Chapter Thirty-Two
The Morning After
Winnie
I wake up to the feeling of someone staring at me.
I keep my eyes closed for another few seconds, running a quick internal inventory. Warm. Comfortable. Slightly sore in a way that makes me want to smile into the pillow.
Right. Banks.
I open one eye.
He’s lying on his side, head propped on one hand, watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. Soft. Open. A little bit like he can’t quite believe I’m still here.
“Hi,” I say, my voice coming out rough with sleep.
“Hi.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
He considers this. “A while.”
“That’s a little creepy, Banksy.”
“You’re in my bed, Win. I wanted to make sure you were real.”
I blink at him. He says it so matter-of-factly, like that’s a completely normal thing to admit at—I glance at the clock—seven in the morning. Like he didn’t just reach into my chest with one sentence and rearrange things.
“I’m real,” I tell him.
“Yeah.” His eyes move over my face. “I see that.”
I push myself up to sitting and realize I’m wearing a t-shirt—one of his t-shirts that he must have put on me at some point while I slept—slides off one shoulder.
“Did you dress me?” I ask.
“You were cold.”
“How do you know I was cold?”
“You made a noise and pulled the blanket up. So I—” He stops. Seems to realize how this sounds. “You know what, forget it.”
I stare at him. Banks Callahan, enforcer, the man who once went three periods without acknowledging that his nose was broken, put a t-shirt on me in the middle of the night because I made a noise.
I’m going to need a moment.
“You’re doing the face,” he says.
“What face?”
“The face where you’re about to say something that makes me feel—” He pauses, visibly uncomfortable. “You know.”
“Feelings?” I offer helpfully.
“Don’t.”
I press my lips together to hold back a smile and fail completely. He watches me do it, and the corner of his mouth twitches.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“Desperately.”
He gets up, and I watch him pull on a t-shirt and sweats, and honestly it should be illegal how good he looks first thing in the morning with his hair like that, all pushed to one side, jaw scruffy, moving around his bedroom like he has no idea what he does to a person.
I follow him out to the kitchen, climbing onto one of the barstools at the island while he opens the fridge and stares into it with the gravity of a man making very important decisions.
“I have eggs,” he says. “And I think there’s bread.”
“Eggs and toast,” I say. “I can help—”
“Sit.”
I sit. He pulls out a carton of eggs, butter, the bread, and a block of cheese, setting everything on the counter with the same focused energy he brings to most things.
I rest my chin in my hand and watch him crack eggs into a bowl, and it’s—honestly, it’s almost absurd how domestic this is.
Banks Callahan, making me eggs at seven AM.
He whisks the eggs, adds a splash of something, then looks over his shoulder at me. “Cheese?”
“Obviously.”
He almost smiles. I catch the edge of it before he turns back around.
The kitchen fills with the sound of butter hitting a warm pan, and I sit there in his shirt on his barstool in his apartment and feel, with a clarity that’s a little startling, that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
He slides a plate in front of me ten minutes later. Scrambled eggs, perfectly done, cheese melted through, toast on the side. He leans against the opposite counter with his own plate and eats standing up, watching me take the first bite.
“Good?” he asks.
“Really good.” I point my fork at him. “See, this is information I needed earlier. The eggs change things.”
“What things?”
“My overall assessment of you as a life partner.”
He goes very still. Then, carefully says, “Is that right.”
“I’m just saying, a man who makes good eggs at seven a.m. without being asked is—that’s a green flag, Banks. A significant one.”
He’s quiet for a second, looking down at his plate. “Life partner,” he repeats, like he’s turning the words over.
“I was mostly joking,” I say, backpedaling slightly, because I suddenly can’t read his expression and I don’t want to—
“I wasn’t,” he says.
The fork stops halfway to my mouth.
He looks up. Meets my eyes. His expression is steady, unhurried, the same way he looks when he’s made up his mind about something and the rest of the world can catch up at its own pace.
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah.”
I set my fork down. He’s still watching me with that look—the soft, sweet one that’s just for me.
“Banks.”
“Win.”
“You can’t just say things like that while I’m eating eggs.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s—I’m not prepared. I don’t have a—I can’t be charming right now, I just woke up—”
“You don’t have to be charming.” He sets his own plate down and crosses the kitchen in three steps, stopping in front of me. He tucks my hair back from my face with one hand, and I let him. “You just have to be here.”
I look up at him. “I’m here.”
“I know.” His thumb brushes my cheekbone.
I laugh—a real one, surprised out of me—and he ducks his head like he’s embarrassed and pleased at the same time, and I grab the front of his t-shirt and pull him down and kiss him with morning breath and scrambled eggs and zero dignity, and I honestly do not care.
He pulls back after a minute, resting his forehead against mine.
“Your eggs are getting cold,” he says.
“Worth it.”
“Eat.”
“You’re bossy in the morning.”
“I’m bossy always.”
“Fair point.” I pick up my fork. He stays where he is, close enough that his hip is warm against my knee, and reaches past me to steal a piece of my toast.