Deb’s frown softened into a smile. “That sounds great.”
Together, they got to their feet. “I’m going to text Mirenda and tell her I’m headed home. I only had about an hour left tonight anyway.”
“I’m the boss on my unit,” Deb mused, thumbing her own text into her phone. “And they just saw me pass out cold, accompanied by the chorus of a bunch of idiot seafood buffet lovers tossing their cookies into emesis bins. I think they’ll be fine if I go home.”
“Then let’s go. For tonight, I’ll drive.” Hayley stuck her hand out and held her breath.
To her absolute joy, Deb took it, twining their fingers together. “For tonight, I’ll let you.”
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
Morning sun streamed through the curtains of the bedroom, warm and dappled, and Deb blinked her eyes open. She didn’t move at first. She had learned, over the last year, that mornings were a delicate ecosystem: one wrong shift of her body and the whole thing went sideways.
She wanted to yawn. She wanted to stretch. But there were impediments.
She was curled on her left side with Hayley tucked perfectly into the curve of her, the quintessential little spoon. Hayley was soft and warm and smelled like shampoo and sleep and the faint remnants of last night’s lavender lotion. Her hair was sticking up in a way that defied physics. Deb adored it.
And then, of course, there was the additional obstruction.
From her right shoulder down past her hip, Cory was draped across her like a fur-lined sash, purring as though his life depended on it. His blue eyes were half-slitted in bliss. He looked smug.
Deb couldn’t help grinning.
“Well, as long as you’re comfortable, huh, handsome?”
“Always the most important thing,” Hayley mumbled, voice thick with sleep and amusement. “Good for him that he is ridiculously good-looking. I heard him horking up a hairball a couple hours ago.”
Deb groaned into her pillow. “Oh, man.”
“As usual, I am leaving it to you to hunt down the mess.”
Hayley’s sleepy snort broke into a soft laugh as she continued, “I love Cory. But I do not Hairball Hunt love him.”
“That’s fair,” Deb conceded, though her pout was real. She had hoped—naively, romantically?—that when they moved in together, Hayley would magically become the kind of person who discovered and cleaned up cat puke as a love language. Alas. Reality was cruel.
Still, Hayley cooked like a goddess and performed witchcraft-level miracles on laundry. Deb’s hospital coats had never been whiter. Her scrubs smelled like sunshine and competence.
So she supposed she could shoulder hairball duty for the rest of her natural life.
Before she could shift, Cory stood up, stretched, and—as was tradition—placed one perfectly weighted pawdirectlyonto Deb’s left boob, using it as a springboard. He launched off her body, soared over Hayley like a show pony, and landed with an audible thump on the floor.
Deb’s gasp of pain was dramatic. “He… He did that on purpose.”
Hayley squirmed around to face her, eyes sparkling even in sleep’s afterglow. She cupped the afflicted boob gently. “Aw, poor baby.” She stroked soothing circles with her thumb. “That is what you get for adopting a small horse as a house pet.”
“He was a kitten,” Deb protested weakly. “I didn’t know what I was in for.”
“Mm hm. Denial at its finest.” Hayley’s teasing softened, heat blooming in the hand still on Deb’s breast. “Lemme kiss it better.”
Her voice was a purr now, rich and promising.
Before Deb could respond, Hayley slung one slender thigh over her hips and straddled her. She was wearing only the tiniest gray tank top and pink bikini panties that nearly made Deb see God. Hayley lifted the stretched neckline of Deb’s battered UT t-shirt and eased her breasts free, lowering her mouth to kiss the bruised spot.
Then lower.
Then gently around the nipple, which immediately hardened under Hayley’s deft, wickedly soft touch.
