Okay, that was enough. Time for more drastic measures.
“Gareth fucking Clark!” she yelled, grabbing his knees and shaking them. “You should be watering my plants, not keeping my couch company. Wake up…”
Suddenly, strong fingers closed around her wrists, startling her. She looked up.
Gareth had opened his eyes – just a crack, allowing her to see his dark blue irises – and frowned. “What are you doing?” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
She swallowed and tugged at her hands, but he held them tightly. “Waking you up. You fell asleep on my couch.”
“I’m…” he began, looking around slowly. “Oh. Fuck.” He abruptly let go of her and rubbed his cheeks, leaving dark streaks on them.
“Why are your hands so dirty?” she asked, confused.
“What?” He blinked, disoriented — and her heart sank. He seemed so soft. So confused and completely vulnerable. She hadn’t seen this Gareth in seven years. The Gareth who hated mornings and always took forever to think clearly and… Her heart fluttered. Shit, he looked cute.
She swallowed, stepped back, and sat carefully on the edge of the couch, far enough away from him so that she wasn’t touching him, but she was tired and needed to rest her legs. “Your hands are caked with dirt,” she whispered, kicking her high heels off. “Why?”
Gareth put his hands to his face and sighed softly. “Oh. I killed your plants and had to replace them,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
She opened her mouth. “You killed them?”
“Well, it was more like failure to render assistance than murder or manslaughter.” He closed his eyes again, as if keeping them open was too taxing.
Hazel stared at him, perplexed — before laughing. “You forgot to water them.”
“Yes.”
“And here I thought I’d given you a light punishment.”
“On the contrary. It was exhausting driving to the store, finding exactly the right plants of a similar size, and transplanting them. Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
Her laughter grew louder, and she saw the corners of his mouth curl upward, as if he was too weak to remember that he never actually smiled around her. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“My plan was foolproof,” he muttered absently.
“If you hadn’t fallen asleep at the crime scene, you would have at least had a chance.”
“That wasn’t a smart move on my part, I guess. Sorry about that. But your couch is very comfortable. Even if it’s white.”
“What’s wrong with the color?”
He chuckled softly and opened one eye to fixate on her. “You made fun of three things in college, Hazel: students who came to class in suits instead of sweatpants, people who wore matching outfits with their dogs, and owners of white sofas.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Who would want to wear a tie in a stuffy, smelly lecture hall? We needed all the oxygen we could get! And dogs should be able to choose their own clothes…”
“…and if you buy a white couch, you live in constant fear of stains and therefore, get a slipcover, so the actual color of the couch becomes irrelevant,” Gareth finished her tirade.
“Well…yeah!”
“I concur. So why the hell do you have a white couch?”
She bit her lip before whispering weakly, “It looked so pretty. And I don’t eat much here anyway.”
Still laughing, Gareth nodded. “Of course. Because you hate eating alone.”
“Yes.” Perhaps she should have been surprised that he still remembered that, but she wasn’t. She didn’t know a man with a better memory, which was probably why he remembered what she’d said during sex when she…
She blinked and quickly made a face. This was not the right time, not the right place. She was afraid Gareth might guess her thoughts from her expression. He’d always been incredibly good at that. But he’d already closed his eyes again and didn’t even notice.
