an hour away and is driving in. She was very excited to find out she didn’t have to fly out to get tattooed by me anymore,” I tell him sleepily.
“Do you want me to run you a bath?” he asks.
“No. I just want to sleep.”
Nodding, he lowers me to my feet long enough to strip me of my clothes, unbraid my hair, and use a cleanser wipe to remove my makeup. I don’t try to stop him or do it myself. I just let him take control, knowing he’ll take care of me.
When he pulls back the comforter, I crawl naked toward the pillow, then look up expectantly at him. It’s early, and I doubthe’s ready to go to sleep yet, but without question, he strips out of his clothes, folds them neatly, then crawls in beside me.
I wake up to the sound of metal clanging, and when I open my eyes, I find myself wrapped in a soft blanket, beneath the comforter in the bed that Knight put in the gym so I could carry on sleeping under his watchful eye while he works out.
The first day I woke up down here, I was annoyed, but today, waking up to the view of my husband, bare-chested and sweaty, isn’t the worst way to start the day. Not moving, I watch him work out, attacking each exercise with an intensity that makes me clench my thighs together.
I’m not someone who enjoys exercise, but watching him lift and lower his huge body weight into increasingly impressive poses might have just become my new favorite sport. His eyes glide over to me every few moments, like he’s checking that I’m still here, even though if I were to sit up, he’d be able to see the second I moved.
