Chapter 18 The Best Day
THE BEST DAY
EMMA
A floorboard creaks. My eyes open slowly, morning light filtering through thin curtains. It takes me a second to remember. Kai. My couch. My favorite oversized shirt stretched across his shoulders.
Last night rushes back. The blood on his hands. The confession I hadn't planned to make. The way he held me without pushing for more.
I lie still, listening. Another creak. Soft footsteps. In a space this small, every sound carries.
I grab my phone from the nightstand. Work in an hour. I should shower, get dressed, get on with my life.
Instead, I open my email and type a request for a comp day. I've been staying late for weeks. I've earned this.
The automated response comes back before I've set the phone down. Approved.
I slip out of bed, ease my door open. From here, I can see straight into the living room, which is also the kitchen, which is basically my entire apartment. Kai stands by the window, back to me, looking out at the sliver of city visible between buildings.
The shirt stretches across his shoulders, the fabric pulled so tight I can see every line of muscle in his back. The hem barely reaches his hips. On me, it hits mid-thigh. On him, it looks obscene.
He turns, and the view from the front is worse. Or better. Definitely worse.
“Morning.” His voice is rough with sleep, but he's smiling. A real smile, soft at the edges.
“Morning.” I'm suddenly aware of my thin sleep shirt, the state of my hair. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.” He rolls his shoulder, wincing. “Worth it.”
I don't ask what was worth it. After last night, I have a better idea than I want to.
“Hungry?”
He considers it like it's a complicated question. “Starving, actually.”
“I can make eggs. Omelette okay?”
Something shifts in his expression. “Yeah. That sounds... yeah.”
I move to the kitchen, grateful for something to do with my hands. The fridge offers limited options. Eggs, some cheddar, a few slices of ham, half an onion.
“Any preferences?” I call over my shoulder. “Allergies?”
“No onions.”
I turn, raising an eyebrow. “Allergic?”
“No.” He shifts, looking almost embarrassed. “I just don't like the texture. The way they get all...” He makes a vague gesture.
“Slimy?”
“Yeah. That.”
I bite back a smile.
“No onions,” I say.
The omelette comes together easily. Ham, cheese, salt and pepper. I fold it the way my mother taught me, golden on the outside, fluffy within. The coffee is instant. I refuse to apologize for it.
Kai moves to the table, taking in the space in daylight. The unpacked boxes in the corner. My sketches scattered across the coffee table. Through my open bedroom door, the cheap prints of famous paintings I hung to make the place feel like home.
He doesn't comment on any of it. Just settles into the chair and accepts the plate.
“Thank you.” He says it quietly, like he means more than the food.
He takes a bite and closes his eyes.
“This is really good.”
I laugh. “It's just eggs.”
“No, I mean it.” He takes another bite, sets down his fork. “Emma, this is the first home-cooked meal I've had. Unless frozen pizza counts, and that's the extent of Ethan's culinary skills.”
He says it lightly, almost joking. I hear what's underneath. A childhood with staff instead of parents in the kitchen. An adulthood of restaurants and takeout. All that money, and no one ever made him eggs.
“Frozen pizza absolutely does not count.”
“That's what I told him. He was offended.”
I smile, but something aches in my chest. We're both lonely, just in different ways. His isolation is gilded. Mine is cramped. Neither of us has someone to cook for us.
Until now.
Halfway through the meal, his hand slides across the table, palm up. An offering, not a demand.
I stare at it for a long moment. He waits, eyes on his food, no pressure. I take in the way his hair curls around his neck, the steady rhythm of his breathing. My body doesn't tense the way it used to with James. No nervous calculations about what he wants, what I owe.
I take his hand.
His fingers curl around mine, warm and steady. We finish eating like that, one-handed, neither of us willing to let go.
After breakfast, I reach for his arm. “Let me check your bandage.”
He extends it without protest. The cut is angry but clean. I rewrap it, trying not to notice how the shirt rides up, exposing the bruise purpling his ribs.
“Healing,” I say, and release him.
His phone buzzes. He checks it, eyes narrowing.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He types a quick response, sets the phone face-down. “Ethan and Logan. They got repairs started on the school. Found another location for the pilot. Hiring extra security.”
“That's good?”
“That's good.”
I start gathering plates. “I took today as a recovery day. From all the overtime I've been working.”
“Do you have plans?”
“Not really.” I stack his plate on mine. “Rest, mostly.”
He stands, reaching for the plates. “Let me wash.”
“You don't have to—“
“I know.” He's already at the sink, running the water.
I grab a towel, take my place at the counter. He washes, I dry. The kitchen is so small we have to coordinate our movements. His elbow nearly catching my arm as he scrubs. My hip brushing the cabinet as I reach for the dish rack.
“You're going to have to move closer,” he says. “Unless you want to play catch with wet plates.”
A few inches. Reasonable.
He hands me a plate, fingers brushing mine under the suds. I dry it, set it aside.
Another plate. Closer now. My shoulder almost touches his arm.
“I have a system,” I say, for no reason except to fill the silence.
“I can tell.” He's smiling. “Very efficient.”
“Don't mock my system.”
“I would never.”
The last mug passes between us. I'm standing close enough to feel the heat coming off him. He turns off the water and doesn't move away.
For a moment, we just stand there, side by side in the kitchen. It feels easy. Unfamiliar, but easy.
We migrate to the couch. I put on the medical drama I started the night before, the gritty one where nobody gets clean resolutions.
“What's this?”
“Trust me.”
I start explaining the characters. Who's sleeping with whom, which storyline makes me cry every time. I'm gesturing with my hands, probably talking too fast.
Kai watches me more than the screen. I steal glances at him too.
He winces when a trauma patient flatlines, mutters “that's a lawsuit” during a confrontation between doctors, laughs at the dry humor of the night shift nurse. When the storyline I warned him about hits its peak, he goes quiet.
“Told you,” I say softly.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “You did.”
Two episodes in, I pause. “Don't you have somewhere to be? Work? Meetings?”
“There are advantages to owning your company.”
“Do you do this often? Take random days off?”
His eyes meet mine. “First time.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls whose couch you crash on.”
He winks. “Only the ones who cook me breakfast.”
I can't help the smile spreading across my face.
Another episode passes. I shift, pull my legs up, and wince. My feet are aching, a dull throb I've been ignoring all morning.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” I reach down, rubbing at the arch of my foot. “Just those heels from work. And before you say anything, I love the shoes you got me. After several hours, all heels are uncomfortable.”
Kai's eyes drop to my feet, then back to my face.
“Lie down.”
I blink. “What?”
“Lie down and give me your feet.”
“Feet are personal,” I blurt out, then immediately want to die. Feet are personal? What am I, a Victorian maiden?
Kai chuckles, slow and warm. “I'm aware.”
Before I can protest, he lifts my legs, settles them across his lap. His hands find my right foot, thumbs pressing into the arch with exactly the right pressure.
A moan escapes before I can stop it. Loud and embarrassingly deep. Heat floods my face.
“Oh my God.” I press my hands over my eyes. “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—“
“If I'd known this was all it took to hear you moan,” Kai says, voice warm with amusement, “I would have offered sooner.”
I peek through my fingers. He's grinning, more relaxed than I've ever seen him, hands still working magic on my feet.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I don't. I let my head fall back against the cushion, surrender to the sensation. His thumbs find a knot in my arch, work it loose. I bite my lip to keep from making another embarrassing sound.
Outside, the city hums with Tuesday noise. Somewhere, my coworkers are in meetings, checking emails, grinding through the day.
Here, in my tiny apartment with no fancy restaurant or expensive wine, I'm more at ease than I've ever been with him. His hands on my feet. His warmth seeping into me. Us, together, doing nothing.
I open my eyes and watch him. The concentration on his face. The careful way he works each toe, each muscle. Like I'm something worth being careful with.
“Kai.”
He looks up.
I don't have words for what I want to say. So I sit up, swing my legs off his lap, lean into him. My head finds the curve of his shoulder. His arm comes around me, easy as breathing.
We stay like that, the show playing forgotten in the background. His hand tracing slow circles on my arm.
“I don't want this day to end,” I murmur.
He presses his chin to the top of my head, arm tightening around me.
“Neither do I.”