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“Are you going to be here soon? The card kiosk is down again and support will only talk to the license holder,” comes the voice of my store manager before I have a chance to answer properly.
“Can you buy me ten minutes to grab a shower first?” I ask her.
“There’s a few people browsing already. Try to make it five.”
I agree and hang up.
“Will you take an IOU for the coffee?” I ask Riley, already on my way to the bedroom, not giving my knee nearly the care it deserves to get there faster.
“Okay but I charge interest,” she calls after me.
“Make it one hundred percent.”
∞∞∞
RILEY
I never fancied myself the homemaker type but as I put together a to-go bag of coffee and an omelet for Daniel to take with him, I can’t see myself anywhere else. I want to be here, packing him a breakfast to go and kissing him goodbye.
Hopefully not for the last time.
“This is sweet but you didn’t have to—”
“I do what I want, Danny.” I tip up on my toes and kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you tonight?”
“Another late one, I’m guessing?”
Unfortunately.
I nod.
“Well, until you have to go, make yourself at home. Help yourself to whatever you need and umm…” He takes my wrist. “Here.” He turns my hand over and places a key in my open palm then closes my fingers around it. Holding my fist in his broad, callused hands, he says with a tremble in his voice, “Please don’t say it’s too soon because I’ll agree with you and take it back. And I don’t want to take it back.”
“Well, good. Because as far as I’m concerned you’ll have to pry this thing from my cold, dead hands.” I joke trying to convince him—or maybe myself—there isn’t a little version of me inside my head worried he will try to take it back.
I’ve been ignoring that little bitch telling me he won’t want to see me again after last night. That he would wake up this morning, realize he’d slept with a girl better suited to be his daughter’s bestie than his fuck buddy, and never call me again after I leave.
But that little voice is wrong. He wants me here as much as I want to be here and I can barely contain the bomb in my throat loaded with all kinds of things it’s too early to say.
Daniel bends down catching my mouth with his lips diffusing that bomb and shutting down that little voice.
There’s something about his kisses. Like they’re trying to tell me something.
No.
Promisesomething.
Daniel wraps his thick, muscular arms around me. Even with his hands full, a thermos in one, and the paper bag packed with food in the other, I trust he won’t let me fall when I melt into them again.
That’s it, I think as he walks down the stairs to his shop.
“I’ve got you.”
That’shis promise. The key imprinted in my palm is proof.
