“Oh yeah, good idea.” She hops out of bed, and I make it a point to stop what I’m doing, lean back, and enjoy the show as she crosses to her bag and digs out her phone. Once she’s back in bed and covered, I get back to work.
Will I ever get tired of seeing her gorgeous body in my place?
No.
“My mom called twice.” She hits a few buttons and presses the phone to her ear.
I pour two glasses of orange juice.
“Hey, Mom, I saw I missed a couple calls from you?”
I scramble eggs while she answers questions about school, her car, and gives a few “yeahs” to unknown questions. I’m plating eggs and buttering toast when she finally hangs up the phone.
“Everything okay?”
I’m sorry to see her hop out of bed and reach for her sweats and shirt from last night. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” She smiles at me, and her eyes widen when she looks at the plate in my hands. “Killian, that’s like a dozen eggs. That’s not for me, is it?”
I reach behind me and grab her plate with only two eggs on it, then set it down on the table. “Oh, that’s better.” She grins, drops into her seat, and looks down at the plate. Her nose scrunches up and she reaches for her juice.
I fork a bite of eggs into my mouth and chew. “What?”
“Oh, um…nothing.” She spears a tiny ball of egg on one fork tine and forces it between her lips. “My mom needs me to babysit Jack today. Blake had some last-minute thing at the training center, and she made a hair appointment. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“You want me to come?” I shovel more eggs into my mouth.
“Are you kidding? You’d make me the most popular sister in town if you came. Jack loves you. Oh, and we could tell Blake and Mom about us.” She nibbles more eggs.
“You worried about how they’ll react?”
“Not even a little bit. They love you.” She pushes her fork around, rearranging her breakfast.
I nod to her plate. “You become a vegetarian since last night?”
She laughs uncomfortably. “No, it’s just these eggs smell funny.”
I lean over my plate and inhale. “They smell fine to me.”
She purses her lips and sips her juice.
“What time do we have to be at your Mom’s?” I finish the last bite of my eggs and stab at hers.
“Not until one.” Her voice sounds distant, like she’s somewhere else.
I grab her hand and squeeze. “Hey, you want me to make you something else? I have some fruit, or I can make you pancakes.”
She grins, but I can tell she’s fighting revulsion. “No, I guess I’m just not that hungry.”
“You’ve been like this for a few days now. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “I’m fine most of the day, but sometimes when I get around food, I get a little nauseated.”
“Maybe you got a bug?”
“That’s probably all it is.” She sips her juice, and I make a mental note to keep an eye on her appetite for the weekend.
I finish her breakfast, and she jumps up to take our plates to the kitchen before I get a chance to. “You’re my guest; you don’t have to clean up.”
She gazes at me from over her shoulder. “You cooked. I’ll clean. That’s the deal.”
I wipe down the counters and dry the dishes she washes. Grabbing the full trash, I tie off the ends. “Why don’t you grab a shower while I take this out.” I press my lips to her forehead. “The second drawer is all yours. I put the few things you had here in there; hope that’s okay.”
“That’s sweet of you, Kill. Thanks.” I watch until she disappears into the bathroom and snag my keys before taking out the trash.
Locking her inside my place while I’m gone for two minutes might be crossing the line from protective to psycho over the top, but now that I have her, I’m not risking losing her to anything.
*
Axelle
I shut the bathroom door behind me, and now that I’m safe behind the closed door, I grip my stomach.
It took everything I had to remain casual when the truth was, once the smell of cooking eggs hit my nose, I was fighting throwing up. I’m sure I have some stupid stomach bug. I guess I should be happy that the only symptoms so far are a lack of appetite and a little nausea.
I strip off my clothes and turn the shower on hot. My body is sensitive, and if I’m being honest a little sore from last night. The hot water will do wonders to loosen up my tight muscles and hopefully to drown out the smell of scrambled egg.
My throat floods with saliva, and I hold my fingers over my lips and breathe through my nose. What the hell?
Once under the hot spray I feel a little better. I wash my hair, my body, shave with Killian’s kick-ass razor—seriously, why is it that they make men’s razors so much more effective than women’s?