Need a night off. Can anyone take over for a few hours?
I put my phone down and kept rowing until I felt the burn start. When I finished my set, I looked down and saw the message I hadn’t heard chime through.
ACE
Done. Viper will be there at five.
I pocketed my phone and headed over to the treadmill to run off some of the energy I had before I started breakfast. It had become a habit of mine to cook breakfast and make sure she was eating. My grandma would have been happy that I was cooking again. She always said breakfast sets you up for the day so why not have all your carbs and sugars then. I smiled at the memory floating around in my headabout her. Guilt washed over me as I realised it had been a while since I went to see her. As a nomad, I would go often to see her whenever we were close. After everything happened with my dad, going to live with her had been a godsend until even that was taken from me. That only led to my downfall but I couldn’t think about that now, it was too depressing.
I started to jog on the treadmill, pushing all the thoughts aside that were causing me grief. I hadn’t thought so much about my family in years and yet, being here, they’d been in my mind constantly and it was setting me off kilter.
After my legs started to tingle, I hopped off the machine and headed inside to shower. She wasn’t awake yet so I knew I had time to get ready. After a quick shower, I headed into the kitchen and started to whip up an omelet, bacon and hash browns. It was basic, but it would be enough for today.
Once I put the bacon in the pan, I knew she would wake up. She always did. Smiling, it made me think of when I was a kid and the sizzle and smell of the bacon would always wake me up, too.
“Morning,” I heard her grumble as she came into the room. I turned around and saw her bed hair knotted around her face and her eyes barely open. She obviously didn’t realise that her tank was almostsee through and I could see her rosy nipples darkened behind the sheer material.
I turned back to the pan, hoping it came off as sincerely looking after the food, and not because my cock was waking the fuck up.
It should be illegal for her to look so goddamn adorable and sexy at the same time, even just having woken up from sleep and looking like she’d fought for her life in her dreams.
I needed to get laid, stat.
She took a seat at the table and I finished up in the kitchen, noticing she had fixed her top so that it didn’t cling to her body like it was shrink wrap. I put her plate down in front of her and mine in front of me and we ate in relative silence. Darby still continued to make those goddamn moaning sounds that had my dick at constant attention.
“I’m going out tonight,” I told her. “I have things to do, but Viper will come and hang with you.”
“Babysit, you mean.”
“You can think of it how you wish,” I replied. It was colder than I expected. I saw her cringe at the harsh tone, wishing like anything I could take it back. “Is there anything you need? I can get him to bring it with him.”
“No.”
She was shut off, hardly making eye contact with me and for some reason, it annoyed me more than it should have. After all, I’d just been a dick to her and she was reacting exactly like she should, yet I felt maybe it was something else.
“What’s wrong with you this morning?”
“I didn’t sleep well,” she offered, looking at her piece of bacon as if she were pondering life’s questions. She’d barely touched her food, and I knew it wasn’t because she was full or because she didn’t like it. I made that bacon exactly how she liked it.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Her slow smile as she looked over at me did something funny inside and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. “What are you…like ninety or something?”
“Eat your food, Darby.”
She did, finally putting the food in her mouth and staying quiet. I don’t know why, and I probably shouldn’t read too much into it, but these quiet mornings together were peaceful, and something I looked forward to every morning.
The fuck was happening to me?
“Did you want to go for a walk today?” she asked me after she was done. I picked up her plate and took both of them to the sink.
“Yeah, we can do that.”
Darby jumped up and ran to her room to change. I waited for her to return before I headed to the door. She was wearing denim shorts that barely went past her ass cheeks, and a pink tank top. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she had on sunglasses that were entirely too big and rested on her cheeks. She wore her pink Chuck Taylors and yet somehow she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine. Her perfume was overpowering as she joined me at the door.
I unlocked it and we headed out to the woods. The breeze carried her perfume back into my nostrils and wouldn’t you know it, hard as a stone again.
Fuck me. I really needed this night off.
