Page 46 of The Allure of Ruins

“Abomination? What’d you just say?”

I didn’t stop. “I told you those nightstands were heinous. The lines, the minimalist fixtures, they make me rabid.”

“I hate this.”

That stopped me, and I spun around. “What do you hate?”

“I need to confess something to you.”

“I’m sorry, go ahead.”

He exhaled sharply.

“May I ask something while you’re thinking?”

After a moment, he said, “Yeah.”

“Did you line up someone to go with you to the black-tie event later this evening? Because if you did, you should probably call and confirm with them.”

“Have you noticed you always try and tell me what to do and it never works?”

I cleared my throat. “Have you ever noticed that nine times out of ten, you actually do what I want?”

“No. That’s not true.”

I scoffed. “It is though. You don’t like to be managed, you don’t like to be nagged at, and you really hate—most of all—for anyone to tell you what to do. However, if I suggest something, it gets in your brain, and then a couple of days later I’ll ask you a question, and as long as you’ve forgotten that I was the one to bring it up in the first place and you think you did it on your own, then you’ll do it.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I insisted.

“Name one time,” he dared me.

“I can name ten off the top of my head, but are you awake enough to banter?”

“I hate this.”

“You said that before. What do you hate?”

“This.”

“Arguing at four in the morning? Is that it?”

“Yes,” he muttered.

I smiled at him. “Please go to sleep. I’ll see you in the later morning.” I stopped in the doorway. “Thank you for bringing me home. You’re very good to strays.”

“You’re not a stray,” he grumbled. “You always make it sound like I did you this big favor by having you work for me and taking care of you, but you take really good care of me too.”

I sighed deeply. “That’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Would it be scary for you if you came and lay down by me?”

My stomach flipped over, and not in a bad way, but in the good way that I had nearly forgotten. “Nothing about you has ever scared me.”

“Which is interesting, right?”

I thought about it a moment. “It is, yes.”