“Eh, it was more like a game of Divine Princess-Killjoy, but anywho. You found me!” The background music to Link finding a Korok in the video gameZelda: Breath of the Wildplays in my head. I have the sudden urge to do Hetsu’s dance. It’s funny howlittle phrases such as “you found me” bring the silliest memories to the surface.
Speaking ofZelda, I need to call Stella soon. I miss playing her favorite game with her.
“Yes, I found you.” Darcy rolls his eyes and shifts his weight. “Now, would you mind assisting me with this schedule?”
“That’s what I’m here for, boss.” I salute him, and he rolls his eyes again. “I mean, who needs sleep? Not me. Certainly not you. I’m technically off campaign managing duty right now…”
He crosses his arms, and I try (but disastrously fail) not to notice the pull of his suit around his biceps. “I’ll make you ramen.”
Yes!But no. I need to drive a harder bargain. “And it’s midnight. No matter what the schedule says, we do have to leave at 5:30 a.m.”
“I’ll add a cinnamon roll for dessert,” he says without a smile. He then looks me over, his stoic expression holding his thoughts on my pajamas captive. “And you may remain in your night clothes.”
I give him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Ha, like I would have changed. You still don’t get to dictate my clothes, Killjoy. But I’ll take you up on the cinnamon roll.” And then I prance out of the sitting room and toward his office while wearing myMy Hero AcademiaDeku onesie proudly.
The click of his dress shoes follows close behind. I wish for once he would let himself be free. I have never seen Darcy around the estate dressed in anything less than a suit. Sometimes, he gets a little wild and takes his jacket off, but that’s the extent of his “dressing down.” It would do the man some good to let loose.
Or maybe just to bring back those bootylicious jeans he saves for Wednesdays.
“Actually.” I stop in front of his office door and turn around, only for my face to come unreasonably close to his chest. I shift my gaze upward and immediately drag it back down. I’d much rather be unreasonably close to his chest than to his face. “Could you, um…” I motion my hand for him to back up.
He does no such thing. “You suddenly stopped.”
I place my hands on his chest to shove him away, but he leans closer and my back presses against the door to his office. Swallowing the growing lump in my throat, I risk tilting my face to meet him.
His eyes are fierce, locked into mine. His face seems to grow bigger.
No, he’s moving closer.
My breath hitches.
Closer.
I should push him away. My hands are on his decidedly muscular chest. I admit, I’ve wanted to know what he’s got going on underneath these stuffy shirts he wears every day.
His face pauses inches away from meeting mine, and I rise on my tiptoes without a second thought.
Darcy Marshall is going to kiss me.
And I’m going to let him.
I close my eyes.
His breath tickles my ear and his arm brushes my waist.
“Hayden, I—” he whispers in a gravelly, broken voice. The way he said my name has my bones crumbling to dust.
A moment of nothing passes before something clicks and Darcy’s body heat no longer seeps through my pajamas and into my skin.
I stumble backward, dropping onto my backside through a now-opened door.
“What the—” It takes a second to comprehend what just happened, but once I do, I snap my head up to glare at the heinous man. “You let me fall!”
Can a voice achieve a higher pitch than mine did?
The marble floor is cold against my palms, which thankfully, do not hurt. My butt, however, is a different story.
Darcy ignores my accusation and walks around me with clenched fists. I hear his desk chair scrape against the floor. How does he have a right to be angry right now? His mood swings are giving me more whiplash than the car accident I was in when I was eighteen, driving a beat-up Kia, and speeding away from the demon of my past: the group home.
