“Did I wake you?” I asked softly.
“No. I shouldn’t have had the hot chocolate before bed. The caffeine.” He grabbed his water bottle out of the fridge and came over to curl up in the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. “The Italian Job?”
“Mm-hm. You want me to change it to something else?”
The edge of his lip curved up. “Hell no. I love this one.”
I clicked Play again and settled back into the sofa cushions. Somehow, without really stopping to think about it, we watched three more heist movies, one after the other. When one finished and we took a bathroom and snack break, we talked about our favorite parts and what we would have done differently. It turned out, Mikey was as much of a heist fanatic as I was.
“Do you have a ‘go bag’ packed?” he asked, looking over his sexy glasses as he cut up a pineapple and tossed it together with some raspberries and blueberries.
“Not exactly,” I said hesitantly. “But I know exactly what would go in it.”
“Ah-ha!” he said with a laugh, pointing at me over the kitchen island with the sharp knife. “Tell me.”
I began to list the contents of my imaginary backpack, including fake identities, untraceable phones, cash in small bills.
“Multiple currencies?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Dollars—US and Canadian—euros, and pesos. The UK has too many CCTVs, so there’s no point in having pounds.”
We laughed over some of my more outlandish ideas before settling back in to start the next one. I munched happily on the fruit bowl he’d fixed while he snuck bites from something he had stashed in his pajama pocket.
“What do you have there, little sneak?”
“Muffing,” he muttered around a full mouth.
“Is it chocolate muffing?” I teased.
“Moe.”
I stood up and walked over before crouching down to get in his face. “I think it is. And I think I deserve to share your secret chocolate stash.”
He clamped his lips closed and shook his head while shooting me innocent puppy eyes.
I reached under the blanket and into the pocket of his pajama pants. Mikey stiffened, and I suddenly realized what I was doing. Instead of yanking my hand away, I met his eyes and reached in deeper.
Time seemed to stand still while I searched his pocket. I came out with a small zip-top bag of colorful gourmet jelly beans. My fucking favorite. The baggie had a sticker from Honeyed Lemon on it.
“You little harlot,” I said in a low voice, shaking the baggie in front of him like I was a cop who’d found a bag of smack. “Sneaking around with your fancy little stash and not sharing any with me.”
His cheeks were the same shade as the cotton candy beans. “You can’t have them. You’re on a strict—”
I cut him off with a grin. “Don’t you dare. These are four calories per bean, and I can burn off this entire bag with a simple beatdown of one small personal chef.”
We locked eyes for a second before we both moved. I snatched the bag out of his reach as he lurched up to try and grab it back. He ended up climbing my body to get at the candy in my hands while I held it as high as I could with my good arm. As eager as he was to get the jelly beans from me, he was also conscientious of my injury. We grappled for a few moments before I faked a gasp of pain.
Mikey lurched back and fell onto the overstuffed chair with wide, worried eyes. “Fuck! Did I hurt you?”
I stepped back, ripped open the bag, and began pouring colorful sugary beans into my mouth. “Suckah,” I said between mouthfuls.
“You cheater!” He lunged for me again, and we both went down. I tried making it onto the sofa so we didn’t hit the hard floor, but then the little minx had his fingertips in my ribs, and I could barely breathe through the laughter.
“Gonna choke,” I warned, trying not to inhale the jelly beans.
“That’s what you get for being a cheaty cheater, you asshole!”
I tossed the empty bag over my shoulder and wrapped my good arm firmly around his back before flipping him onto his back. One of my knees jammed into the crease of the sofa while I used my other leg for leverage to stay on top of him. Mikey squealed and laughed, gasping for breath and struggling beneath me. He was so much smaller than I was, but his body was full of energy and light.
I’d always loved spending time with him. Simply being in his presence tended to both lift my mood and help me relax, but this… this was next-level. Feeling his body squirm under mine was waking up every blood cell and body part I possessed, and when I felt myself hardening, I knew I needed to stop this before it went too far.