Brady just rolled his eyes. “I’ve known you since preschool, MacGyver. Of course I know when your birthday is. I’ve had so many of Maggie’s cupcakes during classroom celebrations that I can practically taste them in my sleep.”
“It wasn’t that many. I’m only twenty-eight, you jackass.”
“Twenty-nine,” he corrected with a dimple-popping grin.
Then he snagged the gift bag off the counter and said, “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” I narrowed them instead.
“Good girls have to follow directions if they want their presents.”
“I think we both know I’m not a good girl.”
He bit his lip briefly, distracting me, before replying, “Oh, sometimes you are a very good girl.”
Heat blazed a path through my middle, and I cursed the way my body still seemed unsure how to handle this inconvenient attraction. In all these months, it hadn’t worn away or gotten easier to ignore. But I closed my eyes like he asked rather than jump him in the kitchen.
I heard the tissue paper rustle and smiled to myself, realizing he was opening my own damn present. Something soft and warm settled around my shoulders before Brady gently scooped my hair out of the way and wrapped it around my neck.
“Okay, you can open them.”
I blinked, finding him watching me, more serious-faced than usual.
Looking down, I saw that there was a red knitted scarf draped around me. The yarn was variegated and soft between my fingers, and the scarf was long enough to loop around my neck twice.
“Do you like it?” Brady asked shyly, hands worrying the tasseled ends.
I nodded, touched by his thoughtful gesture. This wasn’t the same as him grabbing lunch and surprising me in my office or leaving a candy bar in my Jeep because he knew I was on my period and craved chocolate like crazy.
This was something else.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. Then I smirked. “Bet you’ve been dying to do this.”
“What? Ensure you dress weather appropriate?”
I shook my head. “No, strangle me and dispose of the body.”
He laughed, bright and happy—and if I had to guess, a touch relieved. Then he used the ends of the scarf to tug me forward, off-balance and into his arms.
I hugged him hard, laughing too. “Thank you. I love it,” I repeated.
“Happy birthday,” he murmured into the sensitive skin below my ear, making me shiver.
When we separated, Brady went back to his grocery bags, unloading ingredients for what would be an undoubtedly tasty dinner.
I examined the scarf more closely, noting the tidy knitted rows. “This is really pretty. Did your mom knit this?”
“Nope,” he said absently, grabbing a pot out of a cabinet and moving to fill it with water.
That weird hollowed-out feeling in my gut returned as my fingers smoothed over the soft yarn. “Brady, did you knit this scarf?”
He grinned at me over his shoulder.
I straightened, alarmed. “Shut up. You did not.”
“I did,” he confirmed easily, rooting around until he found a box of pasta in the mess of items on the countertop.
“You can’t be serious.” He’dmadethis forme? “Am I beingPunk’d?”
