Page 34 of Time Out

Instead of crinkling plastic, I hit warm, softer plastic and frowned.

“What the heck?”

Gone were my sleeve of crackers and instead was a cellophane wrapped plate, two sausage patties still hot enough to steam the covering and some scrambled eggs. Toast. Next to it was a glass of orange juice.

No way. I had to still be dreaming.

I hadn’t had a decent breakfast since….

Who knew how long it’d been. I’d been too tired to cook in the mornings, settling for crackers, a bagel and cream cheese and yogurt if I was feeling better. And the fact it was warm? I pushed hair out of my face and ran a hand down my chest to my stomach as it rumbled and felt something softer than I usually wore.

“This is not my shirt.” It was Davis’s. The one he was wearing last night and a quick check told me I no longer wore a bra or pants, but had on the same underwear.

He stayed? And changed me?

Before I could settle how that made me feel, my door opened.

Davis’s head, hair a mess and sticking out at the sides, poked in and smiled. “You’re awake. You doing okay?”

Chapter 11

Davis

Maggie gaped at me with the same blank expression as most of the cows on Duke’s farm.

I couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep so quickly last night. I debated leaving her, but how could I lock up her apartment? She might have let me help myself to her phone, but I wasn’t taking her keys. And in a building like this, it was in no way safe enough to risk leaving it unlocked for the night.

Especially not with how small she’d looked, how helpless, and how absolutely dead to the world she became in seconds. After a few moments of debate, I stayed. I hadn’t wanted her alone in the building at all. Her place was old and small and cramped and that the elevator hadn’t worked didn’t say good things.

It might not have been the most broken-down place in the city, but I still wanted her out of it.

How would she carry everything she needed to with a baby? Leave the baby alone while she hauled up groceries? And a stroller or car seat? I’d hoped to hide my shock last night, and since she didn’t catch me judging, must have gotten away with it. I wasn’t judging… just didn’t want my baby being raised here, with some strange stench of mold or something dirtier lingering in the hallway. I grew up near farms—I knew smells. The second-floor hallway below hers was worse than any stall I’d ever had to clean out.

“You took off my clothes.”

She didn’t sound thrilled, so I didn’t bother pointing out I’d seen everything she had before. Consent was important, and I hadn’t had that.

I got it. But in the two seconds it took her to totally pass out on me and not wake when I tried, I didn’t want her sleeping in her bra and dress shirt and pants.

“As fast as I could. You passed out while I went to get your phone. I tried to wake you.”

“I’m not mad, trying to figure out what happened.”

That was pretty much it. She told me she’d changed her phone passcode to our baby’s due date—which I hadn’t thought to ask yet—and then was out.

It was impressive. Wish I could do that on plane trips.

“You stayed.” Her voice was still groggy with sleep and she was paling by the second so I moved to her, unwrapped the breakfast I’d set down next to her. I’d only returned to bring her a fork I’d forgotten. She took the plate with a mumbled thanks as I handed it to her and resettled higher on the bed.

“I didn’t want to leave and wasn’t sure how to lock up safely.”

“Where’d you sleep?”

“In a very tight, uncomfortable ball on your couch. I’m all right.”

“Hmm.” She dug into the eggs first. It’d make me a creeper to stand there and watch her, half-naked since I’d given her my shirt so I didn’t have to dig through her dressers, although I quite liked the look of her in my clothes.

“Eat, Maggie. I’ll go clean the kitchen. We can talk when you don’t look so green.”

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