“Usually. How was Oklahoma, though? Did you guys have a good holiday?”
“It was…perfect, actually.” I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face. “Riley’s family is pretty awesome. It was probably the best holiday I’ve ever had, to be honest.”
“Yay!” Jess cheers. “I love that for you. Well listen, call me tomorrow sometime and let’s go over your content schedule through the end of the year. Don’t forget you have that collab with Axel Oliver later this week.”
Shit. Ihadforgotten about that. I glance up the stairs to where Riley is still sleeping. I’ve never tried to have a relationship before…what does that look like when your job is literally having sex with people who aren’t your partner? A knot begins to tie itself tightly in my gut.
“Luke? You okay?” Jess’s voice breaks me out of my spiral.
“Yeah, sorry, just tired,” I say quickly. “I’ll call you tomorrow for sure. Thanks for everything today.”
As soon as we hang up, I order Chinese food family style from a delivery app. I have no idea what Riley might want when he wakes up, but if he’s anything like me, his stomach is about to eat itself alive, so I order a few of the most popular dishes.
Once that’s taken care of, I drop my phone on the coffee table and scrub my hands over my face as I sink back into the chair. Why wasn’t I thinking about how work would fit into all this when we were…whatever we were doing last night?Because work and Riley are two totally different things,my brain supplies helpfully. I’m not sure how that works, though—we literally met because of work. But at the same time…what I feel when I’m with Riley isn’t like anything I’ve felt before when I’m working.
“Everything okay?” Riley’s concerned voice comes from the top of the stairs, startling me.
“Hey, sunshine…sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, I just woke up and you weren’t there and I worried something was wrong.” He makes his way over to the couch and curls up against the arm, tucking his feet up under him. He looks adorable, hair all mussed and eyes sleepy. I pull the blanket off the back of my chair and hand it over to him, and he wraps up in it like a little burrito. “Are you hungry? I ordered Chinese.”
“That sounds amazing,” he yawns, snuggling deeper into the blanket. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Just after nine.”
“God, we slept so long,” he says with a frown. “Guess this day was a bust.”
“It kinda was,” I agree, “but I’m worthless on travel days anyway, especially with an early morning flight like that.”
Riley lets out a deep sigh, the weight of everything that’s happened today visible in the dark circles under his eyes, even after hours of sleep. “Tyler seemed like an asshole, but I definitely did not have eviction on my bingo card for this year. I’ll start looking for a place tomorrow.”
I don’t want him to start looking for a place tomorrow. I want him to stay here. I just got him, and I’m not ready to be apart from him yet. I want to spend my evenings watching televisioncuddled up together on the couch, and I want him to be here when I come home from work, and I want to wake up to him every morning.
I can’t tell him that, though; he needs to do what he feels is best for him. Instead, I say, “It’ll be okay, I promise. And it’s really no big deal for you to stay here. Besides, I could use the company. Jess is always telling me I’m too much of a lone wolf.”
“Thanks,” he sighs. “For this, and for having my back today. I thought you were gonna punch that guy.”
“Oh, believe me, I wanted to.”
“Stand down, killer,” Riley laughs. He tilts his head and studies me thoughtfully for a moment. “Boyfriend, huh?”
I blush and glance away. “You caught that, did you?”
“I liked it,” he admits softly. He stretches out one leg and nudges at my knee with his foot playfully. “I want to be your boyfriend.”
“Well, you’d be the first,” I confess, swallowing over the sudden lump in my throat. I catch his ankle before he can pull his leg away and begin to massage the arch of his foot with my thumb.
Riley’s eyebrows rise. “Ever?” His tone is laced with disbelief.
“Yep. Ever.”
“How is that even possible?” He pulls a hand out of his blanket burrito to gesture wildly in my direction. “I mean,lookat you.”
I shrug, uncomfortable with the compliment. “I just never found anyone I was interested enough in. And a lot of guys wouldn’t be cool with my line of work.”
Riley nods thoughtfully, pulling his foot away and lifting the other for the same treatment. “I could see that. But you never wanted to date anyone in the industry?”
“Not really.” I grimace at the thought. “All those guys just feel like…coworkers. Most of them are great, and we evenhang out sometimes. Like Dante. But I just never thought of it beyond that. Nate and I hooked up once, but that was mostly an experiment after too much tequila. We were good friends by then, so we figured…why not.”
