Theo
I woke to the sound of Mia shuffling. She wore an oversized gray shirt and nothing else as she searched through her cabinets. My eyes dragged along her small frame, taking in the way she stood on her toes as she reached up for a set of plates and dropped onto her heels as she set them down.
“Tell me you’re not about to cook,” I grumbled, running a hand down my face.
Her apartment was drenched in lamplight as the sky turned from dusk to evening. On our way here, neither of us had stopped to eat, and I hadn’t given it much thought. But now that she was firmly planted in the kitchen, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of Mia cooking for me.
It was me who should’ve been serving her.
“Is that a problem for you?” she shot back, tucking a strand of tousled hair behind her ear.
“Definitely.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled out a cutting board as I stood, jerking my pants up on my way to the kitchen.
“Well, I’m hungry, and you’re a giant who probably needs to eat every hour, so…”
I braced both hands on the counter, on either side of her, and bent to nip her neck. “If I could pick one thing to eat every hour, it’d be you.”
Her sharp little breath made my cock stir, and the greedy asshole in me wanted to order takeout and throw her back on the bed. But I was also worried about what I’d done to her. She needed to rest.
She moved in the circle of my arms, and I noticed the assembly of food in front of her. Peppers, mushrooms, a bag of rice, a thick wedge of cheese, an onion, a wrapped bit of beef.
“Risotto?” I asked, a little surprised. “Do you cook like this often?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes. When Lilly and I have a full weekend of grading, she’ll usually stay the night, and I’ll cook for her.”
Her shirt slipped as she began chopping, and I kissed her smooth, exposed shoulder. “You’re good at taking care of people, aren’t you?”
Her hand slowed. “I try to be. When Lilly needs me.”
She dropped the knife and turned around, leaning back against the counter as she stared up at me. My eyes dropped to her lips as she said, “Theo, this has to stay between us.”
Confused, I lifted a hand to push her hair back from her shoulder. She shivered as I ran my thumb along her neck. “It will. I know it could hurt your career if anyone found out.”
She shook her head. “It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s Lilly. She just got this promotion.”
I frowned. “Really? I thought she’d been head teacher for years.”
A sweet look of fondness tilted her features, and it made me want to push her against this counter and kiss her again.
“She should’ve been. Nobody cares like she does. But the parents were worried about her lack of experience, so Rutton turned it into a probational thing.”
“Ah,” I said, understanding. “She has to run your department smoothly, or she’ll lose her promotion.”
“Right. So if anyone finds out I’ve slept with the hot, grumpy dad I’ve been whining about all semester, it’s not me who suffers for it–it’s Lilly.”
I ran my thumb across her bottom lip and bent to give her a soft kiss. It was painful to kiss her slowly, gently. But we had time. I could be patient.
“No one will find out.” Not while I had Kira to worry about.
She sighed against me, her small hands now on my chest, slipping down and tracing the ridges of my stomach.
“This is weird, though, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“You and me. Doing this. A few months ago, you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
“Only because it hurt my eyes to stare at someone as pretty as you.”
She snorted. “Oh, come on. You hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you. But you were… rude, and I was grieving. I still am.”
A rough sound ground out of her throat. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
Her forehead smacked against my chest, and I laughed as she mumbled, “I should’ve asked about Tash instead of acting like a dick every time you showed up. I was just so in my head about you and the universe.”
“The universe?”
She spoke into my skin. “Yeah. You know. The universe. People believe it controls everything.”
I frowned. “Do you believe that?”
She pulled back, turned, and started chopping. “I didn’t. But now? I don’t know. That day I ran into you at the bookstore, I was teasing Lilly about her enemies-to-lovers books on the phone.”
“Okay…” I reached over her and plucked the knife from her fingers. Gently, I slid the cutting board to one side and moved out from behind her, pressing my hip bone into the counter as I kept cutting the half-mangled onion.
She blinked at me, then lifted a nearby pot and put it on the stove.
“Then I ran into you at school, and it turned out that you bought the last copy of the book that I was trying to buy.”
I frowned. “Yeah. For Kira.”
“Yes, but I wanted to get it for her because I was her new mentor.”
“What does that have to do with the universe?”
“Well, after you bought the book out from under me, you reamed me out in front of my boss.” She paused, and I looked up to see the teasing twinkle in her eye.
“I apologized. And I am sorry I did that. I was out of line.”
She made a happy noise and patted my forearm. “I know. I think we were both blindsided. But you could definitely put us in enemy territory after that, right?”
“Uh. Maybe.”
“Then you just kept showing up. And I kept tripping into you, or you’d save me from a falling block of wood, or we’d lock ourselves in a closet.”
I was starting to understand what she was trying to say. “And after it was clear I was attracted to you, we decided to stay away from each other.”
“But we couldn’t,” she finished, thrilled that I was finally on the same page. “We kept getting thrown together, and it felt like a joke. Like something was fucking with me.”
She threw her hands up. “And now look at us. In my kitchen together after a round of dicking down. I mean, if that doesn’t sound like some cosmic power intervening, I don’t know what does.”
I had to laugh because she sounded so serious.
She huffed and crossed her arms, and it only made me laugh harder.
I dropped the knife and gripped my stomach as she stomped her foot and said my name, and it was uncontrollable now.
Laughter spilled from me until eventually, she started to giggle, and I reached out to take her waist, bringing her to me, nestling my face in the soft, tangled silk of her hair.
“You don’t really believe my ‘dicking you down’ has anything to do with the universe, do you?”
“Weeeelll–”
“Mia, I’m here because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Okay, but–”
“Because I couldn’t stay away from you.”
She went still against me, lifting her brows expectantly.
“And, universe or not, no one will find out about this. You can’t hurt Lilly, and I can’t hurt Kira. This is just between us.”
She sobered then, speaking more to herself than me as she said, “They won’t find out, and everyone will be okay.”
“Including us.” I kissed the top of her head. “We’ll be okay too.”
“Will we?”
“Well, after what you let me do to you in that bed, I’m pretty sure we’re not enemies anymore.”
She laughed. “I don’t know, Hudson. I’m hangry, and you’re awful at chopping onions. I might end up yelling at you if I don’t eat soon.”
I cupped the back of her neck and breathed in the smell of her hair. My stomach growled. “How’s this? Pizza tonight, and I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow. Deal?”
She smiled. “Deal.”
Mia sat next to me on the sofa with her legs wrapped underneath her, blowing on a hot piece of pepperoni pizza.
“And the big dragon on your back is…?”
“Bahamut, the god-king of the metallic dragons.”
She laughed, delighted. “You’re such a nerd.”
“You have no idea.”
She bit into her slice, letting strings of cheese snap midair. “So you were the quiet, nerdy kid in school, and you did really well in math. Were you into chess?”
I nodded. “Chess, music, math, games. Anything strategic, I was into.”
“And your parents sent you and your sister to every after-school activity available.”
“Yep.”
“I bet you were cute.”
I shrugged, biting into my own slice. I spoke around my mouthful. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Girls must’ve followed you around with their notebooks, asking you to help with their homework,” she teased.
“If they did, I didn’t see it.”
“Tash was the only woman you ever really noticed then?”
My chewing slowed. This was the second time Mia had brought our conversation back to Tash.
“Not… really. My relationship with Tash wasn’t romantic.”
“But you had a daughter together.”
I put the pizza down and rubbed my hands over the box, letting the crumbs fall into it. It was possible that Mia might need my full attention here.
“Growing up, I didn’t really talk to a lot of people.
I had Rochelle. Cole, the older kid next door.
And Tash lived in the house behind mine.
Tash and I were close, but we were just friends.
We went everywhere together, mostly because she wouldn’t leave me alone.
You might’ve noticed this already, but I’m not exactly the most social person. ”
“Oh, I’ve definitely noticed.”
“We went to college together, and she used to drag me to parties sometimes. One night, after I had a rough talk with my dad–”
“A rough talk?”
“Yeah. He didn’t want me to go into programming. He wanted me to do something medical. At the time, he’d just been diagnosed with a chronic musculoskeletal issue, and he had to change his whole life because of it.”
Mia put her pizza down, wiped her hands together, and crawled into my lap. I wrapped my arms around her. I made peace with my career years ago, and now, as long as I was in control of who I treated and who I worked with, I was fine with it.
“It’s all right. I like what I do now. But at the time, I was pretty upset. I didn’t want to let my dad down. So when Tash dragged me to a party, I got pretty drunk.”
“How drunk are we talking here?”
“Pretty fucking hammered. I was drunk enough to sleep with Tash, and I’d never thought of doing that before.”
Mia sketched light circles on my chest with her fingertips. “Now, I don’t know if you know this, but you’re pretty hot.”
I snorted. “Well, thanks.”