“And your glasses on.”
“The glasses were a tactical decision.”
“The glasses were adorable. You planned a nude romantic ambush and kept your glasses on because you wanted to see my face.”
“I wanted to see your face. That’s accurate. Can we stop talking about the couch?”
“We can pause, but the couch discussion has no expiration date. It’s like bomb shelter food. It will never go bad. I’m also going to need, at some point, a full accounting of the thought process that led you to fold your boxers before placing them on the chair. Youfoldedyour boxers, Peter. You were about to seduce me and you took the time to fold your underwear into a neat square.”
“Clothes should be folded.”
“Even pre-seduction underclothes?”
“Allclothes were created equal and have theunalienable right to a proper folding.”
A laugh burst out of me so suddenly that Peter’s whole body flinched.
“You folded your underwear and stacked them neatly. I’m fairly certain you aligned the edges. I saw the stack. The stack had military corners, like a bunk in a barracks, except only the ball-holding cloth and not the whole bed.”
“Most people’s clothes end up on the floor. That’s inefficient. If I’d thrown them on the floor, I would have had to pick them up later, which would have disrupted the post-encounter period.”
“Post-encounter period?” I snorted. “You were thinking aboutthe post-encounter periodwhile getting undressed for seduction.”
“I always think ahead. You know this.”
“I do know this, and I need you to know that the folding was the single most attractive thing I’ve ever witnessed. More than the couch or the glasses, the folding. I saw that little stack of squared-off clothes on the chair and I thought,This man took his clothes off for me and made them into a display case, and I almost passed out.”
“You didn’t almost pass out.”
“You’re right. I almost died. The folding nearly killed me. I was holding a stuffed manatee and looking at your folded boxers and contemplating my ownmortality.”
He pulled me closer.
His confidence was new.
It was the confidence of a man who had survived vulnerability and was learning that the walls didn’t need to go back up immediately.
“Coffee,” he said, after I kissed him and pulled back.
“God, yes. All the coffee.”
“I’ll make it.”
“I’ll make it. You made it yesterday.”
“You don’t make it correctly,” he said.
“I make it differently.”
“You overfill the French press.” He pursed his lips. “The ratio is four tablespoons per—”
“Peter, stay in bed. I’ll make the coffee. It will be slightly different from your coffee, but like Gloria Gaynor, you will survive.”
“Four tablespoons,” he said.
“I know.”
“Per twenty-four ounces.”
