Page 189 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions
You will break.
You will break.
Don’t—
Alex kissed along the shell of my ear, allowing me a minute with my ass full before he slipped his fingers free and began caressing and kissing and praising me all over again. He liked this part as much as I did if his thoroughness with it was any indication.
He stayed at my side, fingers skimming my body, staring at me like he always loved to do.
“I eat…lunch in the stairwell,” I murmured sleepily against my pillow as Alex’s fingers danced up my forearm and began to play with my friendship bracelet. I had failed my mission—to finish his bedtime story before we fucked. And it wasn’t till I was half asleep that I even realized.
“You…oh!” He seemed to realize what I was doing pretty quickly, which was good. Because I was far too tired to explain.
“And then I head back to my office. After lunch I do most of my design work.”
“Designs?”
“Marketing,” I said. “Graphics.” Too tired to find the words, I hoped he understood. “Ad campaigns.”
“And after work?”
“I ride the subway home and pick up take-out. Mondays are Indian food.”
“Tikka Masala?”
“Butter chicken.” I yawned. “With Naan bread. Garlic. Missy likes…spicy—so I get her that. She likes me to pick her entrée at random. I’m more…predictable.”
“My favorite flavor,” Alex said. I wasn’t sure if he was calling my predictability his favorite flavor, or the food, but either way I supposed it didn’t matter.
“Then I spend…” another yawn, “the rest of the night eating with her and watchingPlanet Earthso I know what to look out for…And I wind down by reading books from my…collection.”
“Collection?”
“My BL manga collection.”
“What’s a Bee-Ehl? Or a mon-guh?”
“Boys Love. Gay manga. Gay comics from Japan? I have…a lot. It’s an addiction. I started with one bookshelf and now I have…three? I’d get more if it wouldn’t totally overtake my apartment. They practically fill my entire closet.”
“They must be good, huh? I mostly listen to audiobooks. I’ve never thought of reading comics,” Alex hummed thoughtfully.
“Really good.” My eyes were too heavy to keep open. Judging by how slow Alex’s replies were becoming, he was in the same boat. He was leaning heavier against me now, his arm slung low over my waist, anchoring us both. “One day, I want a library with all of them.”
“I’d build you one,” Alex was quick to offer, pecking the back of my neck.
“With a ladder,” I added, even slower. “Like Belle fromBeauty and the Beast.”
“I got you. A ladder. So you can reach the top.”
“Mhm. Then I go to bed…and I’ll start it all over again on Tuesday.” There. I’d done it. I’d done what I’d promised. Alex had received his bedtime story.
And I…well.
I wasn’t sure how to describe what I’d gotten.
But watch, or not, as we fell asleep together, sated and happy, I could only come to the conclusion that what I’d received was pretty damn good.
George wasn’t in our tent when I woke up. Which was…unsurprising. Not for angsty, dramatic reasons, but simply because when I groggily checked the time on my nearly dead phone, it was almost four in the afternoon.
