Page 41 of So Wrong It's Right

Chapter Sixteen

Christopher

My “girlfriend” stumblesout of my room, squinting against the sunlight of the kitchen. She’s sexy and disheveled and my heart thumps irregularly just looking at her. “I smell bacon.”

“You smell bacon, waffles, coffee and,” I walk her over a cup, putting it into her hands while I kiss her jaw, “delicious. You smell delicious.”

She grunts. “I smell like your soap.”

The memory of her soapy and wet, the water sluicing over slippery skin in the tub, is getting me hard again. “You smell like you. And me. And sex. And my soap. Delicious.”

She’s still squinting at me and who could blame her? I don’t know what I’m saying or doing either. I’m not feeling like myself, exactly. Like some of her starlight is trapped in my chest.

It’s warm and bright, hardly reason to complain, even if the feeling is foreign.

“You made me breakfast?”

“I did.” I gesture to the table and plate us up. “You’ve cooked me plenty of dinners over the last few weeks. It was my turn.”

She drinks her coffee, and I admire how well her cup doesn’t match her dress because she’s not wearing a dress. She’s thrown on one of my t-shirts, and the sight of her in my clothes, in my temporary kitchen, in my borrowed life, is undeniably arousing.

I drag my attention back to her face, and her lips quirk up on one side. “Doc, are you having impure thoughts about me?”

“Yeah, I really am.”

She dips her chin and smiles. It’s a shy, sweet smile and my heart stutters. This woman is going to send me to the cardiologist. “When did I cook you all these dinners you speak of, by the way? I opened a jar for you last night, but that doesn’t really count.”

“I’ve been eating all your frozen dinners, remember? My favorite was the stroganoff. It’s really good.”

She’s trying to hold back a grin. “Yeah? You’ve been eating my cooking? And you liked it?”

“I love your cooking, Stella.”

She’s too endearing when she does her little “aw, shucks” face. But she’s pleased with the compliment, and I really should dole them out more often.

In the next few days. That’s all we have.Don’t forget this is temporary.

I join her at the table, watching her drown her waffle in syrup, resisting the urge to criticize how much sugar she’s about to consume. I need to pay more attention to how often I go straight to critical with her. It’s not just because she’s sensitive to that with the way she feels about her family. It’s also that I don’t like that about myself. The overly critical part of my personality is unattractive.

I want very much to be attractive to Stella.

Which is not smart. We’re short-term. But right now, this morning, I don’t want to think about next week or the future. For right now, I’m eager to live in the present. Something I’m not very good at.

So, I watch her enjoy her soggy waffle and commit this feeling of utter contentment to memory.

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