When I walk back into the guest room, expecting to have to put back on the dress I wore last night, I spot a pile of folded clothes on the bed.
Have those been there the whole time?
It’s a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a white crewneck sweatshirt. I assume they’re both Julian’s and hold them to my nose, inhaling the scent of him infused in the fibers.
God, what am I doing? Am I really crushing on Amelia’s brother? The jerk who nearly lost me the best job I’ve ever gotten?
I can’t help it. There’s a tugging sensation in my chest every time I think about him, that sad, lonely boy. I think about the way his fingers felt in mine last night at the restaurant. The connection between us is visceral and natural. Like I can love him and hate him at the same time. Like I know him. Like I would always have his back and he would have mine.
Which is nuts.
Laughing to myself at the idea, I pull on the sweatpants, going commando because he didn’t provide a pair of underwear. The waistband is loose around my hips, so I roll it a couple of times. Then I put on the sweatshirt, and it’s warm…like it’s just out of the dryer.
Hugging myself in his clothes, I take a few minutes to dry my hair before opening the door of the room and tiptoeing through Julian’s apartment.
I walk down a long hallway before I reach the main living room. The first thing I see is what looks like a giant sprawled out on the brown leather sofa. Archer is still in last night’s clothes, a pair of dark slacks and a white undershirt. His feet are bare, and one leg is thrown over the back of the couch. It takes everything in me not to tickle the bottom of his foot.
Spotting movement to my right, I turn to find Julian standing alone in his kitchen. Struck by the sight ofcasualJulian, I gape like a fish.
He’s in a black long-sleeved shirt that’s tight around hisshoulders, showing off slender muscles I didn’t know he had. Like me, he’s in a pair of dark gray sweatpants, and I catch my eyes drifting inappropriately low to see the outline of…well, the outline of what one would expect to see in a pair of gray sweats.
“Good morning,” he says with a hint of humor as if he caught me looking and finds it amusing. His voice is like poison-laced honey, silky smooth with a bite of something terrifying.
I clear my throat and look away. “Good morning.”
Archer doesn’t move an inch at the sound of my voice. He might as well be dead to the world, and if he wasn’t snoring so loudly, I’d assume he was.
“Coffee?” Julian asks, holding up his mug.
“Yes, please,” I reply, walking into the kitchen.
As he turns his back on me to make me a cup, he adds, “There’s water and aspirin on the counter too. In case you need it.”
And sure enough, there is a bottle of pain meds and a glass of water. Who knew Julian Kade could be so hospitable?
“Thank you,” I say, “but I’m fine. I don’t really get hangovers.”
He laughs at that. “Must be nice.”
Sitting on one of the barstools around his kitchen island, I watch him work. To my surprise, his coffee maker isn’t a state-of-the-art espresso machine like I would have expected. Instead, it’s a single pod coffee maker that I’ve heard makes terrible coffee, but I don’t comment.
“So…what happened last night?” I ask instead.
Julian peers over his shoulder at Archer on the couch. “Well…we drank way too much at the restaurant. Then we came back here, and you fell asleep on the ride. That’s…about it.”
My eyes narrow, watching him retrieve the cream from the fridge and place it in front of me with a spoon.
“What else happened?”
He pauses, glancing up at me skeptically. “Nothing. We took turns carrying you upstairs, and Archer placed you in the bed.”
“And what did you two do after I was in bed?”
I could spot the twitch in his lips from a mile away. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” I reply with a smirk as I stir cream into my coffee.
As expected, it’s terrible. A crime against coffee. But I drink it anyway.
