“You make your own granola?” She groaned. “Ugh. It’s like you’re some perfect Instagram model #LivingYourBestLife.” Sometimes the perfection in others was just plain annoying.
He laughed softly. “If you stay here in this big comfy bed with me, I guarantee you’ll like my alarm clock more than your own.”
“Your alarm clock is your penis, isn’t it?” she murmured into the pillow.
“Only one way to find out. Stay with me, Maggie.”
“Why?” she asked. “Besides the five dollars you seem hell-bent on winning from me. Why do you want me to stay?”
“Because I want to wake up with you in my bed. I want to be there when your eyes open. I want the first smile of your day to belong to me. I want to start my day touching you.”
The man was a natural seducer.
And she was just stupid enough to fall for it.
She let out a long breath. “Fine. I’ll stay. But I want a toothbrush. And eggs to go with the yogurt and the bacon. And I don’t want any shit from you when I leave your family cookout tomorrow after an hour and a half so I can catch up on some damn work.”
“Anything you want, Mags. You can have it all.” She could hear his smug smile.
“Why do I feel like I just played into your hands?”
He slid his hands up to cup her breasts. “Because my hands are on you. Besides, you’re looking at it all wrong. You don’t lose by staying the night.”
“Let me text Dean so he and Cody don’t think I’m dead in a ditch somewhere,” she said.
“How about you text Dean while I go get us some tall waters?” Silas suggested. “Then we can grab a shower.”
“Throw in a snack, and you’ve got a deal.”
Once he left, she found her phone on the floor, half under the nightstand.
Maggie: I’m spending the night at Sy’s. I’ll be home in the morning. If you’re a good boy I’ll bring you and Cody fancy coffees.
Dean: We’ll take two venti lattes with caramel drizzle.
Maggie: Are you ordering two drinks for yourself?
Dean: I’m educating our young friend on good coffee. When he turns 21 you can educate him on alcohol that doesn’t come in a plastic bottle.
Dean: Also, did you make Sly Sy turn his hat backward in bed?
Maggie: Shut up weirdo. You and Michael seemed awfully cozy tonight.
Dean: I asked him to dance. He shot me down.
Maggie: Maybe you dazzled him too much?
Dean: Or maybe my gaydar is broken. Or maybe he saw my gray hair and crow’s-feet and I scared him straight.
Maggie: Want me to ask Silas?
Dean: DO NOT ASK HOT SILAS ABOUT MY CROW’S-FEET! Or his brother. You bask in the afterglow while I binge-watch BBC murder mysteries and drink age-reversing green juice. PS You need a fucking TV and a couch in this mausoleum.
She sighed and wished there was something she could do for Dean. But everyone had their journey. And it was better to fix things on your own than to accept meddling.
Maggie: Okay fine. Get some sleep so you’re well rested and can charm the pants off everyone in his family at the cookout.
“Everything okay?” Silas asked, returning with two tall glasses of water and—sweetly—a stack of peanut butter crackers.
He was still naked and an absolute delight to look at. She hadn’t really appreciated the view, being distracted by all those orgasms and all. His tattoo stood out on his left arm, as did the dark tan line at his waist.
“You’re really gorgeous,” she said, accepting the glass he handed her.
He gave her a wolfish smile. “It speaks to your intelligence that you noticed.”
“Where does all that confidence come from?” she asked. “Is it from looking like that?”
“Darlin’， I’m surprised at you. Don’t you know confidence comes from the inside?”
“Does it? Because from where I sit, you’ve got an awful lot to feel confident about on the outside,” she said, eyeing his muscular thighs and what hung between them.
He sat down on the mattress next to her and gave her bare hip a friendly squeeze. “Confidence comes from knowing that whatever the situation, you know you’ll make the best of it. Confidence is certainty in your ability to rise.”
Her philosophical landscaper lover.
He took the phone from her. “No screens in the bedroom.”
“What if there’s an emergency?”
“Then you’ll find out about it in the morning,” he said, ushering her toward the waiting shower.