I shut my laptop and shivered. Yikes. The Ice Queen was in there somewhere. I needed to let her resurface.Ugh, could you imagine if I was suddenly sweet and likable?
Gross.
Charlie suddenly burst into the office with a cocktail in one hand and his phone in the other.
“Here,” he rushed to say. “Try this.” He shoved the creamy orange cocktail with an egg white froth in my direction.
“What?”
“It’s an orange creamsicle,” he explained. “For summer.”
“Uh...”
He poked his head into the kitchen, suddenly agitated. I sipped from the glass to ease his nerves.
“It’s delicious,” I told him quickly because it was. But also because he seemed more nervous than usual over my cocktail opinion. I took another drink. “Okay, more than delicious. Oh my God, that’s so good. Charlie, we need to put this on the permanent menu.”
“I know,” he agreed, then poked his head into the kitchen again.
“Wait, are you nervous about the drink?”
He spared the cocktail a confused look before shaking his head. “Oh, sorry, no. The drink is for you. I thought you might like it. Also, I’m adding it to the menu tonight, so I thought you should know. Don’t worry, Ally’s changing the sign.” He seemed to settle into himself a bit more and some of the nervous energy buzzing around him dissipated. “You were right about that by the way. She’s a natural. Way better than I am.”
“I’ve seen you sign your name,” I told him. “It’s startling.”
He grinned at me.
“So was this all you’re worried about?”
His expression sobered. “No. Will is on his way. So is Eliza. They’re calling a sibling meeting to discuss”—he pointed between the two of us—“what to do about this.”
I narrowed my eyes. “They’re going to fire me, aren’t they? And I only just moved in.”
He laughed. “They’re not going to kick you out of the loft, Ade. And if they did, I would just move in, and then what could they do? Nothing.”
He wasn’t doing anything but solving a hypothetical problem, but he’d said it so confidently. So... easily. “I’m sorry, what?”
“What?”
“Wait, what?”
His low rumble of laughter wrapped around my skin like a tight hug. “Oh, the moving-in thing?”
I gripped the armrests with both hands, trying to keep my balance even though I was sitting down. “Yeah, I mean, you just threw it out there.” Like a baseball. But I hadn’t been expecting it, so I didn’t try to catch it. And it hit me in the face. Of course, I didn’t tell him that last part because I didn’t think he’d appreciate having our relationship future compared to a fastball to the face.
He walked over to me, shifting his energy from nervous and aggressive to gentle, tender, and careful. Setting his hands on my hands, he leaned over me and pressed a sweet kiss to my forehead.
“When we started dating, and I told you I wanted it to be for real, what did you think I meant?”
I leaned back so I could meet his serious gaze. “That you were serious about trying this out with me. If I remember correctly, you made a big deal about being boyfriend and girlfriend.”
His smile was soft, adoring. “And when I said I wanted this to last, how long did you expect to indulge me with your presence?”
I bit back a laugh at his tone and his words and the nervousness bubbling up inside me. “How was I supposed to know, Charlie? I was trying to seduce you. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the fine print.”
He kissed the corner of my mouth. “You probably should have read the contract all the way through. Maybe gotten a second opinion. Maybe taken a cold shower instead of agreeing to all my demands.”
I scowled at him. He used to run away from this expression, but now his eyes sparkled, and he kissed my frown lines instead. “Tell me already.”
