But it’s yet another day where I have nothing to do and all day to do it.
Heaven.
I lift my arms above my head and give my entire body a good stretch. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in months. Before the wedding, I would lie awake, even when I was exhausted, just thinking about the big day, and it completely filled me with dread. It was like a parasite feeding on my worry. It grew bigger and bigger each day, and the knot in my stomach became so large that I could barely eat the day before the wedding.
The contrast today is undeniable. The sun shines brighter, like a halo around the closed drapes. The birds sound happier, and more importantly, there’s no nausea or tightness in my stomach, which had been hanging around like an unwanted bug.
Instead, I’m calm, with a steady energy that feels a lot like happiness fizzing through my body.
Today is going to be a good day.
A firm knock on my bedroom door makes me sit up in bed and pull the comforter up to cover my tits as I only have a thin camisole top on. “You can come in, Leon,” I call.
He pushes the door open and enters, wearing workout shorts that sit low on his hips and nothing else.
Holy fuckballs, come to Momma.
“You should be on the cover of a magazine,” I mutter, quieter than a whisper.
My gaze locks onto the faint trail of golden hair sprinkled down his chest that travels between the ridges of his sculpted abs as if pointing toward treasure. My tongue darts across my lips, heat pooling in my core as I follow that tempting path, right to where it vanishes beneath the waistband of his shorts.
Leon’s packing, and the other day in his bathroom, I felt exactly what was waiting for me there.
“I would need to do months of training to prepare for that.” Leon looks down at himself.
Yikes, he heard me. I decide to go with it. “Stop it. You look like you’re still in your thirties, but you’re sexier now than when you were younger.” It’s the truth.
He grabs his stomach and pinches an inch of muscle and nothing else. “I’m out of shape.”
“You’re pretty perfect, Leon.”
My comment makes him jerk his head in shock. “Perfect?”
“Yeah.” I work on bodies, with bodies, all day, every day, trying to keep them alive and healthy, and Leon has the most beautiful body I have ever laid eyes on. “Trust me. Humans are my thing, and you sit at the top spot of the hot man scale.”
Leon walks toward the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress, a smirk playing across his lips. “Hot man scale? What the fuck is that?”
“It’s something Lucia and Sofia made up a long time ago.” It’s not even a real thing; I just made that up to hide my hiccup.
I’m a grown woman acting like a teenager this morning. He’s the only man who turns my brain cells to soup.
“And you put me at the top of it? Really?”
“They did, not me.” My body temperature rises a few degrees at my tall tale.
He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” I know he can see through my fib.
“So, who is at the top of yourhot man scale?” Leon wraps his fingers around the last three words in air quotes.
“I’m not telling you.” I find the drapes interesting as I try to hide my embarrassment.
“You can tell me if it’s me. It’s okay to like me that way.”
“I don’t like you like that,” I bite back a little too loudly.
He scratches his morning scruff with a half-smile. “How long have you been telling yourself that, Erika?”
