My clothes were rumpled and my hair almost certainly a disaster, but his gaze was warm as it traveled over me, top to toe. With his hand wrapped around mine, he led me toward the kitchen, laughing softly when I slumped onto a stool.
“Not a morning person, huh?”
“I’m a morning person when I wake up at home in my bed with my programmable coffee pot ready to roll,” I corrected. “Ican’t even remember the last time I fell asleep during a movie, nevermind on a couch. How are you so spry this morning?”
“Mostly because I had a beautiful woman draped over me all night, but the fact that I’ve been up long enough to shower and drink my first cup of coffee helps.”
“Am I going to make you late?”
Milo poured me a mug of coffee, slid a sugar bowl and two different creamer options toward me, and grinned. “If you did, it’d still be worth it, but no. I’ve got another fifteen minutes before we hit critical mass.”
We sat there together, sipping coffee and eating cookies, settling into the kind of easy conversation that I’d come to associate with Milo. In fact, everything felt easier when I was around him, more natural, like I’d spent my life in the wrong climate and finally found the environment where I could thrive.
It was unsettling, even if it was also a relief.
By the time Milo needed to leave for work, my muddied thoughts had cleared enough to drive home and figure out what exactly I was going to do with my day off. At the door of my car, Milo kissed me, light and sweet.
“Carter comes to the store after school on Mondays, but I’m alone until then. If you’re around the shop, I mean, and want to visit.”
“I just might take you up on that. Thank you again for dinner. And breakfast.”
“It was my pleasure, Eden,” he murmured.
With that, Milo grinned, planted one last swift kiss on my lips, and stepped back so I could get behind the wheel. I gave a stupid little wave before backing out of his driveway, then it hit me that we’d spent another night together.
Asleep. On his freaking couch.
Milo’sparkingspotwasopen when I pulled up in front of the stores, so I decided I’d take him up on the obvious offer, especially to protect my four new tires. I couldn’t quite see into Dueling Dragons from there, but I was more nervous about walking in to visit Milo that afternoon than I had been about approaching him at the bar during Comic Con.
It was silly and ridiculous and I couldn’t stop replaying the scene from that morning, waking up to Milo gazing down at me.
Here I’d been worried about it being impossible to recreate the magic between us, and he just kept gifting me with more magical moments.
So instead of going next door like a grownup, I puttered around Garden of Delights, restocking the racks that had been depleted over the weekend, cleaning smudges from the mirrors in the two dressing rooms, updating spreadsheets, and doodling window display ideas for the future.
Finally, when I had nothing left to do, I locked up and made the short trek to Milo’s store.
His face lit when I walked in, though he teased, “I was afraid maybe you weren’t going to show up.”
“Am I that transparent?” I asked.
I didn’t have it in me to tease back, but Milo must have sensed that, because his expression turned serious. Leaving his seat behind the counter, he came around to take both my hands in his.
“I’m sorry, Eden. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Does it bother you that I’m not the same woman who propositioned you in that bar?”
Milo’s head jerked back in surprise, but he didn’t release my hands. “What are you talking about?”
“I just…I was bold that night. Decisive. That’s not who I am.”
“Eden,” he admonished gently, “that’s exactly who you are. You struck out on your own, opened a kickass store, made plans that will help people live their lives to the fullest. If that’s not bold and decisive, I don’t know what is.”
I blinked at him. “I never thought of it that way.”
“It’s so innate, so integral to who youare,I’m not surprised you didn’t see it. Not only are you the exact same woman who walked up to me in the bar, every moment I spend with you shows me more and more of what’s beneath the surface. And I like what I’m finding, Eden. A whole hell of a lot.”
“Oh,” I replied, catching my lip in my teeth.
