Page 69 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

Her stomach rumbled. “Sounds amazing.” Better than anything she would’ve whipped up with the abysmal contents of her refrigerator. “Can I help?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“Ha ha.” She hopped off the counter and padded across the kitchen on bare feet. “I can actually cook, you know.”

Like five things and only half of them required an Instant Pot or air fryer.

“Hey, it’s okay. There’s got to be something you suck at. Keep the balance and all that.”

“I almost sensed, like, half a compliment in that.”

“I’ll bite,” he said. “What can you cook?”

“Okay, let’s see... pasta—”

“You can boil water, congratulations.”

“Ass. Okay, maybe I rely on a decent amount of takeout, but that’s only because I tend to let my kitchen get a little lean while I’m on deadline.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re on deadline how many weeks out of the year?” he asked, managing to call bullshit without saying the word.

“A lot of them,” she grumbled. “Look, maybe I’m no chef, but I’m perfectly capable of chopping vegetables and buttering bread.”

His eyes raked over her, gaze hot, the way his teeth sank into his bottom lip even hotter. “Shame we don’t have an apron for you.”

It was a tiny galley kitchen, arguably too small for two adults to move around in comfortably, but they made it work. His hands settled on her hips, drawing her against him so he could reach past her for a spatula. She pointed at the napkins on too high a shelf for her to reach without climbing on the counter and Colin handed them to her. They needed to switch places and Colin grabbed her by the hand and twirled her, humming a tune under his breath, making her laugh when he dipped her low like they were on a dance floor instead of in her cramped kitchen, cheap linoleum under their bare feet.

“I like your apartment,” he said later, when they’d carried their sandwiches into the living room on paper plates and after he’d pulled on his freshly laundered boxer briefs. He’d taken a seat in the middle of her couch and dragged her down onto his lap and now his chin was hooked over her shoulder. He smelled bright and clean like her laundry detergent and the citrus notes of what had to be his cologne and there was something intoxicating about the combination. She couldn’t stop huffing in breaths through her nose, breathing him in between bites of the food he’d made for her.

As much as she got a thrill from playing verbal tug-of-war, there was an argument to be made for this tenderness, in laying down her sword and letting Colin hold her. No more keeping score, just the gentle sweep of his hand along her back and his warm, steady breaths whispering against her skin. As right as his lips had felt against hers, as right as his fingers felt sliding up her thigh, this? This was as good, if not better. Like finding a missing puzzle piece buried under a couch cushion. The satisfaction was dizzying, had her clasping his shirt between her fingers like if she let go, he might float away.

She laughed and his arm tightened around her waist. “Thanks, but I know the place is a mess, McCrory.”

The living room was cluttered, brightly colored decorative pillows knocked on the floor, a knitted blanket strewn carelessly across the arm of the couch, sticky notes everywhere, half-dead Sharpies littering the coffee table. A few shriveled leaves lay in front of the window from the pothos plant Mom had given her, the poor thing barely clinging to life because Truly had overwatered it. Her bookshelves were in desperate need of reorganizing, her beloved Underwood typewriter desperately needed dusting, and why was she only now noticing her favorite family picture was hanging crooked on the wall?

“No.” Colin’s lashes fluttered against her throat when he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, his shirt sliding down her arm. A butterfly kiss, some candy-coated corner of her brain noted. “It’s... happy.”

“Happy?” That wasn’t what she expected. Far from it.

He didn’t elaborate, just hmmed and kissed her shoulder again, this time a little higher.

“What do you mean?” she pressed.

“I was trying to figure out how you organize your bookshelf,” he said, voice quiet, lips brushing her throat with every word. “Because it’s not alphabetical by title or author and it’s not color coordinated. Honestly, it kind of seems like there isn’t any rhyme or reason to it. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No.” She smiled. “I guess it doesn’t.”

“It took a bit for me to work it out,” he said, “but the books whose spines are the most cracked are in the middle of the shelf. I think you put the books you’ve read the most, the ones you love best, front and center. Ease of access is a possibility, but I think you just want to look at the things you love.”

She followed his gaze as it swept the room, dare she say lovingly, his eyes lingering on her knitted purple blanket with its lumpy edges and dropped stitches, and on the framed stick figure crayon drawings courtesy of Lulu’s daughter. The clutter was still there, her painting still crooked, but in following Colin’s gaze it was a little like seeing her living room through fresh eyes.

“It’s like how I noticed inside your wallet, in the slot where most people keep their ID, you keep a picture of your parents instead. Because you like looking at it. Because it makes you happy.”

“Don’t most people like to look at the things that make them happy?” It hardly made her special. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Colin gripped her chin between his fingers, gently forcing her eyes level with his. “I do.”

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, was utterly ensnared in Colin’s stare. She wasn’t sure what it was about this moment that felt more special than any other, but if she could, she’d pause it, this snapshot in time, and she’d frame it, and she’d put it on her shelf, dead center.

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