When I turn and look at her, my stomach dips, my heart working overtime to keep up with the racing of my pulse.
Her hair is tossed up on the top of her head in a messy bun, and she’s wearing one of my T-shirts, an old, worn navy blue one from a summer training camp at OU. There’s a hole in the center, and you can’t even read what the letters say anymore from where they’ve peeled. Along with what I’m going to assumeare her “fat pants,” which is fucking insane because she’s perfect, that are an oversized pair of pink sweatpants that she’s got rolled up beneath the T-shirt.
She’s beautiful to the point that it’s hard to breathe.
I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about that she looks anything other than beautiful.
I shake my head and set all of the bags onto the ground and close the distance between us. My hands slide along her jaw, cradling her face in my palms, and I lean down and kiss the shit out of her, tasting the sweet flavor of the ChapStick she must have only just put on before I got here.
Then I pull back and look down at her. “You’re beautiful. Now. Always, Maisie. Don’t say that about yourself ever again.”
Her mouth opens, probably to argue, but then she closes it.
I grin.
And then that delicate space between her brow is furrowing, and she puts her hands on her hips, blinking up at me. “Okay, but what are you doing here, Wilder?”
I don’t immediately answer.
Reaching down, I pick up the bags off the floor and turn down the hallway toward her kitchen. I can hear her shuffling behind me on my heels, but I’m still not answering her.
“Wilder.”
“Hm,” I hum, setting the bags onto the counter.
Her hand curves around my forearm, and I stop and look down at her.
“What is all this? What is happening right now, and don’t do that thing that you do.”
My lip curves. “What thing?”
“You know whatthing,” Maisie huffs, pinning me with a glare. “That whole… silent, broody, not answering my question because you’re avoiding it thing.”
Damn. She’s got me pegged.
Sebastian chooses now to appear in the doorway, his thick, fluffy tail flicking as he lazily saunters into the kitchen.
Straight for me.
Fucking cat.
He meows incessantly, rubbing himself against my legs and covering me with hair without a damn doubt.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as I pull out the bag of cat treats I picked up on a whim. I passed them as I was walking to the checkout, some type of buy-one-get-one deal, so I grabbed them because maybe I can convince him to leave me the hell alone if I bribe him with these fuckers. Using my teeth, I tear the bag open and then grab a few for him. “Here. Now, go on.”
He happily snatches them out of my hand between his teeth and obliges, at least putting a few feet between us.
I put the bag down, and that’s when I realize that Maisie’s staring at me like I’ve grown another head, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open in an adorable O.
My brow pinches. “What?”
“W-what? What?” she cries as she walks over, stopping right beside me. “You bought Sir Sebastian treats, Wilder?”
Oh fuck. “Yeah? He annoys me unless I’m feeding him.”
Her mouth is already curving into the kind of shit-eating, all-knowing smile that I want to kiss right the hell off.
“Don’t make a big deal out of something that isn’t,” I say. Maisie only nods, that smile never leaving her lips.
