“Can you do a Sunday night? I don’t know what your hours look like on Monday.”
“I make my own hours. One of the perks of being the boss.”
Leah shook her head. “You think you’re so cool.”
Danny chuckled. “Let’s do Sunday night then. Text me when you get back.”
“Okay,” she said through a yawn.
“Alright, I’ll talk to you then. Have fun this weekend.”
“Thanks,” she said, her eyes falling closed. “Good night.”
“Good night sweet girl,” he said before ending the call.
Leah’s eyes flipped open before she smiled, reaching over to place her phone on her nightstand. It was the first time he’d called her that since his drunken rant the weekend before, but it sent the same thrill through her.
With a tiny sigh, she curled into her comforter and closed her eyes.
She fell asleep imaging those words falling from his lips before he pressed them to hers.
As cliché as it was to say a bride looked like a princess on her wedding day, that was the only way Leah could think of to describe Robyn. She couldn’t remember a time her friend looked more beautiful. And it wasn’t just her fairy-tale gown, or her elegant up-do, or her delicate makeup. It was because she was so unbelievably happy. Her smile didn’t leave her face the entire day, and every time Leah saw Robyn and Rich look at each other, it felt like she was intruding on a private moment. They were in their own little world, so wrapped up in each other, so conspicuously in love. It was extremely humbling to be around.
Leah said good-bye to Holly and Robyn on Sunday afternoon, wishing Robyn a wonderful honeymoon and telling Holly she’d talk to her later that week. She hadn’t told her about her plans with Danny that night for fear of getting a lecture about not taking things slow enough.
Before Leah left the hotel, she texted Danny, and he asked her to meet him at his apartment around seven. He also told her that she shouldn’t eat anything because he’d have dinner ready for them, a notion that left her apprehensively intrigued.
She spent the afternoon running errands before she showered and headed down to his place, and as soon as she neared his building, a series of flutters started low in her stomach. She had thought of Danny so many times that weekend, wondering what it would have been like if he had come to the wedding with her. Picturing him in a suit, his black hair in sexy disarray, smiling his adorable smile. Laughing with her, holding her hand as she introduced him to people.
Kissing her softly as they danced.
Leah parked at the end of his block, and the fluttering in her stomach doubled as she rode the elevator to his floor.
When the doors finally opened, she approached his apartment and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she opened them and knocked. There was a muffled rustling sound, followed by the muted thud of footsteps.
A few seconds later, the door swung open, and the fluttering moved up into her chest. His dark hair was tousled to perfection, and he had a hint of a five-o’clock shadow defining his jawline. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans with a gray zip-up hoodie over a white T-shirt.
And her favorite dimpled smile.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek before he stepped to the side to let her in, and she was immediately greeted with the smell of Chinese food.
Leah hummed as she walked past him into the apartment. “Good call. That smells amazing.”
“You got here before I could take it out of the containers and put it in pots and pans on the stove.”
Leah laughed as he took her coat and hung it by the door. “Right, because I totally would have believed that.”
“Hey, I can cook,” he said in feigned offense as he walked over to the table and pulled a chair out for her.
“I know,” she said as she sat. “I was there for the Hot Pocket.”
Danny laughed, shaking his head. “Why did I ask you to hang out again?”
“No clue. Maybe you’re a masochist.”
Danny pushed her chair in before he walked around to the other side of the table. “Sometimes I think so,” he said, but his voice was strangely devoid of humor.
Leah glanced up at him, but by the time he sat across from her, his dimples were back on display.
“So how was the wedding?” he asked as he started opening containers. He looked up at her, his smile still intact.
Maybe she’d imagined it.
“It was really fun,” Leah said, reaching for the bottle of water in front of her. “Robyn looked amazing. Everything went smoothly.”
“It went smoothly? What’s to mess up? Both people say ‘I do,’” Danny said, holding out a pack of chopsticks and a fork for Leah to choose from.
She grabbed the fork. “Girl stuff again. But there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that can get messy if it’s not well planned. Or if the bride is a bitch.” She smiled. “Thankfully, neither was the case this weekend.”
Danny placed two opened cartons of food in front of Leah before he started opening the others. “Do those bitch brides actually exist? I thought that shit was just for TV.”
“They exist,” Leah said, looking inside the containers. One was filled with sesame chicken, and the other contained pot stickers.
Leah’s mouth dropped. “How did you know to order this?”
“What?” he asked, his eyes trained on the chopsticks he was unwrapping.
“Sesame chicken and pot stickers? What made you order this?”
“Because it’s your favorite,” he said simply as he reached into his container with his chopsticks and pulled out a piece of broccoli.
“How did you know that?”
He popped the broccoli in his mouth. “You told me,” he said around his food.
“I did?”
He laughed softly. “Yeah. It was Tuesday night. Or maybe Wednesday. One of the nights I spoke to you this week.”
“Huh,” Leah said. “I don’t remember that.” She reached into the container and pulled out a pot sticker.
“I pay attention.”
Leah glanced up, and he winked at her before he grabbed his water bottle and twisted off the cap. She watched him take a long sip, suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to swat the bottle away from his lips and replace it with her mouth.
“What?” he asked as he put the bottle down and picked up his chopsticks.
“Nothing,” Leah said. “Just…watching you show off.”
“Show off?”
She nodded to his chopsticks, and he laughed.
“I’m not showing off. This is how you’re supposed to eat this stuff.”
She shrugged, spearing a piece of chicken with her fork and bringing it to her mouth, and he smiled, putting his container down and leaning across the table.
“Here,” he said, taking the fork from her hand and replacing it with the chopsticks. He manipulated her fingers around the sticks, his brow furrowed in concentration, and Leah kept her eyes trained on his face.
Maybe it was the fact that she had anticipated being with him all weekend, but right now, everything about him—his touch, his laugh, his voice—was driving her crazy.
“There,” he said, pulling his hand away. “Try it now.”
Leah strained to keep her fingers in the position he’d placed them in as she brought them down to her food, unsteadily gripping a piece of chicken between them. She raised it carefully from the container, grinning with pride as she glanced up at Danny, but the sticks shifted in her hand. She tried to pinch them together quickly, but they slipped and snapped together, sending the chicken flying across the table into Danny’s chest before it bounced into his lap.
She pressed her lips together, staring at him, and he looked down at his lap and then back up at her before they both started laughing. Danny grabbed the piece of chicken and popped it into his mouth before he reached across the table and took the chopsticks.
“Okay, you’re cut off,” he said, handing her back the fork.
Leah smirked as she took it from him, spearing a piece of chicken just as the double beep of her phone alerted her to an incoming text. She reached down with one hand and pulled the phone out of her purse, swiping her thumb over the screen to read the message.