Page 39 of Tempting-
Fuck, the brightness in her eyes.
There's no way I can deny that.
This is a good idea.
Something fun.
To fill both our heads.
I nod. "You're on."
We shake. Set our timers. Go for it.
I give her a head start.
All right, I watch the way her dress falls over her ass as she walks away.
Same difference.
Thirty minutes later,I'm downstairs with a cart full of cheap decorations. White Christmas lights. Simple black frames. Rectangular black pillows. Planters full of cacti.
Eighteen-year-old Brendon would fucking kill me.
I'm yuppie scum.
And there's Kaylee with a full cart. Pink string lights. Heart pillows. Same planters full of cacti. One of those mass-produced paintings of the ocean.
She holds it up. "I just wanted to see your face."
"And?"
"Perfection." She sets it aside. "The corporations have us, huh?"
"Pretty sure I'm doomed."
"If you buy stuff at Ikea to decorate your small business, is that corporate or not?"
"Don't look at me. I didn't go to college."
"Me either. Not yet."
I never thought about those kinds of technicalities. I was an angry kid without responsibilities. One who'd never ever wanted for anything. Who'd never worried about anything.
Easy to decry three-dollar meatballs and cheap decorations when you have the time and money to make your own dinner, sew together your own jeans.
You get older. Start making compromises. Realize some of your ideals were naïve.
But owning my own business—even one adorned in Ikea decorations—that warms me like nothing else does.
She smiles. "You're going to do it."
"I was always going to do it."
"No... you weren't. I know you. I know every single one of your facial expressions."
"I have expressions?"
"Barely. But you do."
