Page 3 of The Year of Us 2: February

Honestly, who did that man think he was? Waltzing into my life and throwing everything I thought I knew about myself out the window? Who had that kind of audacity to stroll into someone’s place of employment with all that arrogance? All that confidence?

Trouble, that’s who.

I finally fell asleep sometime around seven, sliding down onto the couch in a position so awkward, when I woke up after nine, I wanted to cut my head off to get away from the ache in my neck. Cory’s card had fallen out of my hand and landed on the floor, his pre-printed name and phone number gazing up at me with all the patience I knew the man himself possessed.

He wanted me to show up, but I didn’t think he’d be surprised that I hadn’t. Just like I didn’t think he’d be surprisedto watch me slink out of my apartment, hit up a bagel shop drive-thru for coffee, and head back to toward the airport, cursing myself the whole way.

I only had to knock once and he had the door open, those piercing blue eyes of his watchful and alert.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” he said.

“I mean…did I make it?”

Cory pulled the door open and stepped out of the way to let me in. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

I hummed because I didn’t know what else to say, and it was hard to think anyway with his body so close behind me I could feel the heat rolling off of him. I walked into the room and set the bagels and coffee down on the entertainment center, doing my best to ignore the messy and tangled state of the sheets on the bed.

“I haven’t slept,” I admitted, turning to face him, once again taken aback at the height difference between us. Cory had on the same low-slung pajama pants from January, and I tried to not stare at how they clung to his hips. His hand moved, coming up slowly to trace a crescent moon shape beneath my left eye.

“I can tell,” he said simply. “You should lie down.”

“I didn’t come here to lie down.”

His mouth quirked into a grin. “Didn’t you?”

Groaning, I scrubbed a hand down my face, batting his fingers off my cheekbone. I turned away from him and paced over to the window, listening to the mundane sounds behind me of Cory taking a coffee out of the cardboard drink carrier, tearing one sugar packet open, then another. The bed creaked, and I glanced back to see him sitting down on the edge, raising the white cup to his mouth.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” I said.

“To fuck, I imagine.”

If only if were that simple.

“Reese.” He said my name like a promise. “You’re overthinking all of this.”

“Am I?”

“What were you expecting when you came here tonight?”

“This morning.”

“Semantics.” Cory rolled his eyes at me and gestured toward the second coffee. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black,” I answered.

“Good. Get it and sit with me.”

I moved to do just that...then I cursed him under my breath.

He must have seen the realization on my face, because he chuckled softly, patting the bed and making room for me to sit beside him.

“What were you expecting?” he asked me again. “Were you thinking you’d show up and I’d order you to your knees? Set some more rules about how things between us were going to go until it was time for my flight back to New York?”

That was surprisingly close to how Ihadthought things were going to go, and I still managed to get myself to the hotel, even if our time was shorter now than it had been at the end of my shift. Was that what I wanted?

I shrugged, hating how off my game this man made me feel.