go home to Cinder. She wasn’t happy with me the last time I stayed over.”
“Cinder?”
Who the fuck was Cinder?
“My cat,” he said, answering my silent question as he pulled out his phone.
Unlocking it, he pulled up his photo gallery and spent the next ten minutes showing me pictures of his cat. She was cute, but she wasn’t ten minutes cute. But I let him continue to go on because it was apparent he really loved her.
Once he put away his phone, I knew I needed to come up with something, or the next time I saw him would be at next Saturday’s game, and I wasn’t sure I could go an entire week without seeing him, touching him. “Are you off tomorrow?”
“Yep,” he replied. “I take care of the shop during the week with a little help from Alex who works the weekends with the owners.”
“How do you feel about a picnic?”
He gasped and smiled as he leaned into me. “A picnic? A real picnic?”
“Yep, there’s a lot of nice parks around the city. I’ll pick you up at your place tomorrow at noon.”
“It’s a date,” he said, leaning back and looking quite pleased with himself.
“It’s a date,” I repeated, feeling equally as pleased. Knowing we didn’t have a lot of time left until everybody started arriving, I pointed to the little bit of food left on his plate. “Are you finished?”
“Yes. It was delicious. You’re an excellent cook.”
“Thank you, little darling.” I detangled myself from his arms and grabbed our plates. “I think you have just enough time to finish your mini by the time Lee gets here. I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to use it this week. The paint will need time to dry, and I need to add a clear coat to protect all your hard work.”
“Okay.” Hopping up from his seat, Miller grabbed Sprinkles and returned to the living room while I rinsed our dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. Leaning against the sink, I dried my hands with a kitchen towel as I watched him study his mini.
He had Sprinkles in his lap, and I could hear the faint sound of his voice as he talked quietly to her.
It felt so… surreal. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was to be my life. Me in the kitchen cleaning up after our dinner while Miller puttered around the living room or skipped down the hallway to our bedroom to get something he’d forgotten. Hell, I even pictured a little black cat chasing after him as he moved from room to room.
I wanted a life with him, I realized as I watched him from over the back of the couch. I was falling for him so hard, and I had no way of slowing down. I could only hope he was right there with me.
Tossing the towel on the counter, I crossed the room and dropped down beside him. Pressing a kiss to his head when he smiled at me in greeting, I watched him instead of returning to my own project, dreading the moment he left.
Maybe I was being presumptuous as I watched the printer spit out the kinky checklist I’d compiled over the years, but if the army had taught me one thing, it was to come prepared. Collecting the stack, I returned to the living room, opened the waiting picnic basket, and slipped the checklist down the side between the various food storage containers.
Checking my watch, I grabbed the basket and headed out the door. I was partially down the stairs when Foster’s door opened behind me.
“Hey, are you by any chance going to the store? I’m out of coffee.”
“Nope,” I lifted the basket.
“Awww are you going on a picnic with Miller? How adorable.”
I flipped him off over my shoulder and ignored his laugh as I continued down the stairs. “There’s coffee in my kitchen.”
Once downstairs, I left the building and approached my car. Opening the backdoor, I placed the picnic basket in the crevice of the seat and buckled it in so it wouldn’t fall if I had to take a sharp corner.
In the driver’s seat, I plugged in Miller’s address and backed out of our private parking lot. Following the directions my phone gave to me, I studied the area.
It wasn’t a bad part of town, I thought as I pulled into his apartment complex, but it wasn’t great.
Not that I had any room to talk. I lived above a club smack-dab in the center of the city’s