I come back to myself in stages, finally shifting my weight to collapse beside him on the couch. We’re not touching anymore, but we’re both breathless and grinning.
“That was fun,” he says, and I laugh, because what a very John way to put it.
“Very fun,” I agree. “Want to stay over tonight? Have some more fun later?”
He grins and echoes my words from earlier. “What’s a five-letter word for ‘hell yes’?”
22
Have you ever had one of those nights where you sleep really, really well? Like, you wake up and all of the aches and pains you didn’t even really notice were bothering you are totally gone, and all your limbs feel loose and liquidy and warm?
Well, that’s how I feel waking up the next morning. Like all of my insides have turned into warm, shimmery goo.
I stretch my arms out and roll over in bed to face John. He’s sleeping on his side, with one hand resting loosely near his pillow. My gaze moves over his fingers, remembering the strength in them, remembering the way they felt moving over my skin. The night comes back to me in flashes—the slide of his mouth over my neck, the feel of the hard planes of his chest, the sound of our laughter. It was easy and intimate andwonderful, and I can’t remember if I’ve ever felt so relaxed waking up next to someone before.
“Morning,” he says, stirring.
“Morning.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, blinking blearily. “Have you just been lying there staring at me?”
“Yep.”
“That’s super creepy.”
I grin. “Yep.”
He laughs and pulls me toward him, one strong arm wrapping around my waist. I slide my leg between his and run my hands up his chest, and it’s some time before we make it out of bed.
Later, we sit down on the couch to tackle the day’s Wordle, balancing our breakfast plates on our knees.
“What word are you starting with?” I ask.
“TOAST,” he says, taking a bite of it as he speaks.
I laugh. “I’ll do BACON.”
I type it in, and—
No.
No way.
It’sright!
I’ve never gotten it on the first guess before, not once!
I try to hide my reaction so I don’t ruin the answer for John, but he notices anyway.
“Was that right? BACON?”
I grin and show him my phone. “Yep.”
“Awesome,” he says, then he puts his phone away without typing the answer in. I smile at him fondly. What a weirdo.
He heads to the shop early to align the tuning on his race car’s differential (okay, fine, I wasn’t actually listening when he said what he was going to do) and I get ready for work in a fizzy, sparkly state, like a glass of champagne in human form.
I’m a teensy bit nervous about how things will be at work—what if it’s super awkward now that we’ve slept together? What if Fred somehow finds out and fires us for being unprofessional?—but to my relief, not much changes. John and Dave work on cars, I check people in and out. Only now, when John comes out to the front desk to write out receipts, he grins at me in this warm, easy way that makes me want to spin around in my chair.
