I reached over and ran my fingers through his hair, preparing to tell him I’d always come when he needed me, when I realized he’d already slumped over and fallen asleep. As soon as I parked the truck in my driveway, I opened the front door and went back to gather the sleeping Stevie into my arms, chuckling to myself at the repeat of tucking him safely into my bed.
Once again, I knew he most likely had to work in only a couple of hours, so I set my phone alarm before stripping both our jeans off. His plain white cotton briefs surprised me. I couldn’t imagine they were the sexy underwear a clotheshorse like Stevie would choose for a night on the prowl.
“I’m awake,” he mumbled to me at one point while I was undressing him. “Want you.”
I snorted softly. “Then take me, big man,” I teased in a whisper as I leaned in to remove his shirt. His clothes smelled like male sweat and tequila, which made my nostrils flare with ridiculous amounts of jealousy. I couldn’t stand thinking of him in the center of a crowded club dance floor with strangers’ hands all over his sweet body. And something about seeing him in just those smooth, cotton briefs made me feel even more protective of him for some reason. I hated the idea of him being taken advantage of by someone charming and slick, especially when Stevie himself had only ever been out of the Texas countryside for brief visits to the city. What if someone slipped something into his drink? What if someone took him back to their place and overpowered him? He was small and still carried a small-town naiveté in some ways.
I thought back to what he’d mumbled the day before about never having been with anyone. Could that be true?
After dropping our clothes onto the chair next to my closet, I snuggled in next to him in the rumpled sheets I’d left behind when he’d called me stranded.
He instinctively turned and curled up against me the same way he had before, and I wrapped my arms tightly around him. This made twice in as many days I’d had Stevie asleep in my bed without being able to take my sweet time worshipping his naked body.
If I was lucky, the third time would be the charm.
One of theshitty things about being over forty is the inability to fall back asleep after you’ve been woken up in the wee hours of the night.Sleep evaded me that night, so I simply lay there with Stevie in my arms and enjoyed being in the moment as best I could. When it was finally almost time for my phone alarm to blare, I reached over to turn it off and snuck out of bed to the kitchen.
About six months ago, I’d walked into the bakery in time to overhear Stevie and Sassy joking around about their fantasy boyfriends bringing them breakfast in bed. I forgot what Sassy would have chosen, but Stevie’s fantasy had burned itself into my memory.
He wanted cinnamon french toast with lots of real butter and syrup along with extra-crispy bacon, a giant glass of fresh orange juice, and a cloth napkin. Sassy had laughed at the napkin detail, and Stevie’s face had lost a little of its sparkle as he’d explained never having had one before. His family’s dinette set had a resident roll of dollar-store paper towels that lived in the center of the table. Even paper napkins were something saved for special occasions.
I didn’t have a bag of oranges or a juice press, but I had the rest, and by god, he was going to get the star treatment.
When I brought the tray into the bedroom, Stevie was just shuffling back from the bathroom. He must have heard me moving around in the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly feeling nervous.
“Hey,” he said with a shy smile. Stevie’s eyes moved from me to the breakfast tray and widened. “What’s that?”
“I fixed myself some breakfast,” I said, sitting on the bed and propping the tray on my lap. Stevie’s eyes dropped to the floor before he looked around for his clothes.
“Oh. Okay. Well I guess I’d better?—”
As quickly as I could, I sat the tray on the bedside table and raced over to him, grabbing his shoulders and accidentally startling him. I cupped his jaws and forced him to meet my eyes.
“Stevie, sweetheart, I was joking. I’m sorry I did a piss-poor job of it. I made this foryou.”
A deep blush flooded his cheeks, and his eyes darted away again. Had I embarrassed him? Dammit. I was such a fucking idiot.
I pulled him into my arms. “I’m so sorry, I’m an ass. Will you let me make it up to you and serve you breakfast in bed?”
“I… I should probably go. I have to?—”
“Work. I know. And I’m happy to drive you. Whatever you need. Just please… please eat first.”
My heart was pounding in my chest with fear that I’d fucked everything up. That I’d scared him off or made him hate me for being a sarcastic jerk.
He leaned back to look at me before tilting up the edges of his lips in a smile. “You made me breakfast in bed? For real?”
I led him back to the bed and got him settled against the headboard before setting the tray on his lap. “Yes. Cinnamon french toast, crispy bacon, orange juice—sorry it’s not fresh—and a?—”
“Cloth napkin,” he said in awe. “How did you know?”
I shrugged. “I listen when you talk. I like what you have to say.”
He stared at me. “But I’m a loudmouth.”
I thought back to the way his mother had treated him at the scene of the apartment fire when he was a teenager. No doubt that label had come from her or the jackass brother.
