He ran a hand down my face in a joking manner. “Shhh. Go back to sleep. It’s too early to be awake.”
I laughed but closed my eyes and pressed my body as close to his as I possibly could. Between us, there was some very hard evidence that he didn’t actually want me to go back to sleep. Now his hand was on my ass, and he was pulling me tightly against him.
I hummed out a happy noise. I loved this. I loved being held and waking up to someone. I loved his warm body against mine and the way it relaxed me. I loved that I could feel his smile against my cheek.
I was almost certain that I loved all this because I loved him.
We sat in my car in front of my mom’s house, both unwilling to admit that the weekend was over and we had to get back to our separate lives. At least I was unwilling to admit that. I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t getting out of my car. His car sat on the curb, ready to take him away. One of the plants from myapartment sat in my cupholder, the others in the back seat. I wasn’t going to let them wither away this time.
“I’ve never been to your place,” I said after a few minutes of silence.
“No, you haven’t,” he responded quickly. “You should come over. Tonight?”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “How about tomorrow night? I don’t want my mom to think I’m ditching her again so soon.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow night.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “I had a good time this weekend.”
“Which part did you like better? The working in my restaurant or the sex? Be honest.” I smiled at him.
He pretended to think. “So hard to choose.” He turned in his seat to face me more fully. “No, but really, I enjoyed working with you at the restaurant. You probably think it was a chore for me, but it wasn’t. It reminded me of college.”
“Did you wait tables in college?”
“I did.”
“I bet you got so many tips.”
“Is this a commentary on my prettiness again?”
“It is.”
“Did you work in college?”
“I did. At a photo-processing place.”
“Really?”
“No, I just thought it would be funny if you were a server and I did something related to photography. But I really didn’t.”
“Smartass.”
“Are you stealing my insults?”
“I am.” He still held my hand in his and was running his thumb over my knuckles. “Where did you really work?”
“I worked at this juice place, selling super-expensive juice to people who ate very little else,” I said.
“How very Los Angeles of you.”
“Are we stalling?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a smirk.
I sighed and looked at the house. I really needed to get in there. It was already four in the afternoon. Tara had checked on my mom this morning, but she hadn’t had anyone with her for any amount of consecutive hours since the day before with Lucy.
I must’ve stared at the house too long because Elijah said, “My house is still on the table for tonight.”
I scrunched my nose and then grabbed the plant from the cupholder and pulled on the door handle. Elijah followed me to the trunk, where he lifted out his suitcase. I took my toiletries bag, then collected the box of plants from the back seat, wedging the cupholder one in between the others.
