Thethingaboutafree day is that it's only free if you know what to do with yourself.
I'm two sips into my coffee and my brain is still buffering, so I'm not sure I've heard him right. I blink at him over my mug.
"You want to take Agatha to her appointment at Elven Mercy yourself," I repeat back to him like some sort of caffeine-addicted parrot.
"Yes." He looks at me with a small frown. "Why is that so surprising?"
"Do you have a few hours for me to list all the reasons?" I take another sip. "It's just surprising that you're taking time off work for something so mundane, that's all."
"Aren't you the one who insists that life is not all about work and that family is what's most important?" He picks up his keys and swings them in his palm. "So I'm going to spend time with my grandmother. I'll take her out to lunch afterwards and meet you here for dinner."
He says it like it's obvious. Like he didn't just spend the last few weeks in his study with three laptops open and his tie impeccably knotted at seven in the morning. I open my mouth to point this out, but he beats me to it.
"I can take time off work," he says, answering the question I hadn't asked yet. "I'm the boss, remember? Who's going to tell me I can't?"
He wiggles his brows at me and I chuckle, because he does have a point. Who's going to tell Demetrius Thornwood what to do, indeed?
"She'll try to walk to the car without the cane," I say, taking another long sip of caffeine. "Don't let her. She may not need the wheelchair anymore, but she'll need that cane for another few weeks."
"I know."
"I'm just saying..."
"I know my grandmother." His mouth does the thing where it almost becomes a smile and doesn't quite finish the job. "Go out with a friend. Enjoy your free day."
Then he crosses the kitchen to me, unhurried, and tips my chin up with two fingers. He kisses me, slow and long. The kind of kiss that knows exactly what it's doing and takes its time doing it, warm and sure. My free hand finds the lapel of his coat and holds on.
He pulls back just enough to look at me.
"I'll be back by six," he says, his voice low, and there's something in it that makes the words sound like a promise about more than dinner.
My brain does that extremely unhelpful thing where it turns to warm caramel and stops forming coherent thoughts. I manage something that is approximately a smile.
"I should probably tell my parents about us," I say. "Before someone else does it for me."
The almost-smile completes itself, just for a second. "I was planning to tell Agatha today."
"Of course you were." I release his lapel. "Very efficient of you."
"I thought so." He presses one more kiss to my forehead, brief and deliberate, then steps back and picks up his keys again. "Six o'clock."
"Six o'clock," I agree.
I nod and then he goes. A few minutes later I hear the Rolls back out of the drive, the sound of it so smooth and self-satisfied it's almost rude.
I finish my coffee and then I stand there for a moment and do absolutely nothing productive with it. The forehead kiss is still sitting somewhere on my skin like a warm handprint.
I pull out my phone.
Free day. Going to prep my house for the party.
Mom and Dad are out of town.
You in?
Jazz's reply comes before I've even put the phone down.
Uh, OBVIOUSLY. Also I'm bringing snacks because you're a terrible cook and I refuse to do manual labor on an empty stomach.
