Page 55 of Couple Goals

Did she dream it? Did she really break her one-night-stand rule last night, and end back here with Jacob again? And was the sex as unbelievably brilliant as she dreamt it was?

She’d thrown her arms around him when he’d found her last night, like he was her real-life knight in shining armour – well, a surprised businessman in an expensive suit. And he hadn’t pushed her away, he’d just dropped his things to hold her, and sighed, not in displeasure but in something closer to relief. After they’d laughed together about the strangeness of their paths overlapping, it had felt like the coincidence threw all their previous conversations about maintaining distance out the window.

‘I’m just finding it so hard,’ Adriana had said, tearfully on the street. ‘I hate being distant with you.’

‘Well, I hate it too,’ he’d said.

‘Really?’

‘Of course I do! I was always clear with you Adriana, when we met I told you I wanted to see you again, but you were the one who said it could never be something serious, and then with the whole complication of my role at the club, I just thought, I didn’t want to make anything difficult for you, even if I hated it. And then I arrived at Honey thinking it was a date, when you kept insisting it was some business meeting. Isn’t this what you wanted, for us to avoid each other?’

‘No,’ she had said, boldly. ‘What I want is this–’

And she had kissed him. After that, they had just been unable to stop smiling at each other in disbelief.

‘My teammates are all–’ Adriana had gestured back to the club. ‘Can we go somewhere… else?’

Her eyes had of course been wide and suggestive in the dark night. He’d called them a taxi with one confident gesture of his arm in the road, seeming to magic one out of thin air. And then they’d kissed the whole journey back to his, hands grasping at each other’s bodies eager to make up for what they’d denied themselves over the past few weeks.

When he’d let her back into his apartment it had been like déjà vu, like reliving the memory Adriana had played so many times in her head since their first encounter.

They had been kissing against his front door, and she’d been pulling his shirt off there in the hallway, undressing him fast at first, and then, when it got to his belt,very, very slow, until he’d groaned with the delay. They had made it to the bed eventually, but had avoided sleep all night, prioritising instead the positions that Adriana had wished they’d got round to the first time. There were still so many more she wanted to see him in, to feel him in, to taste him in…

She closes her eyes tightly, making a wish before turning round to face the man beside her hoping that this morning will be different and she won’t mess up this second chance.

‘Good morning, Addy,’ Jacob smiles. ‘Are you any good at crosswords?’

Adriana buries her face in the plump linen pillowcase, trying to hide the outrageous size of her huge grin.

‘Woah, woah, it’s okay, you don’t have to, but I’m afraid I dohaveto do the daily quick crossword, it’s a sacred part of my morning routine…’

Adriana brings her face back up, but still can’t quite look at him. She still can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

‘It’s not– I love crosswords! I’m absolutelyterribleat them, mind you, but…’

Adriana peeks back up. Jacob is sat upright, leaning against his pillows, with a paper newspaper open before him, open to the puzzles section. His hair is – in a way she could never have previously guessed it could ever be –messy, sticking out in all directions, from what, she realises proudly, was her own hands mussing through it so much last night. He’s wearing a pair of glasses she hasn’t seen him in before which she guesses must be his ‘home’ pair, their frames tortoiseshell and rounder than his usual slick rectangular frameless ones, and a blue checked pyjama shirt.She looks under the duvet to see – yes – it’s a matching set.

‘W-what are you looking at down there?’ Jacob laughs.

‘You are wearing a pyjama set.’

Adriana didn’t know guys could wear elegant pyjama sets, she thought that was something only old men in Victorian times could do. Normally when she hooks up with men, the next morning they stay naked or in their faded boxers with holes, which often look like they’re about a hundred years old themselves.

‘Of course,’ Jacob frowns. ‘It’s Sunday morning. We’re relaxing in bed. What else could I be wearing?’

Adriana buries her face in her pillow again and screams.

‘What?’ Jacob asks, sounding worried. ‘What’s wrong!’

‘You’re just so… so… cute! I can’t deal with it! You’re not meant to be able to be this adorable!’

When Adriana resurfaces again, the tips of Jacob’s ears have gone pink.

‘Ah, well, if that’s all, I can only apologise for surprising you,’ he says. ‘Don’t forget your coffee, by the way. Coconut milk mocha right?’

This time Adriana is rendered speechless.

Jacob bites his lip, holding back a smile. ‘You converted me at Honey. I’ve been drinking it myself. It’s like drinking a bounty.’ Then he clicks the end of his pen. ‘Now, what do you think might be 2 down, five letters, with the clue–’

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