Page 48 of So This Is War
I pull up Google Maps on my phone and look up Port Hole Bagels, only to find that it’s a forty-five-minute drive from here.
Mouth agape, I text him back.
Wylie:Is this the address?
I attach the address to the text.
Levi:Yup. That’s the one. Why, is that a problem?
Yes!
I want to sleep.
I’m tired. I don’t want to drive forty-five minutes one way just to grab stupid bagels because he thinks the water is different at one in the morning than four o’clock. But this is what Dad was talking about, right? Earning my way through life, suffering as an artist at a job just to make money.
Guess I better grab some coffee because I have a drive to make.
Wylie:Not a problem at all. What do you want me to do with the bagels when I get back?
Levi:Just stick them in the freezer.
Doesn’t that negate the fact that they won’t be fresh anymore?
My nostrils flare as I type him back.
Wylie:But they won’t be fresh anymore.
Levi:In my mind, they will be. Thanks.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as I throw on my sweatshirt and grab my car keys. No wonder he didn’t have an assistant before this. He probably couldn’t keep anyone at the job long enough to buy the one-in-the-morning everything bagels.
Lucky for him, it will take a lot more than one-in-the-morning bagels, barbecue stains, and manually sharpened pencils to break me.
Levi:Can you come to the kitchen? I need to speak with you.
Blurry-eyed and barely able to hold my body upright thanks to a closed bridge that added twenty minutes to my drive—both ways—I’m hardly holding on to my sanity as I pull my hair back into a sleek ponytail.
Wylie:Be right there.
I stare at myself in the mirror, not even bothering with makeup because I don’t have it in me. And I don’t care enough for him to see me makeup-free to even consider one coat of mascara. Nope, maybe my makeup-free face will scare him away, and he’ll never ask me to grab one-in-the-morning bagels again.
Slippers on, I move down the hallway toward the kitchen and try to muster a happy face when he comes into view.
“Good morning,” I say.
He turns around, looking so good in a fitted long-sleeved Under Armor shirt that clings to his thick, barrel chest and carved arms. His hair is still wet, clearly fresh from the shower, and instead of shaving, he’s left the scruff on his face to make him that much more enticing.
Ughhhh, why does he have to look so good in the morning?
And smell so good.
And why do I want to curl into his side and let him hold me? What I wouldn’t give for a solid snuggle session right now where I can pass out in his large arms, and he slowly runs his hand over my hair, calming me to a deep slumber.
Instead, here I stand, his wench, ready to be at his beck and call.
“Morning,” he says in a deep timbre that his nighttime visitors are probably privileged to hear. Like he hasn’t warmed up his vocal cords enough just yet, so he has this rasp that makes him exponentially more attractive. “Thanks for the bagels.”
“Did you make one?” I ask.
