Operation Meet Cute by K.M. Neuhold
Chapter 22
HARLOW
I can’t believe how much I’ve slept in the last twelve hours, but I guess my body needed it. When I wake up in Teddy’s arms, it’s clearly early afternoon, the warm sun heating my bedroom as it falls across my bed. His large, naked body is wrapped around me, both of us sweaty and sticky from our earlier fun.
My stomach growls, so I reach for my phone and place an order for delivery. It may be late in the day, but I promised Teddy breakfast, so that’s what he’s getting.
He finally jolts awake when the door buzzes with our food delivery. I slip out of bed and grab his large shirt off the floor, tugging it over my head. It’s not the most modest thing to answer the door in, just barely hanging low enough to cover all of the good bits. But it’ll do for the five seconds it will take.
By the time I get back with our food, Teddy’s sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He drags his gaze over me with open appreciation.
“Morning, Teddy Bear,” I say sweetly, crawling back into bed and unpacking the bag that contains the many Styrofoam containers of breakfast food.
“Looks more like afternoon to me,” he says, his voice still a little gruff from sleep. His nose twitches in the direction of the food like a hungry bear, and I don’t even bother to fight my laughter. Holy hell, I didn’t think it was possible to feel this much love for someone.
I’ve always loved Teddy, but now that I’ve stopped avoiding it and building a dam around my feelings to protect myself, I’m flooded with them.
“We both needed sleep,” I say with a shrug, opening the box that contains pancakes and setting it between us.
The bed sheets slip low on his waist as Teddy sits up and reaches for a strip of bacon. I devour my man with my eyes, all bare skin and thick hair. I just want to rub myself against him all day long. I wonder if he’d object to just living here in my bed together, naked twenty-four-seven.
“Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping well,” he agrees, nudging the pancakes toward me.
“Same,” I confess. “I’ve spent a lot of time working through some things.”
He nods and locks eyes with me. Now that the high of my dramatic airport moment and the epic sex that followed has worn off, it’s time for us to actually talk about everything. I’ve never been particularly good at this part, but for Teddy, I’ll try.
“Why did you come?” he asks, reaching over and tearing off a piece of the dry pancake and dunking it in the little container of syrup. I’m mesmerized by the way he catches a stray droplet of syrup on his tongue.
“Hmm?” I hum, licking my lips. He grins at me and shakes his head.
“What changed your mind? Why’d you come stop me from going?”
“It wasn’t so much changing my mind as it was getting over my fears,” I confess. Teddy hums to let me know he’s listening, both of us continuing to pick at our late breakfast. “My parents’ divorce fucked me up, and I think I didn’t realize how much until Marnie and I talked about it recently. I thought that my search for the perfect movie romance was proof that I still believed in love, but really it was the way that I was protecting myself.”
“I know,” he says gently.
“You know?” I repeat, scrunching my eyebrows.
He presses a kiss against my greasy, totally-in-need-of-a-shower forehead. “Yeah, I did. Your perfect leading man was never real, so he could never break your heart. But I won’t either, Low.” There’s so much intensity in his eyes that my heart aches.
I think I actually believe him.
“But you can.” I take his hand and press it against my chest so he can feel the beat of my heart and know just how serious I am. “It’s yours now, so do your best to be gentle with it.”
“I will.” He leaves his hand covering my heart for a few beats and then curls his fingers around the fabric of my shirt and yanks me in for a kiss. I laugh against his lips, both of our mouths slightly sticky and sweet from syrup.
“I love you,” I murmur again because I fucking can, and the way Teddy lights up every time I say it is literally life.
“I love you too, Low.” He presses one more soft kiss to my lips before releasing me so we can return to our breakfast feast.
“Okay, so the boyfriend thing…you’re going to have to tell me how exactly this works because it has been a long damn time since I’ve had one,” I tell him as if he doesn’t know my entire dating history.
He chuckles. “My last relationship ended with his clothes scattered all over your balcony, so I’m not sure I’m exactly an expert here.”
“Uh-oh, maybe we should call in a professional,” I joke.
“Like an escort?”
I laugh and snag the last piece of bacon before he can grab it, shoving it into my mouth with a cheeky grin and earning a disapproving look from Teddy.
“Not an escort,” I decide. “I guess we can just be two idiots in love, figuring out the relationship stuff along the way.”
“I can live with that,” he agrees. “You know, I don’t think we’re so bad at it.” I give him a skeptical look, and he hurries to explain. “I mean, the two of us together. We’ve kind of been in a relationship for years. The only difference will be you’ll have more time for another hobby since you won’t have to spend all of your time concocting half-assed meet-cutes.”
“Hey, those meet-cutes were fully assed,” I protest. “But your point is well taken.”
“We can just hang out and spend time together. You’ll keep almost burning down my kitchen, and I’ll keep writing you terrible love poems. We’ll have sex and laugh together and just be in love.”
Holy shit, that sounds amazing. Why was I so afraid of this before?
I swallow hard around the lump forming in my throat and bobble my head in a nod. “Or…”
Concern crosses his expression. “Or?”
Maybe I’m being impulsive, but the thought crossed my mind earlier when we got home and too fast or not, I really want it. “Or…we can do all those things and also maybe live in the same place.”
Teddy frowns. “We do live in the same place, Low. I’m passing on that promotion if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, I know that. I mean…” I lick my lips. I’m really bad at this. “Earlier when you asked your place or mine, I thought that maybe it would be awesome if we didn’t have your place and my place, but if there was just our place.” I hastily shove a sausage link into my mouth to hide my awkwardness as I wait for his reaction.
“Really? You want to live together?”
“You said it yourself. We’ve basically been dating for years,” I point out, my mind already working on a full sales pitch. Is not having to buy separate gallons of milk a selling point?
Teddy reaches over and tilts my chin up so I’m looking at him. “You don’t have to convince me, Low. If you’re serious, then my answer is hell yes.”
A relieved breath whooshes through my lips, and I smile at him. “I’m extremely serious. So, the question is, who’s going to break their lease?”
“What if it’s both of us?”
“What do you mean? You want to find a different apartment building?” This place is pretty centrally located to both of our jobs, but if he wants a nicer place, I could live with that.
“I was thinking about a house.”
“A house? Isn’t real estate in California insanely expensive?” I mentally tally how much more I could afford to pay monthly and still send money back to my mom.
“You realize that I make a stupid amount of money, right?” he points out. “I was actually planning to buy a house with my ex, and then he freaked out about commitment and sold Eileen, and well, you remember the rest. So I have more than enough to buy a house flat-out.”
“I can’t let you just buy us a house,” I argue. “I’ll pay half.”
“No way.” He shakes his head and fixes me with a stern look, which I return. “We’ll work something out. You can pay rent if you really want.”
“Okay,” I agree. I’ll feel better knowing I’m contributing in some way. I don’t care how much money he has. I want us to be equal partners.
“Okay,” he echoes, the smile returning to his face. “So we’re in agreement about everything then?”
“One more sticking point,” I answer. “Everything you said sounded amazing, like the two of us just being happy and in love, but I want to make a few additions. I’m totally good with me continuing to almost burn down the kitchen and the love poems. Laughter and sex are definitely keepers too. But we’re also going to argue over stupid shit and then make up. We’re going to get sick of each other’s faces, and then miss each other like hell five minutes later. We’re going to have all those pesky middle parts that the movies leave out.”
“I am one hundred percent here for all of it,” he agrees easily. “Especially the getting sick of your face part,” he teases, and I gasp indignantly.
“You take that back. I have an amazing face,” I tease, pushing the empty containers out of the way and climbing on top of him.
“Meh, your face is fine.”
“You jerk.” I grab his nipples and twist them. Teddy yelps and starts trying to fight me off, which devolves into a full-on naked wrestling match, starting with laughter and ending with the two of us sweaty and covered in fresh streaks of each other’s cum.
It’s not a movie moment at all, but it’s completely messy and utterly perfect. Just like us.
