Page 28 of And Everything In Between

Giovanni smirked, moving through the kitchen like he’d done a hundred times but never with anyone watching his every move.

She watched him in silence, taking him in. The warehouse looked different in the morning. Everything felt sharper. More exposed.

She nibbled a piece of bacon, her leg swinging off the counter.

“You’re cute,” he said, “But not when you let that grizzly bear come out.”

She swatted at him, trying to hit him, but he dodged with her swinging arm. He chuckled, dragging a stool in front of her, her foot finding its way into his lap without instruction. His thumb worked patient circles into her arch.

“I was snoring?” Embarrassment covered her face.

“That means you ain’t sleeping,” he said quietly. Making an observation. Every so often, he’d glance up at her, checking in, letting his touch ask questions his mouth didn’t know how to shape yet.

“I sleep, just not good sleep. Not like last night,” she expressed with a shrug.

“You had some dickquil last night, that sleep always gon bless you.”

“Is it for sale? I need that regularly. I slept so well. I’ll be writing in my diary about it.” The thoughts of his soft but firm mattress, his expensive sheets, the slight scent of his cologne and bodywash had infiltrated her brain. Everything about yesterday had her mind doing the math and wondering how they just went back to being strangers.

“I’d give you a good deal. Let’s say, weekends and one lunch break a week,” he winked and she exhaled thinking about her legs being to the ceiling last night.

“Oh, it seems you already thought about offering your services again.”

“It crossed my mind. I’m tryna see you again. I won’t bullshit with you.”

“You out here rubbing feet unprovoked, so you might,” Paige murmured, sipping orange juice from a tall cup, eyes on him.

“I learned early, take care of the parts most men forget.”

His words settled into her, warm and weighted with a significance he probably didn’t even realize. That was exactly what he’d done last night, seen the parts of her that most people overlooked. Not the curve of her body, but the weight in her eyes. The silence in her sighs. The need buried beneath all the doing.

Paige’s eyes dropped to where his hand curved around her ankle. She hated how easy it felt, how he made space for her without pressing. She wasn’t dodging his questions, and that alone felt risky. It had to be the foot rub.

“I needed that last night,” she admitted, feeling vulnerable. Saying it out loud made it heavy. She needed comfort, connection, things she trained herself not to need over the years. It felt dangerous, giving a man the blueprint to her soft spots. But his peace made her want to tell the truth. The kind she usually swallowed.

“I have been carrying a lot,” she admitted. “Daddy, work… holding myself together in between. Sometimes I just want to be agirl.”

The world always wanted more. Competence. Strength. Poise. Giovanni hadn’t asked for anything. He gave. And that was the part messing her up most.

He leaned in closer. He didn’t speak, only held space and gave her the kind of listening that was rare to her. It made her feel understood, not judged. And she knew without asking, his momma had raised him right.

Her voice dropped low. “You didn’t ask for anything last night. You just... gave.”

“I saw what you were carrying. It didn’t feel right to add to it. The night was about you.”

“You made me feel soft,” she admitted. “That’s rare for me.”

That truth sat between them. Heavy. Exposed. But she didn’t take it back.

Giovanni lifted her foot and pressed a kiss to the top of it, and then to her ankle, while she squirmed on the counter. She was gorgeous.

“Let that be the new standard,” he said. “You ain’t gotta stay hard because the world is. Nothing you do will ever change that. We just gotta roll with it and not let it harden our hearts.”

She’d been waiting for permission, not from the world, but from herself.

And as she started to believe she could give it…

Her phone lit up.

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