I pressed my lips together hard. “I’m going to need you to stop talking.”
“Was it good?” She was grinning so wide it looked painful. “Of course it was good. Look at you. You’re floating. You haven’t floated since— actually, I don’t think you’ve ever floated. This is historic. I’m marking my calendar.”
“You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me. I’m the only person who knows how to work that overpriced coffee contraption.” Kaya dropped the spatula and marched across the kitchen until she was right in my face. Her smirk faded into something real and sweet. “Rose. For real though. I’m thrilled for you.”
My throat tightened unexpectedly. “It’s not— we’re not— I don’t even know what it is yet.”
“You don’t have to know what it is. You just have to enjoy.” She squeezed my arm. “Just live a little.”
I poured my coffee and didn’t trust myself to speak.
“So,” Kaya said, going back to the eggs with a casual tone that fooled nobody. “It’s the Scotsman?”
“We’re not discussing this.”
“I’m just confirming. Because if it was Hank, I’d need to seriously recalibrate my understanding of the universe.”
I choked on my coffee.
Kaya grinned triumphantly and went back to cooking, humming something that sounded suspiciously like a wedding march.
“If you say one word to anyone—” I started.
“Please. I’m a vault.”
“You told Hank about the time I had a panic attack at the store.”
“That was different. That was concerning. This is fucking fantastic.” She jabbed the spatula at me again. “Not a peep. Cross my heart.”
I was about to respond when footsteps sounded in the hallway. Graham appeared in the kitchen doorway, freshly showered, looking annoyingly put-together for a man who’d had approximately four hours of sleep.
My entire body went hot.
Not from attraction, though that was there too, instant and inconvenient. From panic. Because Kaya knew, and Graham didn’t know Kaya knew, and if she said something, anything, even a look, he’d think I’d told her. That I’d come straight to the kitchen and spilled everything like a teenager after prom.
Which I absolutely had not done. My face had betrayed me. There was a difference.
“Morning,” Graham said, his eyes finding mine with a warmth that was going to get us both caught with everybody if he didn’t dial it down.
“Morning,” I said, lunging for the sugar bowl.
Kaya didn’t bat an eyelash. She just kept working those eggs.
“Coffee’s fresh,” she told Graham in a neutral voice. “Mugs above the sink.”
“Cheers.” He moved past me to the coffee station, his arm brushing mine, barely, just the sleeve of his flannel againstmy wrist, and my whole body registered the contact like a seismograph.
I gripped my mug tighter and stared out the window.
“Sleep well?” Kaya asked him, and the question was so perfectly innocent that only I could hear the blade tucked inside it.
I shot her a look.
She didn’t even glance at me.
“Best I’ve slept in weeks,” Graham said, and it sounded so genuine that it made my throat tighten and my face burn simultaneously.
