“You always get up this early?” he asked.
“I do when I have a good-lookin’ hunk of man in bed who has to wake up and face another shitty day and I know he didn’t eat the one before.” She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes bright, and he could see the happy there was partially forced to hide her worry for him. “Though, just saying, I’d do it even if you ate yesterday.”
“This is my job, Greta, you don’t need to worry about me,” he informed her quietly.
“Someone has to do it,” she returned in the same tone.
“No they don’t.”
“Okay then, I have to do it, so please let me.”
He held her gaze as he ignored how that made him feel too, lifted his mug to his lips and muttered, “Knock yourself out.” He took a sip, but when he was done, he saw her mug by the stove was half empty, so he offered, “Want a warmup?”
“Yeah, darlin’. Just a splash of creamer.” He got her a warmup, slid the mug by the stove, and she requested, “Stools by the door, I pull them to the island when I eat in here. They get in the way otherwise. Could you bring them over, please?”
He looked to the two half-Windsor-back stools, side by side next to the door then back at the kitchen.
It wasn’t a small space and there was plenty of room around the island.
“Okay,” she went on, and he turned his attention back to her to see she was looking like she was trying not to laugh as she watched him. “So they mess with my aesthetic.”
“Right,” he replied, his word shaking with his own laughter.
“I’m dishing up, get on those stools,” she demanded.
“She’s bossy in the mornings,” he mumbled, moving to put down his mug on the island in transit to the stools.
“Just like to eat my food when it’s hot, snuggle bug,” she retorted.
He stopped, turned, stool in hands, and asked, “Snuggle bug?”
She awarded him with another big smile. “You snuggle.”
He did?
“No, I don’t.”
“Uh . . . you were there,” she reminded him.
“You snuggled me.”
“You hooked me around the waist and put me there.”
He did do that.
“We fell asleep that way because a man does that after he’s bedded down with a woman as good as you are with your mouth . . .” he paused, and finished, lips twitching. “And hand.”
She planted that exact hand on her hip. “Woke up with you wrapped around me.”
Come again?
He’d never wrapped himself around Hope. He moved around in sleep. She did too. It was go-to-sleep cuddles and then they went their separate ways.
“You did not,” he declared.
“Okay,” she was still smiling and turning back to the stove, “tell yourself that . . . snuggle bug.”
He set the stool down and asked, “That stool placement work for you, gum drop?”
She whirled around, spatula in hand. “Gum drop?”
He headed back for the other stool. “Not sure you want the meaning of that.”
“Try me,” she dared.
He brought the stool to the island, setting it beside the other one, and shot her a different kind of grin. “You taste sweet.”
Color rose in her cheeks, it was more indication she could be cute, and she turned back to the stove.
“You’re right. Maybe I didn’t wanna know,” she muttered.
“Better than the alternative,” he pointed out.
She faked horror with her, “Ohmigod.”
“Can’t say I’m wrong,” he noted.
“Ugh,” she pushed out.
“Could call you donut,” he said to her back.
“Blech,” she said to the stove.
“Cupcake,” he suggested, sliding his ass on a stool, enjoying the hell out of this.
“Gag,” she declined.
“How about pumpkin?” he offered. “That wouldn’t give anything away.”
“Please, no,” she said, bending down with an oven mitt on her hand and pulling out one of the two plates she was heating in the oven.
Greta heated plates.
Jesus.
“Gum drop it is,” he stated, forcing his mind from heated plates.
She shot him a look, her face severe, eyes amused, and straightened.
She dished up. He got off his ass again to get cutlery for both of them.
He sat down, she set his plate in front of him and went back to make her own.
He didn’t give her any more shit as she grabbed her mug and sat opposite him.
“Babe,” he called and her eyes went from picking up her fork to him.
“That one works,” she declared. “You go with another one, I’ll have to bounce from snuggle bug to stud muffin, depending on the occasion.”
The day after Hix stood, near to that very hour, next to a dead man, he sat on a stool in a country kitchen next to a beautiful woman who’d made him breakfast and he busted out laughing.
Still doing it, but while it was diminishing, he reached out, caught her behind the neck and pulled her to him.
“I was just gonna say, thanks for goin’ all out to make me breakfast.”
She stared into his eyes close up and whispered, “You’re welcome, Hix.”
“Now I’m gonna say thanks for making me laugh after a shit day and facing another one.”
“You’re welcome, baby.”
He touched his mouth to hers, let her go and tucked in.
After a few bites of crispy bacon, perfectly toasted toast and exceptionally fried egg, he said with mouth full, “Relieved to know the woman who forces breakfast on me can cook . . . sprinkles.”
Her big eyes came to him, she gulped down the coffee she’d been drinking then it was Greta who busted out laughing.
“S-s-sprinkles?” she asked through it.
“Take that however you want,” he offered.
She kept laughing.
Hix went back to eating but did it smiling.
“You name a dog Sprinkles,” she informed him.
“Then we’re back to gum drop.”
“Please, God, deliver me.”
Hix chuckled and kept eating.
He got done when she was half done, and he hated to say it but he had to.
“I’ll clean up while you finish up and then I gotta go.”
Her eyes came to him and the cheeriness was gone, the worry was back.
“I’ll clean up, darlin’. You gotta go, just go.”
“Need to get home, shower, change—”
“Hix?”
“What?”
“Shut up and get outta here.”
He grinned at her, picked up his plate, cutlery and mug and took it to the sink. He rinsed them all and came back to her, close to her side.
She tipped her head back.
He dipped his, running his hand along her neck at the back and curling his fingers around the side as he touched his mouth to hers and pulled a couple inches away.
“Thanks again, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome, Hix.”
He smiled at her, traced his fingertips along the soft skin at the side of her neck then let her go.
He was at her front door and about to open it when she called out, “Catch ya later, stud muffin!”
He bit back laughter but couldn’t quite stop his smile as he opened the door, lifted a hand, gave her a flick of the wrist and walked out.