I blinked against the morning light leaking around the edges of the curtains where blackout didn’t quite meet sill. The sheets were navy, not my usual gray. The pillow smelled like clean soap and someone else’s shampoo. The mattress was a whole lot nicer than mine, the kind with buttons and heat sensors and shit.
This was Skyler’s apartment.
I was in Skyler’s bed.
I’d stayed.
The memories of the previous night—and early this morning—surfaced in a rush that made me pullthe covers tighter and grin into the pillow like an idiot. I squeezed my eyes shut and watched hands exploring my skin, felt his lips on my neck, reveled in the way he’d whispered my name like it was something sacred.
And before that: the couch, the Thai food,Sister Actplaying to no one.
And his confession in the dark.
This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
I pressed my face deeper into the pillow and let myself feel it—all of it—the happiness and the terror and the fragile, reckless hope that maybe, just maybe, this could work.
Another wave of burnt coffee smell drifted in from the kitchen, and I swear I heard a pot or pan being morally compromised.
I climbed out of bed, found my boxers on the floor, and pulled on my green button-down without buttoning it. The hardwood was cool beneath my bare feet as I padded down the hallway toward the source of the commotion.
Skyler stood at the kitchen counter in his silky black shorts and the white T-shirt, frowning at his coffee pod machine like it had tried to filet his pinky toe. Two mugs sat on the counter. One contained something that resembled coffee, at least in color. The other contained something that more closelyresembled tar.
“Morning,” I said from the doorway where I scratched my scalp.
He turned, and his face did that thing where his whole expression softened and brightened simultaneously.
“Hey.” He held up the tar mug. “I made you coffee. Well. I made you something. I’m not sure it qualifies as coffee.”
I crossed the kitchen and took the mug, peering into it, wondering how someone, anyone, could screw up K-Cup coffee. All you had to do was put the pod in the slot and press brew. How could that be difficult?
I swirled whatever was in the mug. The liquid was so dark it seemed to absorb light.
“Did you use five or six pods?”
“I only used three, thank you very much.” He faux snarled in my direction before his expression went sheepish. “I thought it would make it stronger.”
“It made it lethal.”
“Is that bad?”
“Only if you value your stomach lining.” I took a sip anyway.
It was, in fact, the worst coffee I’d ever tasted—bitter and thick and the temperature of molten lava. I swallowed and managed not to wince. “Perfect.”
“Liar.”
“Guilty as charged. This is terrible.”
He laughed, and the sound filled the kitchen, filled me, filled every corner of the morning with something bright and easy.
“I told you I don’t cook,” he said. “The cooking thing extends to all food preparation, including beverages.”
“Coffee in a Keurig counts as cooking? Seriously? Do you ever adult?”
“Um, adulting is hard.”
He was so fucking adorable I either had to laugh or muss his hair—which was already well mussed—so I laughed.
