Page 26 of The Fighter

I groaned and tried to run my fingers through my hair, but my muscles didn’t work right, and all I succeeded in doing was flopping my arm over my eyes. “Fuck me, Tav. Not sure I’ve had a morning that good in a while.”

I peeked at him from under my arm as he hopped up from the bed and grabbed a tissue, dabbing at his release on his skin. After getting rid of the tissue, he stood at the edge of the bed, nearly bobbing on his toes like a boxer. I could hardly believe this was the sullen man I’d first invited to my apartment, or theanxiety-stricken lover who I’d chased out onto the balcony last night.

His face was open, his eyes bright underneath his too-long hair. “So, uh, you want breakfast? Because I can make eggs and stuff.”

This was not the way I saw this morning going. And I didn’t hate it. I raised an eyebrow. “Do youwantto make eggs and stuff?”

He blinked. “Yeah.”

I raised onto my elbows. “Okay, then go do it.”

He grabbed his sweatpants off the floor and slipped them on, sans underwear, and then walked to the bedroom door. He was one step into the hallway when he slapped a hand on the doorframe and leaned back in. “Con?”

I was sitting on the edge of the bed now, trying to recover from having my brain sucked out through my dick. “Yes?”

“Do you like eggs?”

I needed to ask how old Tav was. When I first met him, he’d walked with the weight of a veteran who’d been through three wars. This morning, he seemed twenty-one. “I like eggs. Make whatever, and I’ll eat it.”

He flashed me a grin. “Okay.”

I showered, and as I pulled on a pair of sweatpants, the smell of eggs cooking and coffee brewing filtered down the hallway from my kitchen. I didn’t bother with a shirt and padded down the hallway.

Tav stood at the stove, a towel flung over his shoulder, a spatula in his other hand. His head bobbed, like he was humming to himself. He was absolutely beautiful, his entire body a work of art, from the ink on his skin to his muscles to the way he moved—all fluid like an athlete. I could get used to this, waking up every morning to a beautiful man in my kitchen, wearing nothing but sweatpants, cooking me breakfast.

He turned around and startled when he saw me. “Oh, hey. I made omelets because, uh, you have a lot of shit in your fridge.”

“I have a lot of shit in my fridge?”

He shoved a piece of bacon in his mouth and chewed. I didn’t know I had bacon. “Yeah, lotta shit that was gonna go bad soon.”

“Oh, okay.”

He cocked his head. “You don’t cook?”

“I have a housekeeper who shops for me, and a cook that comes in and makes my meals ahead of time for me.”

He stared at me like I had three heads. “You have this kitchen and don’t cook in it?”

“Well, someone cooks in it,” I muttered, unsure why I felt the need to be defensive about this.

He frowned, then shrugged. “It’s a great kitchen, Con.”

I had truly never cared about my kitchen, but in that moment, pride swelled in my chest that I had something that made Tav happy. I sat down on a stool at my kitchen island and ran my hand over a dent in the marble that Nik had put there when he’d dropped my coffee carafe. “Thank you.”

After asking how I take my coffee—black—he poured me a cup and dropped the paper in front of me. The doorman brought it up every morning and left it outside my door. How Tav knew it would be there was a mystery to me, but I didn’t bother asking. I took a sip of my coffee and felt more like myself as the caffeine fired up my brain. “Do you like to cook?”

“Yeah, I mean, my apartment doesn’t have…” he waved the spatula in the air, his back to me. “…Amenities.” He said the word with a vocal affect, like I suspected he would talk about my Bentley. His shoulders heaved with a breath and when he glanced over his shoulder at me, he was smiling again. “But I’m a pro with a hotplate and an air fryer. Oh, and a rice cooker.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your favorite thing you make”

“Smash burgers with fried onions and mustard. When I wanna cheat meal.” His arm twitched, and I got the feeling even that was more than he wanted to admit to me.

“How old are you?”

His smile faded, and he squinted at me. “Is this an interrogation?”

I huffed a laugh. “No.”Not yet.“I ask because this morning you seem younger than I’d originally thought.”