Page 29 of The F*ck-It List

August blinks away the sleep from his eyes and frowns at me. “What are you doing?” he asks, looking between me and my improvised weapon.

“I was getting ready to slay the blanket monster emerging from my sofa,” I say, still willing my heart back to a steady rhythm.

“With a spatula?” he asks, one thick brow arching.

Half embarrassed and half incensed, I drop my arm and glare at him. “I’ll have you know, a spatula is a good thwacker. I could have thwacked you and run away.”

“Right,” he says, hauling his ginormous frame off of my sofa and stretching his back out from side to side then rolling his neck.

It takes my hungover brain a moment to process what I’m seeing. August is in my house. At eight o’clock in the morning. Wearing the same flannel shirt and jeans he was wearing last night. August slept here. On my tiny two-seater couch.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, frowning at him.

He doesn’t answer straight away, taking a moment to stretch himself out some more. Sighing, he rests his hands on his hips and turns to face me fully. “You kept talking about making eggs,” he says, like it answers the question.

“Eggs?”

“Eggs.”

Okay, well that explains my breakfast cravings. “What do eggs have to do with why you slept on my couch?”

“Because I thought you might try and cook and you were in no state to operate a gas stove, so I decided to stay until I was sure you wouldn’t get up and accidentally burn down a five-hundred-year-old building.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat.

“Your sofa is tiny, by the way.”

I wince thinking of all that bulk squished onto my sofa. I mean, he’sreallybig. “Sorry.”

August hangs his head, expelling a long breath. “Why are you apologising, Bea?”

I think it’s the first time I’ve heard him say my name, the sound of it in his gruff tone sends a wave of goosebumps over my arms and legs. “Uh,” I stammer. “That my couch is so small?” I say it like a question and shuffle uncomfortable at his clear displeasure at the answer.

“That’s not something you should be apologising for.” He sighs before hooking a hand at the back of his neck, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Listen, Bea, I uh, I need to apologise.”

“Apologise?” I ask dumbly, still feeling the aftershocks from the second time I hear my name from his lips.

“I shouldn’t have said that stuff to you the other day. I was, uh…I was having a bad day, and I may have unfairly taken it out on you.”

I hug myself, only to realise I’m still holding the spatula and drop it to the counter. “Oh, that’s okay,” I say quietly, out of habit.

He looks up from the floor to frown at me. “No, it’s not. And you shouldn’t be letting me off the hook.”

“Oh, okay.” I nod.

“I’ve been trying to buy the old shop for a while,” he admits, sitting back down on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “It didn’t work out for me, and I guess I was pissed it finally went to someone else.”

Oooooh. Well, that makes sense, I guess. Kind of. I abandon thoughts of eggs and round the counter to sit next to him on the sofa, Darcy follows me happily and jumps up between us when I sit.

“Off, Darcy,” August says with an air of exhaustion.

“He’s okay,” I assure, reaching up to stroke the dog’s head.

I watch in shock as Heathcliff jumps up onto August’s lap, climbs his chest and wraps himself around the back of his neck like he so often does with me. August grunts, looking utterly unimpressed with my cat but raises a giant hand to scratch between Heathcliff’s ears. “He’s a friendly thing, isn’t he?”

“No!” I say, staring at them. “He hates men.”

Another grunt as August continues tickling Heathcliff’s head.