“Over French toast?”
She shifted in bed, turning onto her side, and then smiled as excitement gripped her. “Yes.”
“Good.” Gus started reading and only the sheer late hour and the power of his voice dragged her into sleep.
She was turned on and her head was spinning as her eyes fluttered shut—she didn’t think Gus played games outside of actual games, but this was a risk she wasn’t sure she could take. He was already in her ears, and in her head—what would happen if she let him into her heart?
Chapter Six
Gus didn’t know if seducing someone with French toast was possible, but he was willing to give it a try. He liked Reggie. He wanted Reggie. He wasn’t certain, because he hadn’t asked, but it seemed she was at the very least attracted to him, too.
Whether a relationship could work was a matter of chance, it seemed to him. Some women liked the way he looked, and apparently the way he talked. Occasionally, additional variables lined up to push things past liking—lust, loneliness, location. He’d had two serious relationships and several less serious ones; the serious relationships had started with the alignment of variables plus the certainty that dropped down onto Gus from the sky, though he’d never been this flattened by it.
He showered and brushed his teeth with the products left in the bathroom for guests, but was wearing the same white T-shirt and jeans he’d had on the day before and his face was rough with short stubble.
When he knocked on the door at the top of the stairs, Reggie called out, “It’s unlocked!” He found her in the kitchen, setting out milk, mixing bowls, eggs, and a loaf of challah bread. She was wearing the pajamas she’d had on in their video chat, the intense blue top with a plunging neckline, and Gus almost nodded in approval. Her hair was up in bun on top of her head.
“Good morning,” she muttered, not meeting his gaze. She moved past him and began rummaging around in a cabinet, bending forward so that he could see the flex of her back muscles and the stretch of her long neck. She was tense and he was so tempted to rest his hand there and massage away whatever was bothering her, but he’d only met her in person yesterday. They weren’t at the stage where he could just touch her, outside of his imagination.
“Good morning,” he replied. “Need help with anything?”
“No.” Her response was sharp and might have hurt another person’s feelings, but Dave had often told Gus to fuck off before he’d had his coffee, so this was relatively tame in Gus’s experience of people he cared about waking up on the wrong side of the bed.
He walked over and knelt beside her, and she looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I said I don’t need help with anything.”
“Are you not a morning person?” he asked once he had her attention. “I can quietly make breakfast and not bother you, or I can go. I don’t want to get in your way or make you uncomfortable. Or be your punching bag.”
She sighed.
“Sorry. I’m an anytime-of-day person,” she said. “I just . . .”
She stopped rummaging and leaned back in her chair. Her head dropped back a bit in frustration, her chin pointing upward, and the sunlight coming in through the window made a halo of the curls that had escaped her bun—red, gold, brown, rust, bronze, glowing in yellow summer sun—that Gus found even more distracting than her shirt.
“My sister is in a situation in Scotland,” she said, dropping her chin back down. “She found out the guy she’s apprenticing with and maybe dating is the secret lovechild of a recently deceased duke, and heir to a Scottish dukedom.”
Gus pulled his gaze from her hair to her face, frowning in confusion. There was no smile, no mischief in her eyes. She was serious. “Really? That’s a thing that happens to people?”
“Apparently. She and her friends get into some weird situations, to be honest. Anyway, she was going to announce the duke stuff on my site because she’s been writing a column for me. But we got scooped by some shitty tabloid, and I had to scramble this morning when a reader sent me the link.” She looked distinctly not pleased with that. “Now my sister’s getting dragged into articles about this guy because this is some big scandal, and I have a bad feeling. Portia isn’t like me.”
Portia, her fraternal twin. Like Aurora and Briar Rose. He thought about the painting above the fireplace, and a piece of the puzzle that was Reggie moved into place.
“What do you mean she’s not like you?”
“She’s not tough. I’m like a pineapple, or one of those spiky green fruits.”
“Durian?” She nodded. Gus couldn’t let that stand. “Have you smelled durian? You’re no durian.”
“Okay. I’m a pineapple. She’s a . . . pear. She bruises easily, so to speak.”
“Isn’t she the one who hurt you, though?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he liked this sister of hers, who’d made Reggie feel uncared for in the past—he’d seen bruised pineapples before.
“Yeah, but not on purpose.” She sighed again.
“Does it matter if it was on purpose?”
She shot him a frustrated look. “It’s complicated. But if you Google ‘Duke of Edinburgh love child’ you can see what everyone is saying.”
Gus pulled out his phone and did as she said while she began moving things around in the cabinet again. Several articles that had published in the last few hours popped up, and the top image was a grumpy-looking dude with salt-and-pepper hair and a sword standing next to some kind of alternate universe version of Reggie, in fancy clothes and with way more makeup.
“You’re prettier,” he said.
“Don’t shit talk my sister.” She leaned up from the cabinet, pointing a cast-iron skillet at him in a menacing fashion. Her arm shook, but her grip didn’t budge. “We’ve had our parents comparing us all of our lives. I know you’re trying to be nice but . . . chill with that.”
She placed the skillet in her lap and rolled toward the stove, clearly annoyed.
“Sorry,” he said. “She’s pretty, too, of course, because she looks like you. Kind of. It’s just that I like you better. I should have kept that to myself, though.”
“Gus.” Her voice was softer and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. “Thanks. Come make me breakfast.”
“What is a swordbae?” he asked after glancing at the screen one last time, and was glad he did when Reggie laughed again. It was a bright sound, and a little brash, just like her.
She set the table and began pressing oranges with an electric juicer while he whisked the eggs and cinnamon and sugar, soaked the thickly cut bread, and dropped it into the pan.
“You like coffee, right? You said that before on the live stream.”
“Yup. Dark roast if you’ve got it,” he said.
It wasn’t until he was plating up their food and carrying it to the dining room table that he realized how domestic this was. It reminded him of Ông nội and Bà nội, making meals for the family when he was a boy, how they’d each had their roles and worked so well together.
It was a kind of presumptuous comparison given he’d met Reggie in person for the first time the night before. Dave would probably tell him to slow his roll . . . or maybe not. Dave had said This is like, the woman I’m gonna marry! after his first date with Melissa, hadn’t he? And now they were, indeed, married. Maybe this wasn’t typical, but it was within the realm of possibility. He wasn’t sure he wanted to marry Reggie given the whole ‘just met in person yesterday’ thing, but he wanted to spend more time with her. He wanted to make her blush, and not just by making good food for her.