***
I don’t remember falling asleep.
One second, I was face down on the couch, groaning into a throw pillow while Jay clattered around the kitchen like a breakfast wizard. The next, I was eating eggs, and now, I’m blinking blearily at the ceiling, the vague scent of coffee still hanging in the air.
My stomach is full. My limbs are heavy. My dignity is in shambles.
Ah. So I’m alive. Unfortunately.
I stretch slowly, one arm flopping off the edge of the couch, and let out a groan that sounds like it belongs to someone coming back from the brink of death.
Jay’s nowhere in sight, but a mostly empty plate sits on the coffee table, my fork still stabbed into a lone piece of scrambled egg. The empty bottle of water has been replaced with a fresh one, and there’s a blanket over my legs—his blanket that smells like rain and flowers, but manly ones. I have no idea how that’s possible, but it is.
Which means…
He fed me. Hydrated me. Tucked me in.
I am simultaneously touched and infuriated by how gentle he is with me, considering.
Because now I like him. I mean, I already liked him. I’ve always liked him—he’s hot, smart, organized, and kind. But now he’s being sweet and infuriatingly decent, and it’s really screwing with my ability to understand that not all men are like this. Most men, in fact, are not at all. I’m being tricked into a dopamine haze, post-breakup and vulnerable, where one warm comment or sweet gesture has me spiraling intomaybe I could date again? territory. But Jay can’t be the reason for that spiral. He’s the exception.
And I cannot be out here mistaking theexceptionfor therule.
I throw an arm over my face again and whisper, “This is why I get myself into stupid situations.”
“Talking to yourself?”
I yelp, jerking upright and nearly launching the fork across the room when it hits my foot. He’s in the doorway to the bathroom, hair damp, wearing joggers and a fresh T-shirt, dark glasses artfully perched on his nose, with steam curling behind him like a paid actor.
“You scared me!” I clutch the blanket tighter like it’s a shield from both shame and temptation.
He smirks. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt your recovery nap.”
I groan and sink back into the cushions, his scent still surrounding me. “Please. Let me die in peace.”
Jay strolls over and drops to the other end of the sofa bed. “No dying allowed. You’ve got an assignment due, haven’t you? Your whiteboard told me so. I have to say, you tell me I’m the organized one, but you have your academic year planned out in 3D.”
I ignore that comment. “I might skip the whole semester. Fake my death. Start over in Canada.”
He watches me with that maddening mix of amusement and quiet patience. “You feeling better?”
I nod reluctantly. “Because of the eggs. Which is also why I now owe you my soul.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Liv.”
That simple sentence gets me. The truth in his words hits me deeper than I let him see. There’s no tease or value in what he gave me, other than his wanting to do it to make me feel better. Even now, a small voice in the back of my head whispers that kindness like this is temporary, that I don’t deserve it, that joy this easy is for other people. But that’s just the heaviness from last night talking. I know that.
I force a smile anyway, swallowing the ache before it shows, and implore my previous statement to the front of my mind. He’s the exception, not the rule.
I shift, trying to break the sudden weight in my chest. “Well. My soul’s kind of a mess anyway. Not sure you’d want it.”
Jay shrugs like it’s nothing. “Guess I’ll just have to settle for your undying gratitude, then.” He grabs the remote, nestling next to me, flipping through a few options before landing onThe Avengers.
I blink at the screen, surprised. “You want to watch this?”
He tosses me a lazy smile. “You said you liked Black Widow, right? Thought we should revisit the dynamic.”
“The dynamic between us, you mean?”
