Chapter 9
CEDRIC
I stopped keeping track of whose apartment we were in because it just stopped mattering. My toothbrush was in Ozzie's bathroom, and his reading glasses were on my nightstand. And somewhere along the way, that became our normal.
Our perfectly normal.
We woke up together every morning, and it felt completely natural. I kept waiting to feel suffocated or for Ozzie to ask for a night to himself, but it never happened. Neither of us wanted to be apart for longer than we had to be.
And when I opened my eyes in the morning, he was usually awake, just lying there with one arm behind his head and watching me like I was the best TV in the world.
He'd give me a kiss and say good morning before I kissed his chest and had my morning milk.
It was usually brief because I emptied him out every night before sleep, but it was the best way to start my morning.
Close and warm and loved by Ozzie.
"You're outta coffee." I was staring into the cabinet next to his fridge in Ozzie’s gray hoodie. It was a good hoodie, and I was never giving it back. “Should we have breakfast at my place?”
"I’ll have a bag of coffee beans and more bread for your sandwiches delivered. We ate the last loaf yesterday." He was at the table with his laptop open, already an hour into his workday. "There's some of that instant stuff in the back if you can’t wait."
I pulled back and looked at him from around the cabinet door. "I'm not drinking instant."
He raised an eyebrow and picked up his phone. "I’ll add a white mocha to the order."
“Thanks, babe.” I closed the cabinet and poured hot water into my bowl of oatmeal. “You’re the best.”
He winked and placed the order before getting back to work.
It was fascinating to watch him when he was working.
He could switch between serious banker chasing down every last penny to concerned citizen out to help the little guy catch a break.
And I could usually tell which mode he was in just by the furrow in his brow. It was adorable.
My gaze didn’t leave his face until my bowl was empty, and I couldn’t put off work any longer. “I’m gonna go change and wait for my coffee.”
He looked at me and smirked. “You mean you’re not gonna wear that ratty old hoodie to work?”
"I'm riding in today." I pushed off the counter and started to walk toward the bedroom to find my cycling clothes. My bike had been sitting in the corner of my apartment gathering dust for years because I was always too tired or too congested to want to ride it. But neither of those things had been a problem since I started drinking Ozzie’s milk on a daily basis.
My sinuses had been clear for a while, and I was waking up with more energy than I knew what to do with.
"I better not see any new scrapes on your elbows." He looked up from the screen and waited for me to come up with a good excuse.
I didn’t have one, but I tried anyway. "That wasn’t my fault. A cat jumped right in front of me. Would you rather I had run it over?"
He smirked. "I’d rather you not fall off your bike in the middle of the road and come home bleeding..."
“Meh. That kind of bleeding is fine. If it’s drawn as the result of saving a kitty, it doesn’t count.
” I ran the rest of the way so I couldn’t hear his lecture.
He didn’t do it often, but when he got the slightest hint that I wasn’t making my personal health and safety a top priority, he got grumpy. A sweet kind of grumpy.
A while later, I came back just as the doorbell rang with our delivery.
I grabbed the bag from the grocery store but focused on the little bag from the coffee shop two doors down.
They had the best mocha with chocolate shavings on top, and when I peeked in the bag, there was a cat-shaped cake pop in there too.
“You got me a kitty cake?” I pulled it out and held it up after putting the groceries down.
He shrugged. “It’s no Ding Dong, but I know you like them.”
“I love them.” I wrapped my arms around Ozzie’s neck and gave him a big kiss. “And I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He took a sip of my mocha and then handed me the cup. “Do you want to put this in a travel mug so you can take it with you?”
I glanced at the clock as I took a drink. “Oooh, yeah. I should probably get going.” I pulled out a travel mug from his cabinet and transferred my drink into it. “I’ll be home by five thirty.”
He stood up and pulled me in for another kiss. "Have a good ride, sweetheart. And be careful."
Ozzie's kitchen was better stocked than mine and we both knew it, so we cooked there most nights. He had actual spices in labeled jars that he'd bought on purpose and not just a drawer of chili flakes and parmesan that I saved from pizza deliveries.
Most nights, I stood at his counter and handed him things, pretending I was helping when I was mostly just admiring him. That was my favorite thing to do. Well, second favorite. Okay, third. Definitely my third favorite thing to do.
"You could actually chop that instead of just holding it." He nodded toward the onion I was holding.
"I'm a moral-support chef." I set the onion down and hopped up onto the counter to sit. “My skills aren’t optimized for preparing the food. I’m really much better at ingesting it.”
He chuckled. “Yes, I’ve noticed.”
I sat on his counter and watched him cook for me because he wanted to. He liked providing me with nourishment and healthy food. Food made with love.
He nourished me in every way. Mind, body, and soul. Even his milk was literally healing for me. During the day, I had more energy than I’d had since grade school. And I was sleeping through the night. No nightmares. No tossing and turning. No cold sweats.
Just safe arms caging me against a delicious chest.
And things seemed to be better for Ozzie too. He hadn't touched the pump in a while. His body had adjusted to my needs, and now he never leaked or felt pressure. He just produced what I needed from him. Not too much and not too little. It was like he was made to nourish me in every way.
Some nights we watched TV together and fell asleep on the couch, and some nights, we stayed up too late talking about nothing because neither of us wanted to stop. And that was exactly as amazing as it sounded.
One night, while we were curled up in bed, I had an epiphany. "I can't remember what I did before this.”
The lights were off and he was rubbing my head. "Before what?"
"This." I shifted so I could look up at him even though it was dark. "You. All of it."
"I can." He said it simply, like he didn’t even have to think too hard to pull up the memories. "I remember exactly what I did before this. I was alone. I had to pump. I rarely smiled." His hand moved slowly. "This is better."
I chuckled at his word choice. "I hope that's an understatement."
"A giant understatement." He pressed his lips to my forehead and held there for a few seconds. "This is the best life I could imagine. Because of you. Because you let me love you."
He said the sweetest things. "Because I love loving you."
Other people probably thought we were ridiculous with how lovey-dovey we were, but I hoped that never changed.
We were generous with saying how much we loved each other because we’d both spent so much time not loving anyone.
Not knowing what it was like to have someone waiting at home.
Someone to spend every day with and share significant moments with.
Love was now an integral part of our vocabulary, because it was an integral part of our life together.
I'd been stingy about anything positive for most of my life. I just didn’t believe I deserved it. Then Ozzie showed up and kept giving until I forgot I wasn’t worthy of him. He made me believe everything good in my life wasn’t ever going away. That was a better way to live.
It took me a bit, but I was starting to understand what he meant when he said that only good attention was good attention.
He showed me good attention every minute of every day. Even when he was tired or frustrated with something, he never took it out on me. He cherished me, and that made it easy for me to learn how to cherish him the way he deserved.
The man I was before I met Ozzie seemed like a stranger now. Even though it had only been a few weeks since that night he saved me, we’d experienced so much growth in that time.
And it was just the beginning for us because I planned to spend the rest of my life with that man.