“Sure you know how to tie?” he muttered.
“Yes.” I tugged, jerking him forward.
“Funny…”
He still wouldn’t look at me, so he couldn’t see the stupid smile on my face or how much I was enjoying toying with him before taking this seriously. The tie had to be even, the lines of the knot just right, the length of each tail, and the tightness so it wouldn’t look bunched or off-kilter or sloppy in any way.
“How do you not know how to tie?” I asked.
“Do I look like a guy who wears ties?”
“Not even for your job interviews?”
“For devs? No. At best, a button-down shirt and slacks, maybe a jacket. Never a tie. Where’d you, uh, learn how to do this?”
“Oh, you know. Just tying ties for guys all over the place. I’m pretty easy that way.”
He grunted. “I honestly wanted to know, but since you brought it up—what happened to all your benefits?”
“I was joking. You think I have multiple lovers? Wait. Did you think I was serious? Were you jealous?”
“The idea of another guy all over you?” he grunted, as if that was an answer.
“So you were jealous?”
“I do not like the idea of someone else getting to touch you.”
I bit down on my smile.
He peered down at my skills and asked, “YouTube?”
I sighed, recalling fond memories as a kid who thought she was a huge help to her hopeful Superman of a father. I focused on the tie, adjusting it in the smallest ways, as I said, “My dad went through a lot of interviews when we first moved to the States. All that racism and stereotyping and discrimination, et cetera, set him back. His English wasn’t perfect, but he had a degree in civil engineering and a strong work history, but from India. Would never get the job. He’d take smaller gigs, whatever he could get, multiple jobs at once. Janitor, burger flipper, county clerk. But he kept applying and thought he should start wearing a suit for interviews. He had trouble tying. So I learned how to tie and tied all his ties, sometimes pre-tied so he could slip them on, adjust, and go.”
There was a pause before Sunny asked, “And…”
“And what?” I fiddled with the ends, but the tie was just right.
“Did he get the job he wanted?”
“Yes,” I said with a big smile. “Not the job he’d have for the rest of his career, but one that got his foot into the door and provided a better income and benefits, got us out of the ghetto, saved my mom from having to work two jobs. He was at that company for a decade, got promoted. Then he was fielding offers from companies who came after him and ended up working at his dream company. Near the top. His ambition wasn’t to make it to the top. This was more than he ever wanted and he’s in a good place. But whenever he has to attend tie events, like work parties or weddings, I always tie his tie and I feel like that little girl again helping her big, protective, hardworking papa. I knew tying his ties was a small thing, but he made it sound like it was the best help in the world, magic. He told everyone he got the job because his daughter tied the best tie.”
I patted Sunny’s chest but neither of us stepped away. I looked up from my great tie-tying work to find him watching me. How long had he been watching me? He was slightly frowning, enough to create that cute little wrinkle in between his brows.
I brushed that wrinkle and said, “This is going to end up being permanent.”
Permanent or not, it wouldn’t matter. That wrinkle worked for him, adding a degree of personality and intensity and a myriad of emotions without him ever having tried. Hm. Maybe my theory that Sunny didn’t know the meaning of emotional expression was flawed. That little wrinkle said it all. And in this moment, it said that he—maybe—found me interesting and tolerable and maybe even gravely attractive with my hair in a messy bun and in pajamas.
“What?” I asked on a breath, realizing how warm his body heat was in this proximity, enough to glide over my skin, reminding me that Sunny was the very definition of scorching when he looked at me like that.
He leaned down, lifting his hand to brush wayward hair from my face so that his fingers grazed my cheek. My knees went weak. My legs were actually shaking, and I was now questioning reality. This must’ve been a dream because there was no way he, of all my nemeses, could make me feel this way when very few others had. Come to think of it, had any other man made me feel things that I’d once laughed at in rom-coms? Seriously, knees buckled because of arthritis and ligament damage, not because of feeling swoony from a mere touch. No one had that power, at least not in my experience.
But this? Lord, I needed to fan myself.
“What are you thinking so hard about, Bane?”
“One, if it’s socially acceptable for me to eat cake as soon as I get to the wedding venue because I think my blood sugar is low. Two, call me Bane one more time and see how vindictive I can be.”
He smirked. “Not what I was thinking.”
Damn his Denzel voice. It was doing all sorts of weird things to my body, things my body knew better than to do for him. But the truth was, we were way beyond this surprise. I knew, and had known for a while, that Sunny got to me in the most fantastic ways.
“Can’t possibly be thinking about anything sultrier than cake,” I teased.
His right brow shot up while I was silently ordering my cheeks not to flush because we both knew the alternate meaning to the word “cake.”
“I’m all for the…cake,” he said.
“Right. I mean, that’s the only real reason I’m attending this wedding.”
“To be clear: for the cake?”
I nodded. “Yep. I love cake.”
Sunny leaned down and spoke in my ear, his voice dropping. “Bane?”
Damnit. Why was he making his stupid nickname for me sound incredibly hot? “I thought I warned you.”
“Yet I’m still waiting for a punishment.”
