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“He’s very gifted.”

Gage’s heartbeat picks up beneath my ear. It’s such a small change, I’d miss it if I weren’t lying directly on top of the evidence. “I have something for you,” he says.

I lift my head. “Pie?”

“No.”

“That sounded disappointing,” I inform him, and flop back down.

“Stay.” He extracts himself from the cat and me in one careful movement. Marzipan hisses, clearly having strong opinions regarding the disturbance.

He eyes the Persian. “I don’t believe in taxidermy, Marzipan. Be grateful.”

I giggle and lean back into the pillows, but I’m not too thrilled about the disturbance either. “Gage,” I protest, reaching for him. “You’re taking my space heater away.”

He rolls his eyes. “Thirty seconds.”

I slump, sinking my fingers into Marzipan’s fur for comfort. “If you come back with more water, I’m leaving you.”

He arches a brow. “You’re wearing my shirt and nothing else.”

“I’ll improvise,” I add, tilting my head and admiring the sight of his ass right before he pulls on sweatpants. Clearly, we’re past the “Turn around, you perv” stage.

The stairs creak under his weight, and the house goes quiet around me. The fire behind the glass has burned down to embers, and the lamp on his side throws everything in soft orange. A bow decorates his nightstand. Okay, maybe four. And one of my stockings has been draped over the arm of the chair in the corner for two days now, and he hasn’t said a word about it. I’m converting him. Slowly.

I no longer know where my things end and his begin.

Marzipan rearranges herself into the warm dent he left in the mattress.

Gage comes back through the door with a plate balanced on one palm, and I push upright against the headboard so fast, the cats scatter. “Ohhh. The contraband cupcake.”

“You were warned away from it for a reason,” he says, sitting on the edge of the mattress…on my side.

“I assumed the reason was pastry fascism.”

“There were multiple reasons.”

He lowers the plate into the lamplight, and my chest complicates everything. The cupcake is obnoxiously me: vanilla cake, dark cherry filling, burnt-orange buttercream swirled into a peak, and an oversized sugar bow perched on top with long ribbon tails disappearing beneath it.

“You made me a giant Jubilee cupcake.”

“I’ve made you approximately eighty Jubilee-themed desserts.”

“Yes, but this one looks like it has its own gravitational field.” I take the plate and balance it on my knee without touching the cake, because his face stops me. “Eat it. You’ll love the bow.”

That’s when it registers. His beard alone seems to mirror his tight jaw. His hand, resting on the comforter, presses flat, unmoving. Like he’s bracing for something.

“You’re acting weird.” I scrunch my brows.

“I’m sitting half naked in bed, surrounded by cats, while my girlfriend wears my shirt and interrogates a cupcake.”

“Fiancée would fit the aesthetic better.”

Uh oh. It’s too late to take it back. Gage goes completely rigid.

Shit. We have never said that word. Not teasing, not sideways, not once, and I have just lobbed it across his bed at three in the morning like I’m commenting on the weather. Heat climbs my neck.

Gage still doesn’t move. I can’t read or predict anything at all. Not postal. Not amused. Just…a statue. Oh, God. I’ve spooked him.