ME: <laughing face emoji> It’s IMHO. <face with rolling eyes emoji> He left a note that he went out to pick up breakfast. He’s being so sweet. It’s deeply annoying.
BEX: Yeah, that sucks. Josh and I spent the night in Mel’s guest room with the baby and the life-size glow in the dark nativity scene and the roast chicken farts. But your thing sounds way more annoying. <raised middle finger emoji>
ME: Oh shit. I think he’s back. We didn’t do it on the ferry, so never discuss this with anyone ever again, including me! xo
BEX: Roger that. Josh is dropping Piper off at her friend’s house, so obviously I WON’T be reading her journals while tidying up her room now. xo
I stretch and slide out of Declan’s bed, yawning. So much for my “No Sleepovers” rule. According to my phone, it is almost eleven, and I don’t think I’ve slept in this late since I was a teenager. But I only got about five hours sleep. My lips feel swollen, the skin all over my body is pink from being thoroughly exfoliated by holiday scruff, and let’s just say that I will not be riding a bike today because things are a little tender down there. But happy. Deliriously, terrifyingly happy.
There’s a large gray men’s T-shirt laid out on top of the covers of my side of the bed, along with a pair of boxer briefs and wool socks. There’s a Post-it note on the boxer briefs that says previously unworn. As if I wouldn’t slip on a pair of Declan Cannavale’s previously worn undies after becoming so intimate with the part of his body that he wears them on. So thoughtful. So annoying.
So wrong?
I shake that concept off, slip into his clothes, and pad into the kitchen, where Declan’s plating our take-out breakfast and placing it on bed trays. I’ve never been with a guy who owned a bed tray before. Much less two of them.
That’s when I realize he probably lived here with Hannah and that she’s probably the one who bought them. I wonder how many other women he’s made breakfast in bed for. I inhale the most tantalizing coffee aroma and wonder how it’s possible that the man I’ve bought coffee for every weekday morning as per his request can make coffee himself at home.
When he sees me, he holds a croissant midair and does a slow, full sweep of me from head to toe and back up again. The grin that spreads across his face is as handsome and inviting as his apartment, and they both belong on the cover of a magazine. But I’m not ready to share either of them with the rest of the world again yet.
“Morning,” I say, grinning back and smoothing the soft fabric of his T-shirt over my body.
He has to clear his throat before saying, “Hey…” And now my day has been made. “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“Would you like me to get back in your bed?”
“Is that a trick question?”
I spot a large, gorgeous flower arrangement on the kitchen counter, and it definitely wasn’t there when he fucked me on it last night. “Wow. Dec. Those are gorgeous. Did you get those when you went out to pick up the food?”
“Yeah. You think Mrs. P will like them?” He sucks butter off his thumb, and I’m pretty sure I remember a time when I couldn’t decide if that smirk made me want to slap or kiss him, but I have this strange urge to create another tiny person with those dimples and those shiny golden brown eyes.
I have to shake that concept off too. “Mrs. Pavlovsky? You bought more flowers for my landlady?”
“You got a problem with that? She’s my girl.”
“You planning on having more boxing equipment delivered to my apartment when I’m not there?”
“Sometimes I just like to give women flowers, Magdalena.” He crosses over to the table by the front door and holds up an elegant orchid plant in a gold patina vessel. “This is for you.”
“Dec, that’s gorgeous. I love orchids.”
“I know. It’s for your desk.”
Right. My desk. At the office. Where we work together. And he’s my bossy boss who bosses me around, day and night.
“Thank you,” I finally remember to say. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“And I definitely didn’t imagine bending you over your desk and fucking you while I was paying for this. Because that would be a clear violation of the company’s current nonfraternization policy. But I have it on good authority that the in-house attorney will be officially rewriting said policy tomorrow. So keep that desk clear.” He gives me an exaggerated wink. But not even that dimple can subdue the oncoming dread that’s even worse than what I felt when I was a kid who didn’t want to go back to school after Christmas break.
He puts his hands on my hips and presses his lips to my forehead, and okay, maybe it’s not as bad as going back to school. Because I never went to school with anyone as hot and charming as Declan Cannavale.
“Let’s go back to bed,” he says. “I’ve never used those trays before.”
* * *
Declan miraculously finds a parking space right in front of my apartment building in the early afternoon, and by now I’m not anxious about anything anymore because we showered together. And by “showered together,” I mean we had sex in his big amazing shower. Mrs. Pavlovsky is sweeping the stoop, and I know she’s a seventy-year-old widow who still loves her deceased husband and all, but from the way she’s looking at Declan as he approaches her with an arm full of flowers, I’m pretty sure she’d let him bone her on a ship if he was into it.
“Ohhh, vat is zis? For me?”
“For you,” he says, giving her a gentle hug before handing her the bouquet like she’s a prima ballerina.
“Sank you. Ohhh,
