Page 43 of Surprised By Her

“I’m going for a run,” she said in my ear.

“Okay,” I mumbled, still not awake.

“I’ll be back in a while and I’ll make you pancakes.”

“Mmmm,” I said.

“Go back to sleep,” she said.

The next time I woke up, I heard the shower. It was still too early for me, but I sat up and looked around. Was the room bigger now than it had been last night? It felt bigger.

Ryan came out of the bathroom in just a towel and I couldn’t stop staring.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” I said through a yawn. “You were up early.”

“I usually am,” she said. “I’m starving, are you ready for breakfast?”

“Sure,” I said, even though my stomach wasn’t awake yet. I got out of the huge bed and went to pee as Ryan got dressed. Since I only had my outfit from last night, I just kept her T-shirt on and wandered out to the kitchen to find Ryan pulling ingredients from the cabinets. She’d put on a tank and a pair of loose shorts.

“Need help?” I asked, raising my arms above my head in a stretch. Ryan stared at me and didn’t answer. I looked down and saw that my nipples were completely visible through the shirt.

“Ryan?” I asked.

“Huh?” she said, her gaze moving up to my face.

“I asked if you needed help with breakfast?” I said, fighting a smile.

She blinked and nodded. “Can you pull out the bacon?”

I got the bacon from the fridge as Ryan started mixing batter for pancakes from a recipe on her phone.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any chocolate chips on hand, would you?” I asked.

“I might,” she said, opening a cupboard and pulling out a bag.

“Amazing. You have everything,” I said.

“I wouldn’t go that far. I’ll let you decide how many you want,” she said, passing me the bag.

“You’re giving me so much power,” I said, holding the bag in two hands.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she told me, mixing the batter. I ripped the bag open and started dumping the chips in.

“These pancakes are going to be half chocolate,” Ryan said as she stirred them in.

“Exactly,” I said. “Why is it that breakfast is the only meal where you can essentially eat a dessert and it’s considered fine and balanced?”

“I have no idea,” Ryan said, taking the bowl to the stove. I dealt with the bacon, laying it out in a pan and turning the oven on to preheat.

“My parents always made it in the oven instead of on the stove,” I said.

“Less splatter that way,” Ryan said. “Do you want eggs?”

“I can make scrambled and that’s about it,” I said. “Every single time I’ve tried to fry an egg, I’ve busted the yolk. I think I’m egg cursed.”

Ryan snorted. “Scrambled is fine.” She poured dollops of batter onto a long griddle pan as I cracked eggs into a bowl and added a splash of cream and salt and pepper before I whipped them together.

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