She padded toward the kitchen. Bare legs. Bare feet on my heated floors. My shirt hanging past her thighs.
I stayed where I was. Staring at the ceiling. Counting the beats of a heart that was doing things I hadn't authorized.
In the kitchen, I heard her open the fridge. Heard the clatter of a pan. Heard her start singing—off-key, uninhibited, a pop song I didn't recognize—and the sound filled my apartment in a way eight years of silence never had.
You're in love with her.
Yeah. I was.
You have no business being in love with her.
Also true.
You're going to ruin this.
I stared at the ceiling and hoped—in a way I hadn't allowed myself to hope in years—that the voice in my head was wrong.
From the kitchen: "Callum! Where's the maplesyrup? If you tell me you don't own maple syrup, this relationship is over."
"Top shelf," I called back. "Behind the protein powder."
"Of course it's behind the protein powder. Your pantry has the personality of a CrossFit brochure."
I got up. Pulled on sweatpants. Walked toward the sound of her voice—toward the singing and the sizzle of a pan and the woman who was falling for me at the same velocity I was falling for her, neither of us talking about it, both of us pretending the freefall wasn't happening.
At the kitchen doorway, I paused.
She stood at the stove, spatula in hand, hips swaying to whatever song was in her head. Hair a wreck. My shirt riding up every time she reached for a plate, giving a glimpse of that delectable heart-shaped ass.
The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
And the most dangerous.
I walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and pressed my mouth to the side of her neck.
"Your ass is showing,” I said.
“Is that a complaint?” She leaned back into me.
“Never.”
She laughed. I held on.
Outside, the city was waking up. Traffic sounds rising. A siren in the distance. The ordinary orchestra of a Saturday morning in February.
Inside, a man who'd spent eight years eating breakfast alone stood in his kitchen holding a woman who'd burned the pancakes—I could see the charred edges from here—and felt a swell of pure, uncomplicated joy that didn't belong to him.
Except it did.
It did, and that was the part that scared me most.
thirteen
WILLOW
I still hadn’t completely gotten over the fact that I was in Callum Hayes's bed.
Not the bed itself—I'd adapted to the obscene thread count and the mattress that probably cost more than my car in approximately four seconds. My body was a traitor with excellent taste. No, the adjustment issue was the man beside me. Specifically, the man's arm draped across my waist, his nose buried in my hair, his breathing deep and rhythmic against the back of my neck.
