Page 19 of For Real

“Yeah, you did, but it’s okay. Come on, sit up. There’s tea as well.”

That gets his attention, and he uncurls. The covers fall away a bit, and suddenly I remember he’s naked under there. And holy shit. I mean, I know I’ve seen him already, but the novelty is nowhere near wearing off.

I want all the naked, all the time.

In this light, I see different things, different shadows. Sun dapple on his shoulders. Sparks of gold at the tips of the hair on his arms. Though it’s harsher too, picking up grey sometimes and imperfections on his skin, the places where his body is rough and lived in, its muscles earned.

He was gorgeous yesterday, kneeling and burnished and kind of a fantasy. And he’s still gorgeous this morning, rumpled and tired and real.

Shit. I’m meant to be doing stuff. Not just staring at him lustily, thinking of all the things I want to do to him. And, for the record, some of those things are perfectly normal. Like kiss him.

I pass him the plate, wafting it a bit so the scent of butter and herbs fills the air. He’s still slightly dazed, so I forgive him for the grateful OMG, it doesn’t look awful expression that crosses his face.

“You really didn’t have to.”

I shrug. “I wanted to.”

“What about you?”

Oh yeah. Me. “Wow, I totally forgot.”

For some reason, my stupid makes him smile. God, I’ll be sitting around doing he loves me, he loves me not with a daisy before long, but he’s got such a good smile. Makes the gold in his eyes shine. “We’ll share,” he tells me.

So we sit there in his bed, probably in the middle of the afternoon, and he feeds me morsels of toast and egg, and I feel kind of cherished and turned on and so fucking happy. And I wish I didn’t have to go and get on with my messed-up life.

I wish this was my life instead.

Just great eggs and a hot guy and no worries at all.

And they are great eggs, by the way. I can tell he likes them.

That’s the other beautiful thing about food: watching somebody enjoy it. Admittedly, it doesn’t normally get me horny, but Laurie’s a special case.

“Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asks. I’m both surprised and chuffed he cares. Or maybe he’s just making conversation with his slightly-more-than-one-night stand. Either way, I like this glimpse of him. Relaxed and sleepy-eyed and looked-after. A little unprotected piece of who he is.

“Nowhere,” is what I tell him. But then his head tilts inquisitively, and I can see that he’s not going to let me get away with that. “I kind of cooked for myself a lot when I was a kid.”

“Why?” Now he sounds sharp. “Does your mother not believe in food either?”

Whoops. I guess I’ve accidentally painted myself as some kind of abused, underfed guttersnipe. Which isn’t true at all. When I was younger, Mum and I had some rough patches, but I’ve kind of got over it now. She’s my mum, y’know? What can you do? “No, she does. It’s just she doesn’t believe in time.”

“I beg your pardon?”

I have to laugh at the expression on his face. “She’s not a martyred slave of time.” He’s still blank. I get this a lot when I have to explain my mother. “Baudelaire?”5

Nothing.

I sigh and crunch the last piece of bacon. It’s so good. Salty and rich, with just the faintest hint of charcoal to give it depth. “She believes you should do things when you feel moved to do them, or else you become nothing but a mechanism of chronology or something. But, me, I’m totally a martyred slave. I want to eat three times a day, and I want the savoury bit to come first and the sweet bit to come second, and I want to sleep through the night and wake up in the morning.”

He sits up a bit straighter, which makes the duvet slip down, and I’m briefly distracted by…oh God…everything. Nipples and hair and hard ridges of muscle. He’s all rough and delicious and—

Fuck, he’s talking.

“So she just left you to fend for yourself?”

“What? No. There was always food. But I got sick of Cup-a-Soups and Super Noodles, so I started experimenting.” He had that social services look I’m pretty familiar with. “Laurie, we do okay.”

“I’m sorry, but your mother sounds like a nutcase.”

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