15. Walking-Work-of-Art Landlord
FIFTEEN
WALKING-WORK-OF-ART LANDLORD
? Talk Too Much - COIN
CLIO
I wake up alone in my bed without a doubt in my mind as to how I got here. A foolish part of me wishes he’d stayed.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, watching the dust particles floating in the morning light as it creeps in through the crack in my curtains.
I kissed Noah Weston.
I kissed him, and he kissed me back.
My belly does a weird little flip, like I’m a teenager with her first crush.
No. Bad. You can’t be crushing on your fake fiancé. And you absolutely shouldn’t have kissed him.
Oh god, now I’m talking to myself. I really am losing it.
I was point three seconds away from fucking him right there on my couch, breaking the only hard and fast rule to this arrangement.
Still, it’s not exactly a legally binding document.
He won’t take me to court for breaching the no sex clause on a hastily thought-out contract written on strawberry-themed note paper. Try saying that five times fast.
I need a huge cup of coffee and a fat stack of pancakes smothered in maple syrup. That’ll fix me.
I slink out of bed like I’m made of putty—who needs bones, anyway.
The horny devil on my shoulder perks up, screaming, “Me. Me. Pick me.”
After a pit stop in the bathroom, I emerge from the hallway rubbing at my eyes, fully convinced I’m hallucinating.
There’s no way I’m seeing things clearly.
Noah is not standing in my kitchen in nothing but a cropped tee and a low-slung pair of sweatpants, looking freshly showered with a fucking spatula in his hand, flipping the most delicious-looking pancakes I’ve ever seen in my life.
My eyes travel lower to the floral tattoos on his hip bones, drawing my attention to his… nope. Stop objectifying your landlord, Clio Marsden. Your very hot, very muscular, walking work-of-art landlord.
I make my way into the kitchen and reach for a mug, but before I get there, Noah sets a steaming cup of coffee in my hand, leaving me momentarily bewildered and frozen in place.
“It’s called coffee, princess. Go sit down. Your pancakes are almost ready.”
My pancakes.
Did I send a telepathic signal from my bedroom? Is this what people mean when they say they’re manifesting?
Lexi giggles from somewhere out of view. I follow the sound to the breakfast nook and take in her amused expression.
“Morning,” she says.
Auggie’s sitting across the table, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. He raises his hand and waves. The whole scene is so domestic it makes my chest ache.
Noah palms my shoulders and spins me toward the table. I feel his warmth at my back, and his spearmint toothpaste-scented breath ruffles my hair when he speaks in a low tone, punctuating each word. “Go sit down.”
This isn’t real. Any second now I’m going to wake up on my couch in a puddle of drool with the credits to Pretty Woman rolling across the screen.
Having swallowed down his food, Auggie greets me as I sit on the bench. “Hi, Miss Clio!”
“Morning, Super Auggie. You know, when we’re at home you can just call me Clio or Cici.”
He sits up straighter, doing an excited shoulder wiggle. “Like Emmy? She calls you Auntie Cici.”
“Yep.”
Noah sets a stack of pancakes in front of me with a fork and a bottle of syrup.
“Thanks. I didn’t realize I’d be waking up to tableside service.”
“Don’t get used to it, princess.”
His phone dings and he pulls it out of his pocket. “Shit. Do you have a charger I can borrow?”
“Junk drawer. Top left beside the sink.”
He noisily riffles through the drawer, setting aside a random assortment of items until he finally finds the extra charger.
As he unravels the cord, he glances around the room, his gaze landing on my vintage ceramic strawberry cookie jar.
When he tries to move it away from the wall outlet, it hardly budges. “What the hell is in this thing?”
He lifts the top and peers inside, a deep crease forming between his brows. “Pennies?”
I hum around a bite of buttery, syrupy goodness, content to let him wonder why I’d have a ridiculously large stash of one coin in particular.
Aunt Penny has been gone for almost three years. There has to be at least one penny for every day we’ve missed her, but I don’t know how to explain that without baring my entire soul at the breakfast table.
I swirl a forkful of pancakes in a puddle of syrup, keeping my gaze fixed on the plate. Thankfully, the conversation withers and dies.
Noah stands against the counter and scrolls through his phone.
His presence is almost unsettling. Why would a man be in my home?
It’s been just Lexi and me for the last few years, and before that it was all feminine energy all the time.
He sticks out like a sore thumb against my eclectic decor, not that I mind all that much.
At least he’s pretty, and he makes a decent breakfast.
Lexi waves her hand in front of my face to capture my attention. “Earth to Mom.”
“Hm?”
“I asked if I could take the car. I’m meeting up with Hayden to run lines.”
“Who’s Hayden?” Noah asks tersely.
“He’s the boy Lexi has to kiss for the school play.”
“Mom!” she blurts indignantly.
“Lexi!” I mimic that same tone.
She sticks out her tongue, and I make a funny face right back. Auggie giggles and joins in, holding his hands up like floppy ears and crossing his eyes.
“You’ll get stuck like that, you know.” Noah brings his black coffee to his lips with the perfect cupid’s bow I’m only now noticing.
I kissed those lips. How had I missed that detail? I blink myself out of the thought. “Is that what happened to your face?”
“Very funny,” he deadpans.
I turn my attention back to the topic at hand. “You can take the car, but I want you back before dinner. If I text, you answer, or I will come find you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Lexi lets out an exasperated sigh and grabs her jacket off the back of her chair. “Thanks for breakfast, Noah.”
He nods once. “Thanks for babysitting.”
Auggie rushes out of his seat and hugs her around the legs. “Bye, Lexi.”
She reaches down to ruffle his hair. “See you later, little dude.”
As Lexi disappears out the door, Auggie rushes to the window, his hot breath fogging up the glass. I grab my empty plate and take it to the sink, rinsing it under warm water.
“He’s like a puppy dog,” Noah says.
“I think it’s sweet.”
I set the plate in the dishwasher and reach for my meds. I take a daily birth control pill along with ibuprofen as needed to manage my endometriosis symptoms. Some days are worse than others. If I forget to take them, the flare-ups can be excruciating.
Swallowing down the pills, I lean back against the counter next to Noah. “Are we going to talk about what happened last night?”
“The part where you asked me to kiss you?” He speaks in a cold, almost detached tone. “Or the part where we got way too carried away?”
My mouth goes dry, and words become impossible.
Same old Clio. Always making a mountain out of a molehill. Clearly it didn’t affect him the same way it affected me. It was a pity kiss. You asked, and he delivered.
Boy, did he deliver.
“Never mind. Let’s just pretend it never happened.” I push away from the counter, intent on making a hasty escape, but his large palm locks around my wrist and he pulls me back.
“Not so fast, princess.” He sets his mug down on the counter and spins me to face him, one hand drifting to my lower back. “You broke the contract.”
“We broke the contract.”
“Maybe it’s time to renegotiate the terms.”
My skin tingles where his hand has slipped beneath my sleep shirt. I don’t speak, afraid I might put my foot in my mouth and ruin the moment.
“Why should we both have to suffer when we could come to some kind of”—his gaze flicks to my lips and back—“arrangement?”
“Wh-what kind of arrangement?”
“There are ways we can make each other feel good without having sex.” His voice is a low rasp as his other hand toys with the thin strap of my tank top. “Ways I can touch you to bring you pleasure without violating the contract.”
I should push him away and end this ridiculous notion all at once, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering it. “This is a bad idea.”
“What’s one more bad idea on top of a thousand others? This way, we can at least enjoy our time together.”
I snort. “What? I’m not delightful enough already? You have to stick your hands down my pants to make me more tolerable?”
His lips ghost over the shell of my ear, sending a violent shiver up my spine. “It doesn’t have to just be my hands.”
I press my palm against his chest and take one careful step back, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Auggie’s not watching. Luckily, he’s engrossed in a dinosaur game on his tablet.
“I’m not like you, Noah. I don’t know how to do this no strings attached thing.”
“Did you just call me a slut?”
A quiet laugh escapes me. “If the shoe fits, lace that bitch up.”
I breezed through my twenties without experiencing the typical exploration phase. I was too busy being a mom. Now, I’m in my thirties with no clue how to even approach a relationship, strings or no strings. That’s probably why I panicked and wrote up a contract in the first place.
“I won’t pressure you. Just think about it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I could catch feelings and fall for another man who’s only going to break my heart in the end, and I’d only have myself to blame. I can’t say that, so I don’t say anything at all.