7. Waking Up With the Hot Guy
7
Waking Up With the Hot Guy
You
To your shock, Hot Book Dude is nowhere to be found. At least, he’s not where you left him. You glance down at your wrist, half-expecting the golden cuff to be gone and for the whole thing to have been some weird sleep-deprived hallucination. But nope, the cuff is still there.
Maybe it’s all a dream and you just haven’t woken up yet.
Crunch .
You hear him before you see him. Peering around the door from the bathroom, you spot Hot Book Guy in the kitchen. It’s not exactly a big apartment—only a little over 300 sqft—but somehow you still missed him. You must be more tired than you realized.
He’s leaning against the kitchen wall, eating out of a box of cereal with one hand like he’s got no cares in the world.
“Hey! Just help yourself to the whole kitchen, why don’t you?”
You try to swipe the box out of his hand, but he just lifts it out of your reach, eyeing the gauze tied around your upper arm, then arching an eyebrow as his gaze drifts down to your outfit.
A crooked smirk lifts one side of his mouth as he asks, “Is it customary to walk around in front of strangers in your underwear nowadays?”
You cough, looking away so he won’t see you blush this time. Hopefully .
“It’s not underwear!” You protest, “These are my pajamas.”
Hot Guy laughs, pushing off the wall and setting the cereal box back in the cabinet.
That’s when you see everything else on the counter.
While you showered, this man just tried to eat you out of your apartment. He’s got practically every box and container from your fridge and cabinets strewn across the kitchen.
“ Hey ,” he says a little sheepishly, throwing his hands in the air at your accusatorial glare. “I hadn’t eaten in like 150 years, okay?”
“Not 200?”
“It was closer to 150.”
“Well I’d believe 200, based on that mess.” You shake your head as you turn away. “Just make sure you clean it all up when you’re done.”
It’s late.
So late, you don’t really feel like arguing. You head for bed, clicking out the overhead light so only the kitchen one remains.
“Okay, Mr. Mysterious Book Dude,” you call as you climb into the covers. “It’s very late. That means I need to sleep, which means you need to find something silent and not-creepy to do for the next eight or more hours, otherwise I’ll be cranky. Unless this is all a dream—in which case, cool. I guess this is where we part ways.”
He doesn’t respond.
Just keeps opening and closing your kitchen cabinets.
Hopefully that means he’s putting things away, not actively advancing his one-man kitchen invasion.
You’re not exactly expecting to fall asleep the moment you lie down. After all, there’s a strange—and strangely handsome—man currently turning your tiny kitchen into a full-blown buffet. But as soon as your head hits the pillow, you’re out.
If you dream, you don’t remember what about.
Next thing you know, bright, early afternoon light is streaming through the windows above your head. Yep. Afternoon.
Not only did you sleep instantly, you slept soundly. And for a long time.
You groan, rolling over.
Your bed isn’t big. It’s a full, so at least it’s bigger than a twin. But it’s still not exactly the kind of space you can wake up next to a six-foot-something dude and not be touching.
So when you roll over and whack your arm into something very solid and warm, you yelp in surprise.
“And here I thought you’d sleep until sunset,” rumbles a low voice beside your ear.
You leap out of bed, nearly yanking the covers with you.
Hot Book Guy just stares lazily at you from where he rolls over onto his side, propping himself up on one arm. He’s lying there on top of the covers, and suddenly you get the horribly embarrassing feeling he was watching you sleep.
Speaking of embarrassing: Your tiny panda bear crop top and shorts set feels even more ridiculous in the daylight.
But if Mysterious Hot Guy thinks so, it’s hard to tell. Is that a look of amusement on his face, or does he like what he sees? Because he sure is letting his gaze linger.
“Hey!” You stalk back over to the edge of the bed, folding your arms over the panda bear face and glaring down at him. “What happened to the not creepy part of my instructions?”
He just shrugs lazily with one arm, still propped-up on the other. Bright morning light streams in through the windows at your back.
Wow. He’s even more handsome in the daylight.
You could get used to waking up this way.
Wait, wait, wait!
What are you doing having these thoughts!?
You still don’t even know if he’s actually hot, or if this is just some sort of magical trickery like a fae glamour. You don’t even know what he is, strange as that sounds. Or what his name is, for that matter.
You shake your head, rubbing your hands over your eyes to wipe away the lingering sleep.
“Nevermind,” you grumble, grabbing your phone from the nightstand to see what time it is.
Oof . It’s past two.
And there’s a text waiting from your best friend. It’s from five hours ago.
Corrine: Hey. He said he’ll pick you up at seven. Still good, right?
Oh, crap. Good thing you didn’t wake up any later or you’d still be groggy by nightfall.
You’d totally forgotten. It’s your day off, and your friend set you up on a blind date. This guy is some friend of a friend of hers or something like that.
You’d only agreed because you had nothing better to do, but it’s already so late, you’d hate to cancel now.
So you do what you always do: try to make other people happy.
Mr. Hot Book Guy gets up, looming over your shoulder like a dark cloud as you form your reply.
“ Excuse me ,” you say dryly as you text back in a hurry, clicking off the screen. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to read over other people’s shoulders?”
But when you glance back at Mr. Mysterious Hot Guy, he’s just staring.
And staring.
That’s when it hits you—he practically time-traveled here from the 1800s.
This is his first time seeing a cell phone.
Or, at least, you assume that’s why he won’t take his eyes off it. It’s probably some demonic-magical crazy thing to him.
That’s the conclusion that would make sense.
But he just folds his arms, eyes flashing.
“Who is taking you where exactly? Do you know this guy?”
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
Is he being…protective?
Oh, right. The spell—or whatever that is. The thing in the book. Maybe it’s the magic of the book, forcing him to protect you.
He doesn’t actually care about you. He can’t possibly. After all, he doesn’t even know you.
So there’s no reason to think anything of the protective edge to his question.
Right?