I had picked out an array of purple options to match the Pleasure Players logo, including a pale lavender teddy, a deep eggplant corset set, and a lilac ruffled cami with matching boyshorts—which I’d already snagged for myself for a special occasion.
Milo, unsurprisingly, managed to take my mind off of hate mailandbomb threats that night. He cooked another stellar meal, took advantage of my wandering attention to beat me in a dirt bike racing game, then practically carried my exhausted self to bed.
When I told him about Addie’s plan to check up on my family, he nodded calmly and said, “I was thinking about doing the same thing. It’ll probably be easier for her, though.”
“I feel like I should have kept tabs on them myself,” I admitted.
He shook his head before I even finished talking. “Let someone else carry this weight for now. You don’t need any more stress on these lovely shoulders.”
“How did you get so amazing?”
He laughed. “I’m not. I just happened to find a woman who brings out the best in me.”
“Milo,” I muttered, propping myself up on my elbow to glare down at him.
“Eden.”
“You need to know something about me.”
His lips curved. “I know a great many things about you already, but go on, enlighten me.”
“I’m not good at flowery,” I admitted quietly. “Compliments and…lovey-dovey stuff. Not good at giving it and not really good at receiving it. I don’t want you to think that means I don’t feel the same. It’s just hard for me to express it like that.”
“Eden, beautiful, I already figured that out on my own,” he replied, a sweet smile curving beneath his beard as he stroked his fingertips over my cheek.
“Oh.”
He rolled us so he was looking down at me, gray eyes soft as summer rain. Beneath that gaze, I felt like I was blooming, blossoming into some new version of myself.
It was extraordinary.
“I don’t ever want to make you uncomfortable, so if my flowery words do that, I’ll try to scale it back. But I know who you are, Eden, and I don’t need the words back. You have the most expressive eyes and face of anyone I’ve ever known. Believe me, those give me all the reassurance I need.”
I blinked up at him, processing that. Milo’s gaze swept over my face, then he dropped his head and kissed me.
Maybe I wasn’t so bad at flowery after all.
Saturdayfoundmeina tizzy of preparations for Monique’s toy party. Addie had dragged me to one years ago, long before I moved to Spruce Hill, but I’d been therestrictly for moral support and hadn’t purchased anything. At that point, I was working my ass off to save up for the day when I could finally open my own store. I couldn’t afford to drop necessary funds on vibrators or flavored lube.
Rent here was cheaper than in the city, and the store was doing better than expected, so I had a little bit of money set aside for things like this. Monique was the sales rep, but I was ostensibly hosting the event. That meant I’d get some hostess bonuses based on the party’s sales, along with some serious discounts.
Which led me to speculate about what Milo might enjoy using with me.
Business picked up again in the last hour before closing, distracting me from my thoughts, then Addie showed up with the snack trays I’d ordered earlier in the day and a rolling cooler of beverages. It took us three trips just to haul it all inside.
“Just how many people are we expecting?”
Addie shrugged. “Better to have extra leftovers than run out in the middle of a party, right?”
Though she hadn’t mentioned my parents again, I knew better than to think that meant she’d abandoned her plans. Even if she’d rarely spent any time around them, she knew enough about my childhood to despise them on principle.
“Is Olivia coming?” I asked.
A pretty pink blush accented my cousin’s cheeks as she locked the front door and flipped the sign to announce the store was closed. When she finally met my eyes, hers were sparkling.
“Yep.”
“So things are going well?”
