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Chapter 20
The first thing that Gen was aware of in the morning, before she even opened her eyes, was the overwhelming smell of frying bacon. Following quickly on its heels was the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and her stomach growled at the delicious onslaught.
That’s when her eyes popped open, and the events of the day before came rushing back. She laid there for a long minute, taking an internal inventory, searching for any leftover symptom that might be hanging around.
Clearly, the nausea was gone. In fact, it had been replaced by hunger. She also couldn’t detect any signs of headache, muscle pain, or cottonmouth– all of the classic signs of hangover.
Of course, yesterday had been the actual day after the drinking, which probably explained why she felt so great today. But her symptoms had been so gnarly that she hadn’t been quite convinced that it was even possible for them to disappear overnight.
And yet, they had. And she was beyond relieved. She was sure that Bernice would be, too, when she found out.
“Yeah, not my finest hour,” she mumbled to herself under her breath.
Then, another thought occurred to her. Holy shit, Gavin must be here. Either that, or some intruder broke in to cook me breakfast. Damn…that means he stayed all night!
She hopped out of bed and headed straight into the bathroom. She was going to brush her teeth, of course. But she also needed to brush her hair just enough so that it looked good, but not enough so that it looked like she had made an effort. Damn, these balancing acts were so tricky!
A few minutes later, she wandered into the living room, and when Gavin turned around and spotted her, she made a show of yawning and stretching her arms above her head.
“Oh, my God, Gavin,” she said, letting her voice take on just the slightest sleepy tinge. Just enough to make it seemed casual, not enough to make it seem theatrical. “What are you still doing here? Did you sleep on my couch? Totally unnecessary. But thank you.”
“I figured you would need to get some food on your belly first thing. I’ve been through plenty of hangover aftermath mornings myself. Grease, combined with caffeine. It’s the best thing for you.”
She settled herself on one of the stools that stood in front of her breakfast counter. “Well, it smells delicious.”
Setting a full plate and steaming mug down in front of her, he said, “Well, let’s see if the taste lives up to it.”
She took the fork he offered her and used it to shovel a generous mound of creamy scrambled eggs into her mouth. She let out a combination whimper-slash-groan that was completely sincere– not part of her little act at all.
“Holy short order cook, these are fantastic. Where in the hell did you learn to cook like this?”
He gave her a small, sheepish smile and held up his phone, on which was the frozen face of Gordon Ramsay with a translucent “play” icon overlaying the screen. “YouTube video,” he admitted. “Mila turned me on to them. It’s kind of amazing– you can learn how to do pretty much anything.”
She put her fork down and laughed. Gavin inclined his head, puzzlement taking over his face. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
She reached across the counter and took his hand. “I know. That’s why it was. Apparently, that’s a trait that we share– we’re just being ourselves and people think it’s a real crack up.”
His eyes drifted down to her hand on his and his breathing sped up a little. She picked up on the change in the energy between them immediately. It would’ve been hard not to, the air was suddenly alive with crackling electricity. All of the small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and little skitters of anticipation skated over her skin from head to toe.
She looked up at him, a slow and sultry smile building on her lips. “Well,” she said, her voice low and seductive, “apparently I was wrong last night when I told you not to bother coming in. Looks like you’re going to get laid after all.”
