Knew damn well that nothing had changed.
As soon as she came home after the unfortunate incident that took place at the mall that she was going to pretend never happened, she immediately settled on the couch with her laptop only to spend the next four hours staring at the screen, trying to figure out why this was happening to her.
Anytime she tried to write by herself, nothing. Not a single word. But when she was with Garrett…
God, her fingers couldn’t seem to keep up with the words racing through her mind.
Thanks to Garrett, she’d managed to write eleven thousand words today and if he hadn’t stopped her, she probably would have written eleven thousand more. It reminded her of all those times when he used to sneak into her room late at night when they were little. Even then, she couldn’t seem to keep up with the stories playing in her head, each one more desperate than the last to make its way onto paper while her hand struggled to write faster.
Things got better after she bought her first laptop when she was sixteen. It had taken her two years of babysitting, raking leaves, shoveling driveways, and the occasional shift at Dixon’s Bakery helping her aunt, but it had been worth it. She was able toget the words out faster, keep her stories organized, and edit her books without having to rewrite her stories over and over again until they were perfect.
She took her laptop everywhere and was on it every chance she got. She wrote on the bus, in class, during lunch, on her breaks at work, at the dinner table, and late into the night. It was the reason she decided not to go to college, knowing that between classes, homework, and work that she would probably never get a chance to write again.
So, she decided not to go to college and went to work with her aunt at Dixon’s Bakery instead. While she chopped fruit, measured ingredients, and kneaded dough, she ran ideas through her head, came up with stories and imagined all the possibilities. She wrote during her break, hoping that it would be enough to hold her over until she got home and could spend the rest of the night writing.
It never was, but she kept going.
She put in long hours, writing until three in the morning most days, only to drag herself out of bed two hours later for work. No matter how tired she was, and god, she’d been exhausted, as soon as she got home, she was writing again. She had no idea if her books would even sell, and honestly, she didn’t care if they did. She loved writing, more than anything, and the fact that she couldn’t do it anymore without the bastard across the street was absolutely destroying her.
She hated this.
But right now, she hated not being able to write more, which meant that she was going to do whatever it took to fix this, including waiting eight hours and forty-two minutes until she could write again.
“What’s another word for desperation?”came the absently murmured words as Garrett lay there, wondering why the woman he’d dreamed about last night was in his bed.
“Despair, sadness, hopelessness,” Garrett said as he rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was imagining this.
Nodding, Kristen continued typing while he lay there, running his eyes over her, taking in her long dark hair pulled back into a messy bun, the way that she worried her plump bottom lip between her teeth as she typed before taking in herGooniestee-shirt and-
“Did you go to bed last night?” Garrett asked as he reached back and turned off his alarm just as it was about to go off.
“I thought about it,” Kristen mumbled, completely lost in whatever it was that she was writing.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Garrett said around a yawn as he shoved the covers off and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed as he glanced back at the clock. “What time did you break in?”
“Sometime after midnight,” came the absently murmured answer as Garrett did the math and realized that he must have fallen asleep right around the time that she broke in.
“I guess you owe me three hours then,” he said, glancing back at her in time to watch her eyebrows pull up into an adorable frown.
“For what?”
“For using me for my body,” Garrett said, shrugging it off as he got up and made his way to the bathroom just as the outraged sputtering began. Smiling, because she was honestly too fuckingadorable for words, he closed the door behind him and focused on getting ready for work.
Ten minutes later, he was standing in the shower, going over everything that he needed to do today when the small woman, who’d most likely spent the last ten minutes pacing his bedroom and grumbling adorably to herself while she waited for him to hurry up, threw the bathroom door open.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Kristen said, making his lips twitch as he took in the pillow she had pressed against her face and knew without a doubt that she was struggling against the urge to beat the shit out of him with it.
“Did you use me for my body so that you could write?” Garrett asked, reaching for the bottle of shampoo as he watched her.
“I kept you company out of the goodness of my heart, ensuring that you were well-rested for the day ahead,” Kristen said, the pillow nodding solemnly along with her.
“That was very generous of you,” Garrett murmured as he ducked his head beneath the spray of hot water.
“I know,” she said, making sure to add a heartfelt sigh at the end there.
“Five hours,” Garrett said, focusing on squeezing shampoo into his hand.
“How the hell did you come up with five hours?” Kristen demanded after a slight pause.
