She pauses on the top step, next to me, gazing sideways at me. As if considering saying something. I meet her gaze, and wait. In this light, her eyes are more emerald than jade. She’s filling out, her cheekbones less sharp, the hollows in her cheek less pronounced. Her clothes don’t hang off her quite as noticeably.

“Maybe…” she starts. Stops. Clears her throat. “Maybe knock on the door, tomorrow. With coffee.”

I smile. “Will do.” I raise an eyebrow. “I’m an early bird, I gotta warn you. Probably be around six thirty.”

“It’s okay.” A grin. “Maybe I’ll get up in time to make pancakes or something.”

“I’d like that,” I say.

My heart squeezes. Pancakes are my favorite thing in the world to eat. I don’t know how to say that, though. There’s just so much layered over the topic of something so simple as breakfast food.

She seems to notice, or maybe I’m inventing that. She just nods. Heads down the steps, one last sidelong, hesitant, shy smile at me. “Good night.”

“Night.”

I discovered, somewhat by accident, that she was crazy about mimosas. We’d gone ice-skating, and afterward stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall cafe. It was early, between breakfast and lunch, and the place wasn’t serving liquor yet. But they DID have mimosas, and when I suggested we get mimosas, god, the way her eyes lit up. She got wasted on mimosas, and I had to all but carry her home, and I think that’s when I really, truly fell in love with her. They made her goofy. Wine made her sleepy and serious. Whiskey made her cranky. Beer upset her stomach and she claimed it all tasted like ox piss. Why specifically ox piss, I could never get her to say. Tequila she flat out refused to drink, saying she’d learned her lesson the hard way, and wouldn’t elaborate. But mimosas? Silly, a little wild, and so funny.

I shut the book, considering.

It’s still fairly early, yet. Not even ten. I bet the supermarket is still open a bit longer, I could snag a bottle or two of champagne and some orange juice.

I grab my wallet and keys and head out—I catch the supermarket five minutes before close, much to the annoyance of the sullen teenager behind the register. Two bottles of medium-expense champagne, two cartons of orange juice.

Rash, probably, bringing mimosas to breakfast. Shit, she may not even wake up tomorrow. And if I bring mimosas and she DOES love them like Adrian’s book is hinting, what do I say? Another coincidence?

She needs to cut loose, though. She’s wound up tighter than a spring coil.

I want more time with her.

I like talking to her.

I like telling her things about me. I like knowing things about her.