My apartment.
My bed.
State Street.
And the fact that I had made it through one whole night back home without anything terrible happening?Progress.
Pain still pulsed through my shoulder in that annoying, throbbing,hey, remember me?way, but it wasn’t as bad as the first few nights.Or maybe sleeping in my own bed had tricked my body into relaxing just enough to give me a break.Either way, I was taking the win.
I pushed the blankets down and sat up slowly, pausing when my shoulder protested.The room was gray with early morning light, and the apartment was quiet in that soft, sleepy way that made me think it had to still be pretty early.
I stood and stretched as carefully as I could, then shuffled toward the bedroom door.
The hallway was dim.The living room glowed faintly from the muted TV still playing some infomercial no one in their right mind would ever buy anything from.I peeked down the hallway and saw Swift on the couch.
Sleeping.Well, kind of.
He was sitting up, head tipped back against the cushion, one arm folded over his stomach, the other resting close enough to the gun he’d set on the side table that I knew if someone breathed wrong outside, he’d be awake and dangerous in less than a second.
He looked like he had just needed to rest for a minute.
Like his body had finally forced him to shut down even though his brain had probably fought it.
His hair was a little messy, his stubble darker this morning, and there was something about the sight of a big, gruff biker half-dozing on my couch that did weird things to my insides.
He looked uncomfortable.
Sexy.
And somehow… safe.
I stood there just watching him, and then I shook myself out of it.
Swift had been the one making me coffee for the past week.
And now it was my turn.
I turned and made my way into the kitchen as quietly as I could, which was apparently not very quietly at all because I’m pretty sure the floorboard by the fridge had it out for me personally.
My apartment kitchen was one of my favorite parts of the place.
Not because it was huge.It wasn’t.It was one of those narrow, galley-style kitchens with barely enough room for two people to stand in it without one of them ending up pinned against the counter.
Which, now that I thought about it, wasn’t necessarily a bad feature if Swift was going to be in here with me.
No.Stop.
I had a fancy coffee setup sitting on the counter by the window.Not industrial-level fancy, but enough that Tempi liked to call it my “coffee shrine.”
There was the matte black espresso machine with its little steam wand and shiny metal spout.The pod brewer beside it.The milk frother.A rotating rack of pods in every roast and flavor.Two glass bottles of syrup, vanilla and caramel, plus three creamers in the fridge because I refused to commit to just one mood.
I liked a good cup of coffee.
More accurately, I liked coffee that tasted like it had put effort into being delicious.
Lattes.
Espressos.
