Page 55 of Resisting the Running Back

“Will you show me?” I hop down from my chair and head over toward him.

“Of course.” He pulls the ingredients out of the pantry as he explains that these are steel-cut oats, and he stirs the oats into the boiling water and milk combination he started on the stove.

It’s small talk. Meaningless chatter about breakfast as neither one of us acknowledges what happened last night, and I hate that suddenly things feel awkward between us.

“We can’t leave it. It’s been known to boil over,” he warns, and he keeps stirring the mixture. He sets a timer for twenty-five minutes, and he leans on the counter beside the stove, folding his arms across his chest once he’s comfortable with the simmering level of the oats.

“Now we wait?” I guess.

He lifts a shoulder. “Now we stir every few minutes so it doesn’t stick to the pot, and we stand by to keep a close eye on it.”

I nod, and I lean on the kitchen island that’s behind me. I mimic his posture, folding my arms over my chest as if it’ll protect my heart from the conversation we should likely have.

“How’d you sleep?” he asks.

“Really good. You?”

“Good until you left,” he admits.

We’re both quiet, and my eyes are down on the floor. I glance up at him, and he’s looking at me. “What?” I ask.

He presses his lips together. “I want to kiss you.”

I’m not sure why relief seems to filter through me at his words, but it does. “Then do it.”

He closes the gap of a few feet between us with one long stride, and I look up into his eyes.

“I probably have coffee breath,” I admit since I’m already on my third cup of the day.

He chuckles. “So do I.” He moves down until his lips collide with mine, and as our lips touch, it’s as if any awkwardness I felt this morning disappears into thin air.

Instead, lust takes hold as he kisses me so sweetly and tenderly. It’s unexpected from him and from our relationship, and I feel like I’ll never get enough.

We both hear a hiss at the same time and jump apart, and he rushes over to the stove to lift the pot and turn down the heat after the oatmeal boiled over as advertised.

“Shit!” he yells. He sets the pot back down and stirs it, and we both review the clumpy mess that we’ll have to deal with once the stove is off and cools down.

“I mean, honestly…that kiss was worth it.” I shrug, and he laughs. “It’s time I start making myself useful around here, anyway, and I can clean it.”

“Making yourself useful? I’ll tell you what, Summers, you sure made yourself useful last night.” He turns back toward me and loops an arm around my waist. He hauls me against him and rests his forehead against mine for a beat.

“By offering my very comfortable bed for sleep?” I tease.

His lips connect with mine for a brief moment. “I think you know exactly what I mean.”

That familiar, delicious ache is back in full force between my legs at his words. I clear my throat. “Well, to be honest, I’d like to make myself useful again.” I nip a kiss at his lips as he bucks his hips toward me, letting me know thatheis also ready to make himself useful as well. “After the oatmeal is done cooking, of course.”

He laughs, and he pulls back to stir the oatmeal before it boils over again.

And honestly? I sort of need the space to cool down a bit. This is my best friend. I’m not used to having these raunchy and inappropriate thoughts about him, but maybe they’re the exact right thoughts I should’ve been having about him all along.

Maybe we were both missing what was right in front of us this whole time, and maybe we’re on track to correct that now.

Once the oatmeal is ready, he adds peanut butter, nuts, chia seeds, banana, and some protein powder to his, and I sprinkle a few nuts on mine. We sit at the table with our oatmeal and coffee, and he asks the first question.

“What’s on your agenda for the day?”

It’s a Sunday, and when I was a teacher, I’d always spend the morning grading papers and the entire rest of the day writing—as long as Tyler didn’t make other plans for us, which he often did. I never wanted to take weekends off since it was the only time I really had to write.

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