Page 59 of Love Is Brewing

Laken always got ready in her room when they were teens. By the time Talia was of that age, she had her own suite away from him and he never saw nor cared to see what her morning routine was.

He found the bread and pulled it out to put two pieces in the toaster, then opened the fridge and grabbed some eggs.

When her bedroom door opened again, he called out, “Phoebe.”

She walked into the kitchen dressed for work. Brown pants, a white sweater, and brown socks on her feet.

Her damp hair was falling in curly ringlets around her cheeks and shoulders, her face bare of makeup.

Any man who said a woman was at her best fully made up had never seen Phoebe Kelly in the morning.

The light reflecting off her dewy hair almost created a glow around her beckoning his feet to lift inches off the ground and follow her to the ends of the earth.

“Yes?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just wanted to see your hair again before you straightened it. I had no idea.”

“It’s unruly,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It’s hot.”

“What?” she asked, laughing.

“Long curly hair. Why do you tame it? It’s almost like you tame your personality too, but I saw the other side of it last night.”

She just stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. It almost felt like it to him too.

Then a slow smile filled her face.

“No one else has ever realized that about me before.”

“Lucky for you, I’m good at seeing through things,” he said. At least he always thought he was. “Do you ever wear it curly?”

“On the weekends when I’m not doing much.”

“It wasn’t last weekend,” he said, lifting his eyebrow.

“Because I was doing something with you,” she said. “Do you want to see it curly?”

“I’d love to,” he said.

She nodded and returned to the bathroom so he grabbed eggs and found a pan and put some food together. He sure the hell burned some calories being around her.

When she walked into the kitchen ten minutes later, her hair was a mass of ringlets and surprisingly not chaotic in the least.

“It’s quicker to do my hair this way,” she said. “Just some product, towel dry, then hit it for a few minutes with a diffuser.”

“A what?”

“It’s a device at the end of a hairdryer that spreads the air out to dry better.”

“Whatever it is, it looks great on you.”

“I don’t think I’m taken as seriously like this,” she said.

She walked to the coffeemaker. He’d been lucky to figure out how the thing worked. It was nothing like any machine he had or had operated before.

“Do you have to be taken seriously all the time?” he asked. “The element of surprise might be on your side too.”

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