Page 12 of Slapshot Bride

The hallway is quiet, and with her door still closed, I figure she must be asleep.

Then I notice the light on downstairs.

I stop on the bottom stair.

She's on the couch. Knees pulled up. My hoodie, the navy one, swallowing her down to mid-thigh. A mug in her hands.

Her hair is in a loose knot at the back of her head, the kind that looks like it took thirty seconds, and she's looking out the window at the canyon with her chin propped on her knee and an expression I can't read.

She’s fucking beautiful, and the sight of her curled up on my couch makes my anger at Preston Sinclair flare hot and ugly all over again.

The kitchen light is on, and so is the machine. The espresso machine I bought because the realtor’s designer included it on a list, and I don't know how to operate the steam wand, but apparently Riley Brooks does, because there is a saucer beside her on the coffee table and the unmistakable smell of a properly pulled shot in the air.

She has been in my kitchen.

She has figured out my kitchen, in a house I don't really live in, with an espresso machine I have used exactly twice, and she did it before six in the morning in clothes that are not hers, and something about that small fact lands sideways in me in a way I don't have a name for.

She turns her head.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

We look at each other for a second. I realize I’m still at the foot of the stairs. I walk into the living room, and her eyes follow me.

“I made coffee,” she says, lifting the mug as evidence. “I hope that was okay. I mean, we’re basically housemates now. I might as well pull my weight around here.”

“There’s no need to feel obligated. You’re a guest.”

“Who’s trying to earn her stay.”

I have a reply ready to go but I figure she won’t let me have this one, so I sit it out.

I cross to the kitchen.

There is a fresh cup waiting next to the machine. She set it out for me. Black, just how I like it.

“You got it right.”

“You did not strike me as an oat milk man.”

“Astute.”

“So I’ve been told.” She laughs, and hearing that melodious sound so early in the day, as opposed to the state she was in last night, it has me laughing along.

I pick up the cup. It’s the perfect temperature, which means she heard me upstairs and timed it. I don't know what to do with the part of me that has gone quiet about that.

I lean a hip against the counter. She's still on the couch with her chin on her knee, watching me.

“Slept well?”

“Like a corpse.” She makes a face. “Sorry. Like someone deeply, restoratively unconscious. Better?”

“Marginally.”

She looks like she’s about to say something but chooses to stay quiet.

I take my eyes off her and drink my coffee instead.