Page 52 of Eye Candy

“But it’s too early for me to be able to sleep. I hate going to bed when I’m not tired.” I was bratting, hoping he might finally let me wrap my hands around the impressive erection he’d denied me earlier. But his eyes narrowed, looking at the tears on my cheeks.

“Then we can cuddle until you do feel tired.” He climbed onto the bed then and patted the space next to him.

“You want to cuddle?”

“Oh, I love to cuddle. Cuddly Chase, they call me.”

He was such a dork. I liked him enormously.

We lay on the bed, him on his back propped against the pillows, me curled into his side with my head on his chest. We traded questions like we were on a first date, as if we’d been set up by friends or met on a dating app, no scams involved. He learned that my favorite color was pink, that I could only do a tap step with my right foot, and that my preferred karaoke song was Toxic. I learned his Dungeons and Dragons character was a cleric (although it took another six questions until I understood what that meant), cilantro tasted like soap to him whereas I put it on everything, and when he was fourteen, he’d broken his arm tripping in Times Square while trying to race Joe through tourists. He didn’t have a karaoke song, so of course I was determined to find one for him.

Hours before I usually thought about going to bed, I fell asleep in his arms.

When daylight forcedits way through the cracks of my eyes, I was lying on my stomach, one cheek smushed into a too-hard pillow and my arm pinned underneath me.Did I go to sleep without taking off my mascara?Horrified, I pushed myself up and the pillow grunted. I’d been getting my panda eyes all over Chase Sanford’s chest! He’d let me use him as a full-body cushion and mascara absorber.

I blinked up at Chase’s sleeping face. One of the arms of his glasses was squished awkwardly between his cheek and the pillow, making the wire frames stick up two inches higher than usual. He still wore the fluffy robe, but his bare legs were tangled with mine and I could feel their blanket of hair. It was nice. In the warm glow of morning light, the hair at the V of his chest had aginger cast. I’d never imagined waking up in such a beautiful apartment after having the best non–self-administered orgasm of my life.

Chase groaned, eyelids fluttering.

“Good morning!” I said brightly, quickly.

He lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Morning, Floss. What time is it?”

I had no idea where my phone was. I peered at the clock he had on the side table. “Seven.”

Lucky for me Lyssa never woke before lunch unless I physically shook her.

Chase sat up. “I never sleep this late.”

“Late? This isn’t late, this is offensively early.”

He smiled ruefully and settled his glasses back over his nose. “Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked. “I can run out?—”

We were interrupted by a loud knock on the door and a familiar voice calling my name. Neither of us had time to adjust anything, because Lyssa was barging into the room with one hand thrown over her eyes.

“Lyssa!”

“Sorry, but this is important! Promise I’m not looking.”

“Boundaries, Lyssa!”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.”

It didn’t occur to her I meant mine.

“I have big news,” she continued. “Last night Jack Cowell—you know, @jaccattacklives?—slid into my DMs with a collab idea. He saw my photo with Greta Winters last night, and it’s going to grow me ten thousand followers, maybe even twenty.”

Lyssa was wearing the same outfit as yesterday—a headband made out of a dozen pink bows she’d crocheted herself, and two parts of a three-piece suit. The effect was strange, but on her, it worked. It always worked.

“Good morning,” said Chase, getting to his feet quickly. From the odd way he leaned, my weight in the night had made one of his legs go numb. He could have moved me once I was asleep, buthe hadn’t. My heart flipped. “Sorry I’m not”—he swept his palm over his robe and all that delicious golden chest hair—“decent. You must be hungry, both of you. I have bagels. Do you like bagels? They’re from Zucker’s.”

“Yes,” Lyssa and I answered in unison.

“Would you like them with salmon or avocado?”

“Yes,” we said.

“You want both?”

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