As I push open the door to the brisk autumn air, I say, “We need to get you a boyfriend, Sarah.”
“I have one,” she calls out. “He vibrates.”
When I come in through the door the house is quiet except for Lucky’s snoring, which I can hear from the entryway.
I set my bag down next to the pumpkin bread, which Slade has made a healthy dent in already, and follow the sound.
His bedroom door is open. I stop in the doorway.
Slade is sleeping on the bed, still in his work clothes, one arm thrown over his eyes. He’s pushed to the tiniest sliver of mattress on the very edge while Lucky sprawls across the majority of the bed with her head on his knee. The late afternoon light comes through the floor to ceiling windows in big golden patches, falling across both of them warm and easy.
Slade must have laid down and been out before he could muster the energy to do anything else.
Poor baby. He must be wrung out and hurting. But he’s okay.
The knot that’s been sitting in my chest since 2:30 this morning quietly releases. I start to back away to let him have his much-needed rest.
His eyes open.
Vivid green and sleep-heavy, blinking against the afternoon light. There’s a crease on his cheek from his jacket collar and his hair is mussed and he looks younger somehow, softer, the way people do when sleep strips away their armor.
“She stole the whole bed,” he grumbles.
I press my lips together to keep the grin in and pad over to his side, sinking to my knees on the floor beside him so we’re eye level.
A lock of hair has fallen across his forehead, the way I now know it likes to do. I reach out and brush it back.
“She stole your bed because she loves you,” I tell him softly.
I pray he has no idea that I was just sleeping in his bed this morning too.
“Hm,” he says. His eyes haven’t left my face.
“The dog loves my bed,” he says, grumpy but his eyes still warm. “This is the last time I’m allowing it.”
“Of course,” I say earnestly.
Lucky snores.
“You can’t blame her though,” I say. “It is a very nice bed.”
“Thanks. My wife picked it.”
“She has very good taste.”
“The best.” He reaches out and takes my hand where it’s resting on the edge of the mattress, his thumb moving slow circles over the diamond. His green eyes are warm and slightly drowsy and fixed on my face. “Any idea why my sheets smell like flowers and marshmallow?”
I keep my expression completely neutral.
“I hugged Lucky,” I say. “My perfume must have rubbed off on her.”
“Mmhmm.” He doesn’t look convinced. He reaches up with his other hand, unhurried, and lifts a long strand of pink hair from his pillow. Holds it up between us.
“And this, sweetheart?”
Damn it.
I’m terrible liar and we both know it.
