***
Saturday morning, I wake to a pounding on my door.
For a moment, I consider letting whoever it is go unanswered, but maybe it’s Mina. Or maybe someone finally sent the police to do a welfare check on me.
I shuffle to the entryway, dragging the comforter like a cape, and squint through the peephole. On the other side, Nash is holding up a tray with two coffee cups and a paper bag, a grin stretching his face.
I hesitate. I don’t want him to see me like this. I usually look perfectly put together for work or our little “date nights”. He’s seen me after we’ve woken up in the mornings, but even then I didn’t look like this.
I’m still wearing what I slept in: a t-shirt and my least flattering pair of sweatpants. My hair is in a messy bun, and not the good kind that looks effortlessly chic on other people. And I’m wearing my glasses I hardly ever wear, even though I should.
Nash knocks again, louder.
“Avery, I know you’re in there. Please let me in. I brought you breakfast.”
I groan, then unlatch the door. He takes one look at me and laughs.
Not in an unkind way, more stunned.
“Wow, I—”
I grab the coffee and try to bury my face in the steam.
“Please don’t say anything. I already know how I look. I can’t believe you’re seeing me like this.”
He shrugs, stepping inside. “I was going to say how refreshing it is to see you like this. Without the makeup, the perfect curls. You look great with those things, too. But right now? You’re fucking beautiful.”
He plants a kiss on my forehead, then turns toward the kitchen. Making his way to the counter, he sets our breakfast down and looks at me with a smug smile.
“And I’m not just saying that because you’re wearing my shirt,” he says, with a wink.
My head snaps down to find he’s right. I am wearing his shirt. The one I absentmindedly wore home after we made pizza.
Shit.
I probably look like such a weirdo. I should’ve given the shirt back to him the first chance I had, but I kept forgetting. Then, being home this week and running out of pretty much all my clean clothes, it was one of the last options I had.
“Oh, I—I meant to give it back to you. I just—I got behind on my laundry this week, and it was clean because I had washed it to give it back to you and—”
“Keep it,” he cuts me off.
“Are you sure? I mean, it’s yours. I can just wash it again and give it back.”
“I’m sure, Avery. Keep it.”
Salem winds around his legs, purring. Nash doesn’t miss a beat, like this is something the two of them do together every morning.
He opens the bag and pulls out two massive muffins.
“Blueberry or chocolate chip?,” he asks.
“Blueberry.”
He hands me the blueberry muffin and says, “Perfect. ‘Cause chocolate chip is my favorite.”
I giggle. “What if I had picked that one?”
Nash gives me a confused look. “I would’ve given it to you.”
