It’s been too good to be true, really. At first, it felt like I couldn’t possibly feel this happy. It was too much. But then, I settled into it, so much so that I’ve started to slip up inside the house. Usually, on the mornings I stay home, I put my alarm clock at 6:00 a.m. and get up so I’m downstairs by the time Zoe wakes. However, when my alarm rang today, I was tired after Eli kept me up for hours, and I made the mistake of snoozing once. Then twice.
By the fifth time the ringing came, Eli grumbled, “If you snooze again, I swear to God...”
“You’ll what?”
“Throw myself out the window, probably.”
I lifted myself on my elbows, grinning after I turned the alarm off. “Didn’t you say you liked having someone to wake up next to?”
“When it doesn’t feel like I’m living on a construction site, yes.” He covered his face with his pillow.
“I didn’t know you could be so grumpy.”
His voice was muffled as he said, “Humans crumble under torture, Cass. Everyone knows that.”
“Fine, then.” I went to climb out of the bed, but he stopped me with his arms around my waist and pulled me back down. His skin was burning hot against mine.
“Not so fast, you scoundrel.”
“Did you actually just use the wordscoundrelin a serious manner?”
“So, what if I did?” he said in a scratchy voice, his jaw coarse under my hands from his overnight beard.
I brushed my lips to his, and in a second, I was on top of him, everything in his body rock hard.
And then, his door squeaked open.
I jumped off him, then brought the cover up to my neck as if I could hide from Zoe’s possibly traumatized eyes. Eli wasn’t nearly as panicked as I was, only straightening in bed and making sure his groin was covered.
“Daddy, I want some cereal.”
I don’t know if it was because she still looked half-asleep, but she didn’t blink at seeing me there. As if she’d seen her dad’s friends in his bed countless times.
“Sure, baby,” he said. Once she left, he got up and dressed into his pajama pants like he couldn’t be bothered. I wondered if that was when the shock would hit him and he’d start freaking out that Zoe had caught us, but the only thing the smug bastard did was look back at me and wink.
It shouldn’t have made me this giddy.
And now, four hours later, I’m almost skipping as I go to meet him at the Chowder Festival in town. It must be all that dopamine. I barely recognize myself, these days. Or rather, I barely recognize the person I’d become in the past year. Even the person before that, maybe. My shoulders are straight, and I don’t avoid anyone’s gaze as I find my way through the maze of kiosks, from middle-aged women selling handmade silver jewelry to farmers showcasing their bright, freshly picked vegetables. I ignore Mr. Garcias, my old Spanish teacher, when I notice him glaring at me like I’m still a student bringing trouble to his class. When I pass Ashleigh Wright and she smirks like she remembers how much fun she had ruining my life in high school, I look away.
Forget about them.
Eileen has a kiosk where she sells flower arrangements somewhere out there, and if I pass her, I know she’ll be happy to see me. Gertrude always participates in the chowder competition eventhough her eggplant soup never pleases anyone, and she’ll be another friendly face in the crowd.Eliis here.
I can do this. I can stand proud in this place.
“Stealing my sleep and then skipping on me? Harsh.”
I turn to find Eli leaning against his table, arms crossed over his apron, a curl of hair loosely hanging over his forehead. His smirk reminds me of the one he gave me last night after making me come more times than I ever had in a row, and that only makes him ten times hotter.
I did in fact skip his kiosk, entirely by mistake. Zoe is sitting behind him, a string of toys scattered in front of her tiny camping chair.
“You’re facing a table of maple products,” I tease. “You lost the competition before it even began.”
“I’d expected I’d have to bribe you for your attention,” he says before pulling a maple leaf-shaped lollipop from his apron’s pocket like a magician. The same ones they sell in the kiosk opposite his.
He hands it to me, and as I open it, I fight the urge to kiss him, crowd be damned. I don’t think I even knew what the word cherished meant until I got to experience Eli Grant as a partner. But this is a workplace for Eli, so I put the candy in my mouth to occupy it instead. It tastes like pure maple gold, and I let my head roll back because it’sthatheavenly.
“Are you actively trying to make me hard in public?” Eli whispers. When I open my eyes, there’s nothing friendly about the way he’s looking at me.
