Page 96 of Can't Help Falling

He laughed and nodded and they headed back to her apartment. When they got there, she immediately turned on some lamps, turning her apartment moody and, to Tyler’s mind, sexy. Her casual cleaning outfit was even more devastating to his senses when she was revealing it bit by bit. Unwinding her woolen scarf from around herself, unbuttoning her winter coat. He slid the coat off her shoulders, and she whirled around, a look in her eye that was somehow fierce and soft all at once.

“It just kills me when you do that.”

“What?” he asked.

“When you help me with my coat.”

“Oh.” For some reason, he felt his cheeks heat. “I...didn’t even think about it. I guess it’s reflex.”

“You also open cabs and hold the elevator doors open like they might slam closed and chop my head off.”

“Well, I—”

“It’s very cute,” she said, stalking forward.

He took a step back and found the front door up against his back. She went up on her toes and rubbed her cheek against his. Knowing just how much stubble she’d be finding there, Tyler winced. He was closing in on his necessary second shave of the day.

“Annoyingly cute,” she said, dropping back to the flats of her feet. “I tried not to have a crush on you, but then you just kept helping me with my coat.”

She turned on her heel.

“How about Italian?” she called over her shoulder. “I’m feeling carby. And I think I have a bottle of red.”

She disappeared into her kitchen, and he was left staring at the place where she’d just been.

Crush.

Crush.

Crush.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself. Over the year, in order to save his own sanity, he’d convinced himself that she wasn’t into him. He’d made the landscape between them as barren as possible, determined not to let hope bloom there, knowing just how lethal that could be for him.

But now here they were.

They had a glass of wine each with the Italian food that was delivered forty-five minutes later. They sat facing one another with their backs on opposite arms of the couch and when the dinner was done and Tyler had put away the leftovers, he came back and sat down again in the same way. Only this time he pushed one of his feet forward. She did the same, laying her toes over his and making his heart bang.

“You’re wearing your purple socks,” he noted.

“It’s my favorite day of the week when I get to wear the socks you bought me.”

“I’ll get you more.”

The wine had been just enough to make them both dozy. He thought of the cold, fresh snow outside and shivered, not wanting to ever leave the sexy, colorful cave of Fin’s home. When she pulled the afghan over them, he didn’t protest. When she slid down farther and tossed him a spare couch pillow, he certainly didn’t say a word.

And when, roughly seven hours later, he woke up with one of her ugly-cute feet in his face, he just laughed.

“You always wake up laughing?” she asked, stretching and basically kneeing him directly in the ribs.

He grunted, kept laughing. “Only when I realize that I slept over at Serafine St. Romain’s house and didn’t score.”

“Don’t bro out on me now, Leshuski.” Fin rolled up and stretched for real, yanking the blanket off of him as she stood. “I actually slept a little bit. Surprise, surprise.”

“You’re not a sleeper usually?”

She turned to him with that emoji eyebrow in full cannon. “Do I strike you as a good sleeper?”

He laughed again, sat up, grabbed her by the waist and dragged her back under the afghan, this time right side up, with her nestled against him. “Don’t go anywhere yet. It’s early.”

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