Page 67 of Rookie Recovery

“Sorry,” I said again, attempting to wrestle Brady off her new best friend. “She, um, likes meeting people.”

“I love her,” he decided, still scratching at her floppy, fuzzy ears. “We always had dogs growing up.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. “The condo felt empty until I got her.”

“She is a great kisser.”

His eyes lifted from where his fingers had tangled in her fur. And I was reminded all over again that I was in my underwear. In front of the man I’d drunkenly kissed the night before. Then offered to blow. Why. Me.

Like she sensed a change in the mood, Brady raced off into the bowels of my condo. Leaving me. And Bowie. Who straightened from his dog-petting crouch. And I was not remembering kissing that beautiful bow lip …

His eyes raked up me. Slowly. Assessing, dark. Was he thinking about that kiss—because I was not. Definitely not. At all.

“Sorry. About. Um …” I waved in the vague direction of Brady chasing a tennis ball down the hallway in a sliding scuffle of pads and claws and rubber. “I’m … hungover. Rushing. Didn’t expect …”

Words. Why couldn’t I words?

“Don’t be sorry.” Bowie stepped in and nudged the door closed behind him with his good shoulder. “You’ve clearly worked on those abs. Like, a lot. Please, show them off. I am very much enjoying the view.”

I was tempted to pause for a moment—stare at him, let him stare back—until his gaze dipped down towards my ruined knee.

“Yeah. I’m gonna go get dressed.” I stepped into the condo, ushering him after me. “What’s in the bag?”

The plastic grocery bag rustled as he lifted it from where he’d set it down to greet Brady, and he followed me into the living room. “Food.”

“Did you say something about hangover food?” I slid into my bedroom, didn’t bother to close the door as I wrenched a dresser drawer open. Dragged some gym shorts on, then a T-shirt.

“It will be.” His voice reached me from the kitchen, and I followed it to find him unpacking the grocery bag onto the island. Eggs? Bread? Bacon? “You can leave the T-shirt off.”

I chose to ignore the last quip. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m cooking,” he said. “Where are your pans?”

“Um.” I leaned over the counter as he crouched to open the cupboard beside the stove. Closed it and moved to the next one. “Drawer—there. Why are you cooking?”

Why was he here? He’d refused to come home with me last night, after weeks of flirting and teasing and smirking. My brow bunched at the thought; I’d practically begged him for sex, and he’d said no. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been kissing me back, though, right? I nearly groaned thinking about the press of his tongue, soft and urgent at the same time.

But I’d been drunk. Had I imagined it?

“I’m cooking,” he stood, jerking me out of my wandering thoughts, a frying pan clutched in his hand, “because Americans don’t know how to do proper hangover food. And because,” he set the skillet onto the stovetop, “I like to cook.”

I fumbled to unpack and process that little detail I hadn’t known—and never would’ve guessed—about him. He liked to cook? Where did that fit in the things I knew about Archie Bowman? The guy who’d told me he could do no strings attached; who’d gotten hard in my office and asked if I wanted to touch; who’d refused to let me blow him—

Drunkenly.

He’d said no because I was drunk.

The thought made my head swim. Made thoughts trip over emotions tumbling around the big, cavernous space inside my skull. I didn’t know what to make of any of it.

“So, what’s a proper English hangover breakfast?” I asked instead, because my brain was too sloshy for anything else. I slid into a barstool at the island and propped my chin on my hand.

This was why I didn’t drink.

“Full English, mate.”

I watched the shift of his muscles beneath his white T-shirt as he bustled around the kitchen, turning on the fan oven, tossing fat sausages into a sizzling pan, laying out four strips of bacon, cutting tomatoes … Shit.

My head hurt. So much that I might have drifted off a bit, staring into space—or at Bowie’s toned shoulders under his shirt—with my eyes half out of focus.

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