"F-word stands for finance? Man, I've always wondered."
She laughs, reaching for the plug. Drains the sink. "I just mean, when it's only the two of us here, I usually forget that you technically own my aunt's business. That your last name is on hotels all over the country or that you can afford to order takeout nonstop."
I lean against the counter and watch her flit around the kitchenette. She needs to step past me every time she passes, and on one such pass, I catch her.
Wrap my hands around her waist.
"I think I prefer it when it's just the two of us here."
She runs her hands up my shoulders. "I think I do too."
"Does it bother you?" I ask. "The difference?"
Her hand smooths my hair back from my forehead, and this close, with the kitchen light, I can make out the flecks of gold in her blue eyes.
"No. Although… no."
"Although what?"
"I don't know how to tell my aunt. About us. I mean, technically, I don't really know if there's anything to tell yet? You said you didn't do relationships."
Her eyes are on the lock of my hair she's smoothing back. The tentative hope in her voice feels like a stab, the sweetest poison. In the end, I give her a compromise.
"Are you happy, Summer? With me?"
She nods and her eyes meet mine. "Yes," she says.
"I'm glad," I say, tilting her head up to meet mine. "I'm happy with you too."
I wake up to a warm bed, a warm man, and a door being softly nudged open. Ace's nose bumps against my hand a few seconds later. I turn my fingers into his fur. One hand on each of my boys, I think, tracing Anthony's arm around my waist with my other.
He's stayed the night, as he's often done. Carried me from the couch to the bed. Despite my cracked bedroom window, the summer air is stifling. Our bodies stick together in the heat.
Neither of us has moved away.
He grumbles behind me as I shift, arm flexing around my waist.
"Just checking the time."
"You don't need the time," he says, voice raspy. "It's Saturday."
"Saturdays are worth seizing."
"Christ. Have you ever just spent half the day in bed? Doing nothing?"
I turn onto my back, and his hand slips beneath my camisole, large hand splayed on my stomach. There's a thud as Ace lies down beside the bed. "Of course I have."
"Really," Anthony says. "When?"
"Well… do you want a specific date?"
"Specificity would help."
I turn and look at him. Disheveled hair, soft eyes. To think I'd sized him up as not for me. Unguarded and newly awake, he's glorious.
A secret only I get to know.
"See?" he says. "You can't think of any. You're a seize-the-day kind of girl."
"Guilty," I admit. "Take me away to the dungeons-I surrender!"
"About that. Where are your dungeons around here?"
"We haven't installed any yet. Working on it."
"Just what this place needs."
"Mmm. That reminds me. I still haven't seen how you live."
"Oh, I have plenty of dungeons."
"Yeah. That's why I haven't taken you there."
"Scared I'll run if I see them?"
He shakes his head. A lock of dark hair falls over his forehead and I smooth it back. "They're only something I show to true connoisseurs."
"I haven't passed the test yet, then."
"No. Doubt you'd like them either." He turns over, lifts himself onto his free arm. His right hand makes lazy circles on my stomach. "You're hopeless in the doom and gloom department."
"I could try. Dress in all black and start scowling. You could teach me that."
"I don't wear all black."
I raise an eyebrow.
"Not all the time I don't."
"At the office you always do."
"That's because I'm wearing a suit there."
"Suits come in other colors than black."
He looks up at the ceiling, like he's beseeching a higher power to give him strength, but he's smiling. I can tell. "It's too early to argue with you."
"Now, how would you know it's early? You didn't let me look at a watch."