SUN. BRIGHT. NO. UGH. Never again. Will threw his arm over his eyes, blocking the strips of light slipping through the blinds. Why didn’t his father invest in blackout curtains? He groaned and rolled over, burying his head under his pillow. Poker was officially blacklisted. He should’ve known better than to try and bluff his way through every hand against a bunch of financial experts. He flopped over again, sitting back against the headboard. There was a bottle of water on his bedside table. The bottle sat atop a napkin with Hannah’s handwriting scribbled across the front. He took a sip and picked up the note. Thought you might need this. There was even a smiley face. Well, that was cute. Where was she? Her sneakers were still by the closet, as was her yoga mat.
He closed his eyes, willing his headache away. The gurgle of the coffee maker and the banging of pans sounded from the kitchen. That was new—they rarely cooked. Maybe they needed to try one of those preordered services. Cooking together could be messy and romantic. Hannah would be highly impressed by his superior chopping skills. He could be her sous-chef. His mind concocted an image of Hannah bossing him around their kitchen in a sexy chef outfit. He hadn’t consciously known chefs could be sexy, but his subconscious knew. Oh, did it ever. He felt himself grow hard. Where was that year-round Halloween store? He would find it, and he would have that costume. He groaned and banged his head against the headboard.
“You okay over there?” Hannah leaned against the doorjamb, an apron tied around her waist. It only covered her bottom half, and spots of flour dotted her shirt.
“Why are you only wearing half of the apron?”
“Have you ever worn an apron?” she asked, tugging at the thin fabric.
“Yes,” he said, remembering that weird period between college and Madison, otherwise known as law school.
“Well then you know they can be incredibly uncomfortable, particularly when they have all this lacey frill around the edges.”
“True, and I was usually naked underneath.”
A blush crept up her cheeks. She tried to throw words together, but nothing coherent came out. He loved that he had that effect on her.
“I don’t even want to know,” she said, shaking her head. “Breakfast is ready.”
There was no way he could stand up right now. If the thought of him naked in an apron made her blush, the truth of the situation might make her swoon. “Awesome, let me just, uh, wash up.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you do that.”
That woman was going to be the death of him. He smiled at the ceiling. At least he had a date planned for today, and it was going to be epic. And she’d cooked him breakfast. He looked at the smiley face on the note again and sent up a silent prayer that he hadn’t done anything too embarrassing last night. He’d been pretty wasted. The driver had handed him back his tip when he’d blithely slipped him a hundred dollars. Will would pay it forward in Rob’s Christmas bonus.
“The bacon is getting cold!”
He pulled the sheets back with a laugh—always so impatient. She was lucky she was cute. After a quick stop in the bathroom, he slid into the chair across from Hannah. A coffee and a heaping stack of waffles awaited him.
“We have a waffle maker?”
“Someone sent it after the party—Martha? Margaret?” She motioned to the pile of gifts they had yet to open.
Apparently, a city hall wedding without a registry didn’t stop people from buying them appliances. He’d expected more letters about donations in their name from his father’s ilk, but that had not been the case.
“Supposedly you can make brownies and other delicious treats in this contraption and, oddly, crab cakes,” she said, spearing a strawberry from the fruit salad. This apartment had never seen so much fresh fruit since Hannah arrived.
“Crab waffles?”
“So says the box.”
He nodded approvingly. “Wow, this Martha or Margaret person went all out.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “Yup. Now we have to write out thank-you cards. The first one is going to your dad—thanks for the weeks of hand cramps, Dad.”
He forked two waffles onto his plate. “Leave it to my dad to find your weakness.”
“Hey, hand cramps are no joke.” She pointed at him with her fork, a piece of waffle dangling from the tines. “These babies are my livelihood.”
“Well, the thank-you cards will have to wait another day because we have plans this morning.”
She looked at him quizzically. Saturdays were usually their lazy mornings. On Sundays, they walked the farmers’ market and did odds and ends for the week, but most Saturdays, Hannah binged the television shows of their youth in her pajamas, Will right by her side, cringing at the melodrama.
“Sweet,” she said after a moment, a smile warming her features. “I’m officially off until after Christmas. This never happens—I might have to hug your father for insisting we come for the holidays.”
“After you torture him for all the thank-you notes you have to write?”
She stuck out her tongue. “Yes, after that. So, what are we doing? Going to see the tree? Surprise tickets to the Christmas Spectacular? The market at Bryant Park?”
“Wow, someone has the Christmas spirit this morning.”
Hannah shrugged, another blush rushing up to her cheeks. “I love Christmas.”
“I am well aware,” he said, glancing toward the oversized, overly decorated tree sitting in their living room. Fortunately, there had been a tree seller right down the street, but he’d still had to lug bags of lights and ornaments across far too many city blocks. So far, Binx had only jumped on the tree once.
An image of a sad little plastic tree tucked into the corner of Hannah and Kate’s college apartment resurfaced. Hannah had wanted a real one, though they weren’t going to be in town for Christmas or even New Year’s. But Kate had put her foot down. In defiance, the little plastic tree had remained long after the holidays. He used to hang his socks on it for fun.
“Do you still have that little plastic tree from college?”
Hannah grinned. “It’s at Kate’s. The real one looks so much better, doesn’t it?”
Will had to admit that it did. He hadn’t put up a Christmas tree in years. But seeing the light in Hannah’s eyes as she looked at that tree—he would put one up for the rest of his life if that light stayed. He would trek upstate to cut one down, kids trailing after him, fighting over who got to use the saw first. Kids. Whoa. His future materialized in front of him. He’d rarely thought about having kids with Madison, but with Hannah, the thought had come naturally.
“What are these mysterious plans?” she asked.
He grinned and held up one finger before making his way over to the hall closet. The clue—two overflowing bags of laundry—had been waiting for this moment for three days. Thankfully, Hannah was so used to laundry service that she hadn’t even blinked at the empty hamper.
“We are going to the laundromat,” he said, holding one of the bags up.
