Page 50 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)
Faye
Two Months Later
Something is clawing at my toe. When I try to kick it off it only latches on harder. Am I having a nightmare?
I peek my eyes open and soft light pours into my bedroom through the sheer curtains. What possessed me to have sheer curtains in my bedroom, I have no idea. The clawing has turned to climbing and the little creature weasels its way up my leg, getting caught on the comforter along the way.
I’m not dreaming. It’s just the kitten I got yesterday. She’s a demon spawned directly from hell, but she’s my demon spawned directly from hell.
“Come here, you little devil.” I unlatch her from my legs and cuddle her up by my face, just like I wanted to do with Possum when I was little. Her little claws graze my cheek, but I don’t care. “We’ve got to get you on a different schedule. I can’t keep waking up with the sun.”
I hear rustling in the kitchen, which means Eli is already up making some kind of chalky protein concoction for breakfast.
“I swear you two are conspiring to make me a morning person. Did he put you up to this?”
She answers by pouncing, and then chewing, on my hair.
Eli peeks his head in the room, and I do a double take because he’s standing there wearing nothing but a pair of boxers with pink hearts all over them and a giant straw hat. He bought the boxers last week because he liked that they matched my underwear. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”he asks.
“No, this gremlin did.” I point to his head. “What’s with the hat?”
He comes in and kisses the cat on the head and then gives me a loud smacking kiss on the forehead. “I love my two little gremlins.”He tightens the strap hanging below his chin before giving the brim a proud tug. “It’s my gardening hat.”
Eli and my grandpa have become best friends, and that’s not even an exaggeration. They text each other every day, and I didn’t even know my grandpa even knew how to text. Their latest project is cleaning up grandpa’s garden beds. We’re heading over there this afternoon to work on it.
“You’re taking this gardening thing way too seriously.”
“Tell that to the fall harvest we’ve got waiting for us.”
“We? This has nothing to with me.”
He leaves and comes back with another hat, which he deposits on my head. “Rumor has it that you haven’t completed the hobby portion of your fun list.”
“Dani and I took that pottery class last week, though.”
“Doesn’t count. She told me you complained the whole time about how the wet clay felt on your hands.”
I shiver. “It was . . . slimy.”
“So, you didn’t have fun. So, it doesn’t count.”
“Gardening isn’t fun either.”
“You won’t know until you try.” He tightens my chin strap and uses the string to pull my face up to his. He kisses me on the nose. “You look cute.”
I reach up to trace the latest tattoo he got a few weeks ago, on top of his left hand. Two swans with their necks entwined. When he came home and showed it to me, he said it was a spur-of-the-moment decision like all of his other ones, but that this one meant everything to him.
I have never felt so content with someone. To not question every word or action that I make. To feel security, but also anticipation for what’s to come. Today it’s something as simple as gardening, but tomorrow it could be anything we want.
And every night he holds me so tight, like the bedsheets are a tide threatening to wrench me away from him. But I don’t pull away anymore.
I hold him tighter, saying I love being here, with you. And I can’t wait to see what we can do together.