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“Hi, moonshine. Sorry I disturbed you. Go back to sleep.”
The tiniest little grunt of protest bubbles out of her lips. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t. I heard what you said.”
My palm runs smoothly over the hair covering her face, revealing her eyes to me. “And what did I say?”
She peeks out of one sleepy eye and then closes it. “Something about me being the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen and how I’m so funny and adorable.”
Adoration for her suffuses in my veins where frustration from the day once seethed. Pastel pink and velvety soft. “Well, there you go. Hard evidence that you’ve been awake this whole time.”
“Yup. Told you.” She smiles gently, still half-asleep, and holds her arms up.
I reach around her body, lift her up into my arms, and carry her over to the bed, her neck buried in the curve of my neck. She hangs on for a second longer than she needs to when I lower her onto the mattress, sliding out of my arms with a sigh.
The bed dips as she settles on her side, and I strip down until I’m in just my briefs and slide in behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, taking my turn to bury my face in her neck.
“God, I missed you.”
“Duh. I’m very missable.”
She’s not wrong.
How she’s entwined herself so intrinsically into the fabric of my life that I can’t go seconds without thinking of her, I’ll never know. What did I do before she came into my life? I thought I liked my life. I don’t even remember what it was like anymore.
“Did you have a good night? What did you do without me?”
She lets out an adorable little grumble, shaking her ass in history’s minutest temper tantrum. “No. Teddy beat me at chess twice.”
“You play chess?”
“No. He said your grandfather left him a chess set and he never really took the time to learn how to use it. And since we were both beginners, maybe we could help each other learn a new skill. He picked it up way faster than me, though. As the loser, I owe him two servings of shu mai at Shikomen tomorrow.”
I laugh softly. “Oh, Luna.”
“What? Those were the rules. I’m going to have to watch a few more YouTubes. We’re having a rematch on Saturday for tacos at KOL.”
I nip at the little faded love heart tattoo on the back of her shoulder, tracing it with my lips. “Moonshine, Teddy was a Regional Master in his late teens, one of the youngest there ever has been. That’s actually why my grandfather hired him at first. He was just some smart-mouthed kid carrying around a chess set, picking fights with older kids and getting in trouble. Grandfather hired him to help him with his chess game, and he became Grandfather’s right-hand man.”
She huffs, kicking her legs in a slightly bigger tantrum. “He did not tell me that! What a rascal!”
“Definitely.”
“He also told me that I couldn’t make up my own moves. I wanted to make it so the horsey dude could do U-turns. He looked it up and said no. He didn’t even need to look it up, did he?”
I chuckle. “No, sweetheart. I think not.”
“You should fire him,” she grumbles.
“First thing in the morning.”
“Good.” Her head defiantly nods once. “Didyouhave a good night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
