Silver(38)

Being with Adrien made her feel it might be.



“I do not feel like going to work today,” Adrien said, pouting and sitting on a stool at her counter and resting his elbow on it, his cheek on his hand.

“Oh?” she asked. “Why’s that?”

“I would rather stay home with you,” he said.

“Well, we have to work,” Kelsey said, sitting on a stool next to him. “What are we doing for breakfast again?” She had to stay focused on concrete things, or her body just kept remembering what they’d done last night and longing for more of it.

“Should be delivered soon,” Adrien said. “We don’t really leave the club that much, especially Citrine, so we have figured out how to do meal delivery fairly well.”

“That explains all the delicious food you always have around here,” she said.

He nodded.

There was a knock on the door, and Sever was standing there, hair back in a braid as always, holding a box in one hand and a bag in the other. “Here’s the breakfast you ordered. I was in the club room when they buzzed the door.” He handed it over. “And here’s the other thing you had me pick up.” He handed over the box.

Kelsey looked away because she didn’t think it was any of her business. She sipped some orange juice she’d had in her fridge while Adrien said good-bye to Sever and came over with the bags.

He set down the food and told her to go ahead and get whatever she wanted out of it while he messed with the box Sever had brought him.

“What’s that?” she asked, unable to refuse her curiosity since he was messing with it in her apartment.

“You’ll see,” he said. The box popped open, and he dug inside, pulling plastic out. Finally, he pulled something out with a triumphant sigh. “Here you go. This is for you.”

She put a hand out, and a brushed metal object that was cool to the touch slid into her hand. “A phone?”

He nodded. “After what happened at the mall, I want to make sure you can contact me.”

“I have a phone,” she said, though the old flip phone she had to pay for with little prepaid cards barely counted to most people. For her, it had been enough, and while she’d envied the large, fancy phones that were mini computers, she’d never had enough for the monthly bill, let alone the price of the actual device. “I can’t accept this,” she said, flushing.

“You can,” Adrien said. “Think of it as a business benefit now that you work here. It should already be programmed with a sim card and be set up for calls. I also just sent out your number to the rest of the employees. I didn’t really want to, but you should be able to contact any of them if you need to.”

“Why didn’t you want to?” she asked nervously.

He slid his hands into the pockets of the pajama pants he’d worn last night as they cuddled together. She could still remember how warm and soft they’d been as he’d pressed up against her, their bodies entwined. “I would think it’d be obvious. I’m already very possessive of you. I don’t date women casually. When I decide to date one, I’m already serious.”

“You said that before,” she said, pulling a breakfast scone out onto her plate and nibbling it. “But what does that mean? You never really clarified.”

“Well, maybe it makes me old-fashioned, but I guess you could say I date with an eye for marriage,” he said, joining her and taking a scone for himself.

“I see,” she said. “That is old-fashioned.”

“Honestly, I used to be worse. I used to believe that no sexual intercourse was proper before a mating, er, marriage, and it’s only recently that I’ve realized women aren’t okay with that in the modern world.”

“You’re so weird sometimes,” she said, smiling. When he looked up, eyes narrowed, she laughed. “And I mean that in the best way, because no one has ever treated me as well as you do. I guess I’m just… I’m afraid it’s too good to be true.”

“Couldn’t it just be very good and very true? And don’t we feel right together?” he asked. “We definitely did last night.”

She flushed and turned back to her scone. No matter what he said about how good last night was, it would be an understatement. Nothing could express just how good it had been. Like he knew her completely. It had heightened their already unbelievably good chemistry to almost cosmic levels.

She wanted to experience it again. Go even further this time.

But they’d only known each other for days. Already she was living next to him, working with him. Was she being stupid?