Page 57 of Irresistibly Us
“Oh my god, Tyler, what the fuck?” she screeches, reaching down and sweeping her towel off the floor, wrapping it around her body so fast I could almost make myself believe I never saw anything at all, except my brain immediately serves up animage of Sophie’s tits and yeah,No chance of that, I think with a smirk.
I’ll be seeing those tits in my dreams.
“Why the fuck are you smiling?” she bellows at me. “And why are you even in here? Why didn’t you knock?”
I could apologize and slink out of her room. Give her some privacy and take my own moment to adjust. But the thing is, now that it’s out there, my feelings don’t feel so sudden to me, and even if they were, I’m a quarterback. An awesome one. I was born to adjust on the fly.
This is my moment to shine.
So instead of fleeing her room, I settle in, leaning against Sophie’s dresser and crossing my legs at the ankles, gesturing with the mug I just remembered is still in my hand. “Brought you coffee.”
She levels me with a glare. “You barged into my room at six-thirty in the morning without knockingwhen I was nakedto bring me coffee?”
I shrug casually, absolutely delighted by her grumpy voice. I love grumpy Sophie. With my newfound clarity of the morning, I realize it’s possible I love every Sophie, and warmth gusts through me, smile spreading over my face, because hot damn, I think I love Sophie, and what an excellent fucking day this is turning out to be. “You were up early and you hate early. I thought you might need to caffeinate. The naked thing was just a bonus.”
Sophie stares at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly above her towel, pulse fluttering in her throat and a light flush staining her cheeks. I can tell she’s trying to be irritated but can’t quite get there because what she is, isaffected. Yeah, Sophie is affected by the way I was looking at her. If she wasn’t, she would have shoved me directly out of this room the second I walked into it—and I would potentially be bleeding profusely from the loss of one very important appendage—but she didn’t.
Nothing could possibly thrill me more.
“Why do I like you again?” she mutters.
I chuckle. “Maybe it’s the coffee. I make really excellent coffee.”
Sophie blows out a frustrated breath, gesturing to the mug on the floor by her bed. “I don’t need your coffee. I made my own.”
I scoff. “That’s not coffee; that’s battery acid. Sal, you are good at so many things, but absolutely none of them are in the kitchen.” I hold out the mug to her. “I made you real coffee, the kind that won’t burn off your stomach lining and will caffeinate you with joy instead of that sadness in a mug you have over there.”
With one hand gripping the top of her towel, she takes a cautious step forward, grabbing the mug with her free hand and stepping back immediately, as if being too close to me is an occupational hazard. She takes a quick sip, her eyes never leaving mine. “What do you mean the naked thing was just a bonus?” she asks warily.
I grin at her and open my mouth to answer, but she cuts me off before I can get a word out. “You know what? No. I don’t want to know. I don’t have time for your particular brand of insane this morning. I’m up at dark o’clock because I couldn’t sleep because I only have a tenth of a second today to make an impression that could change the course of my entire career and I’m more of an acquired taste kind of girl and that is definitely not going to be helped by the vats of caffeine I’m going to have to consume to get through this day so maybe you could take your puppy dog energy somewhere else because I just can’t with it this morning.”
I chuckle. “You think I have puppy dog ener…” I trail off as Sophie’s words register, a weird sort of déjà vu settling over me, an undeniable knowing worming its way into my brain. “What did you say?”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, voice full of irritation, her fingers turning white on the towel where she grips it.
“The impression thing. What does that mean?” I practically demand.
She rolls her eyes. “A Princeton study once found that all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of someone, and that impression generally doesn’t change with longer exposures.” She sighs, her shoulders dropping in a sort of halfhearted resignation. “I was going to wait to tell you until I knew whether it was going to turn into anything, but I have a job interview today. A pretty big one…”
Sophie keeps talking, but I don’t hear a single word she says because my stomach is a mass of butterflies as my brain races because what are the chances that both Sophie and my chaos girl have an interview today and quoted me the exact same stat on first impressions?
Snippets from our other conversations hit my brain at full speed.
A love that defies gravity.
Mornings can fuck all the way off. I hate mornings. Mornings should never be a thing.
It’s gotta be “One Last Time” from the original Hamilton cast recording because Christopher Jackson rips that last note like no other.
My best friend and I went to different colleges too, and it sucked big time.
My dad for sure. I wouldn’t be doing the work I’m doing now without him.
The wild curls kind of give it away. They will not be tamed.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Everything inside me lights up. My grin cannot be contained.
