“Coffee,” she growled into her pillow.
Laughing, he rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. “I’ll go make a pot of coffee.”
“Make some for yourself, too,” she called after him.
In an act of impeccable timing he assumed must be her secret superpower, Lydia walked into the kitchen just as the coffeemaker gurgled and shot the last bit of liquid into the carafe. He turned to tease her about it, but whatever he’d been going to say died on the tip of his tongue.
She was rubbing her face, and having her arms slightly raised also slightly raised the hem of his T-shirt so he got a tantalizing glimpse of the tops of her thighs. The shirt appeared to be the only article of clothing she was wearing, which was ample reward for the pain of the blood flow returning to his hand and arm. Her hair was what the younger crowd probably meant by “hot mess,” and she’d never looked more beautiful to him.
“Coffee’s done brewing,” he said.
“Those are my favorite words in the whole world.” She kissed him, leaving behind the minty tingle of his mouthwash, and then took a mug out of his dish rack. After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she went to his couch and curled up on one end.
He usually sat at his kitchen table with his first coffee, watching the news and scrolling through headlines and the Facebook account he mostly ignored on his phone. He’d signed up for that at the urging of a former girlfriend and, since everybody else had one, he’d given in to the peer pressure. Now he skimmed through, looking at pictures, but he never posted and rarely commented.
But if Lydia wanted to sit on the couch, he was okay with that, too. She hit the power button on the TV and pulled up the on-screen guide to change the channel to what he assumed was her usual morning news show. Not the one he usually put on when he bothered with the television, but he didn’t really care. He listened to the chatter of the people on the screen and read the constant scroll across the bottom, leaving Lydia to drink her coffee in peace.
She was about halfway through when she turned her head to face him. “Have you had that nightmare before? Or is it new?”
A vague sense of embarrassment crept over him. Not super smooth, having a nightmare the first time she stayed over. “I’ve had it before, but it’s not usually so vivid. And I’ve had it twice in the last couple of weeks. That’s different.”
“I think that makes sense, though.”
He laughed. “Yeah, a firefighter having a nightmare about being lost in the smoke and separated from his company probably makes sense.”
“I meant your dream about Scotty being more vivid and more frequent. You feel like you’re distanced from him. Because of me.”
“No.”Maybe. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, that theory might not be totally off base. But he wasn’t going to let her take the blame for it. “When it comes to my friendship with Scott, that’s between him and me, and I own the choices I’ve made.”
She reached over to slap his shoulder. “We made the decision together, remember?”
“Either way, I’ve had the nightmare before—many times—so don’t read too much into it. It’s probably the fire version of that stress dream where you’re at school or in front of a crowd and you realize you forgot to put on pants.”
“If you say so. Are you making me breakfast?”
He laughed. “I made the coffee.”
“Okay, I’ll make breakfast, but only because of the storage closet. I still owe you for that.”
It took him all of two seconds to shake his head. “Oh, no you don’t. Youknowwhat you owe me for that and it’s not scrambled eggs.”
“So you’re making breakfast, then?” she asked sweetly, though the look of impending victory on her face gave lie to that.
No way in hell was he giving up a blow job IOU to save himself a few minutes of cooking. “I’ll make breakfast.”
He made them scrambled eggs and melted a couple of slices of American cheese on top. A few slices of toast and microwave sausage links and it was done. It was nice, he thought as he sat down across from her at the kitchen table, having somebody to eat breakfast with. And to watch television with.
Not only had giving in to his need to sleep with Lydia not scratched that particular itch to his satisfaction—and he wondered if that was even possible—but new little, nagging itches seemed to be popping up now.
Like the one that wished they could spend the entire day doing nothing but watching television and making love and maybe taking a walk to the deli for lunch. Couple stuff.
He wanted to take her out on a date. Make out with her in a movie theater. Kiss her without looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching. His brother could sometimes get him decent tickets to a ball game, and he wanted to buy her a chili dog.
But he’d known this was how it was going to be when he made the jump, so he ate his eggs and made up his mind to enjoy every minute he had with her. He’d worry about the minutes hedidn’thave with her some other time.
Chapter Eleven
LYDIAWASGOINGto be late if she didn’t get a move on. The good news was that she’d already showered. The bad news was that Aidan had been in the shower with her, so it had taken longer than it should have. Alotlonger.
