Page 89 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

I could feel her gesturing wildly around the shop. “Is something wrong? Look at this place!”

“Oh.”

She scoffed, reached down, and pinched my ass cheek. “Oh? All you can say is “Oh”?”

I let out an incredulous laugh and slid my hand over her ass, gripping it hard enough to get a squeal out of her. I set her down, righting her and sliding her body against mine, enjoying the pinkness of her cheeks and the teasing look in her eyes.

“Did you really just pinch my ass?”

Her grin widened and she wrapped her arms around my waist, sliding her hands into my back pockets. Her hands moved against me, and she smiled with a mischievous tilt to her lips. Fuck. She drove me crazy.

“I can’t believe all this was in my face for so long, and I never got to touch it.” Her playful tone pushed me into moving. I found the zipper of her skirt and pulled it down, my fingers itching to touch her soft, velvety skin.

“Uh-uh,” she teased, drawing away from me and fixing her skirt. “Tell me what’s going on here.”

I closed my eyes, looked up to the ceiling and sighed. Silently begging for strength, I turned from her to look back at my shop.

“I’m fixing it.”

“Fixing it?”

I nodded, forcing myself to focus. I’ve thought of this moment with Nikki for days. After I sat and talked with her mother, after I sifted through Uncle Henry’s advice, I decided to go back to where this all started between us.

She hated what I did to this place. I took hold of her favorite thing in all of New York, her home away from home, and turned it into something she couldn’t recognize. I stole her comfort from her, the one place she came whenever she needed time from her stressful and lonely life as a lawyer.

It was where it all started going wrong for us. And if giving her back this place, if making it what it once was made her happy, I would do it. I’d do anything for Nikki. I always would.

“I thought about turning the shop back to Henry’s.”

She looked at me with wide eyes. “Why?”

“Because you loved it, and I ruined it.”

“Tristan, wait. You can’t renovate your whole shop again just because I said something thoughtless about it a few months ago. That’s crazy. This place is yours. You have to be the one to love it, not me.”

I shrugged and gave her a lazy smile. “It’s hard to love this place when all I could see were the things you hated about it.” I looked out at the gray benches, the marble table-tops and poorly scraped walls. “It was never really what I wanted anyway. I didn’t want cold and modern, not really. What I want is a place that reflects us. You, me, Uncle Henry, Shawn and Lilly. All of us. That’s what I want.”

She looked around with new eyes, taking my words, seeing what it could be, and nodded. “If… that’s what you want…” she trailed off and went to the pile of kitsch items I pulled out. “It’s all here!” She bent and drew out a picture frame, stroking the silver hardware. “Oh, do you remember this?”

I mentally kicked myself for not dragging her to my bed sooner, and went to her while trying to pretend my cock wasn’t about to burst from my jeans. I peered down at the picture. “Your Emi gave me this.”

It was a picture of Nikki, me, Uncle Henry and Lilly, back when this place was Henry’s. That day, her parents came to visit, taking the picture and volunteering to help us sling coffee. All that ended up happening was burned hands, arguments between Uncle Henry and her father, and half the pastries being sniffed before her mother would approve them.

Her mother said this was when her daughter was at her happiest, and you could see it radiating from her smile.

“She gave it to me to help me remember what this place used to look like. It’ll be Henry’s again in a few weeks.”

She tilted her head and sighed, leaning back into my chest. “Maybe… you shouldn’t name it Henry’s. It’s yours. The name should be about you.”

I wrapped my arms around her waist and nipped her ear, making her laugh. “Should I name it Nikki’s, then? I’m all about Nikki.”

She turned until she was facing me, and shot me a wide smile. “I was thinking something more like… Tristy’s.”

I let out a laugh and slid my hands over her body, enjoying more than the feel of her against me.

“Whatever Nikki wants, Nikki gets.”