“You like Eggos?” was not what I expected to wake up to. And yet, after being shook, overly roughly for my liking, the first thing I saw was Cin’s flushed smiley face, and the first thing I heard was, “You like Eggos?”

“Yes?” was all I could think to say to whatever it was that beautiful face was asking me.

“What kind of Eggos?” I asked, padding into the kitchen.

Cin made a face like she’d been insulted. “Chocolate chip, of course.”

“I was worried it was bran,” I confessed.

“Bran,” Cin repeated, eyeing me, waiting for the punchline that never came.

“Yeah, you know, bran,” I said. “Didn’t your mom ever force feed you that crap?”

“Noo,” Cin said slowly, as if she was still waiting. Then, finally, she said, “There’s no such thing as bran Eggo.”

Before I could protest, my phone rang. I glanced down at it and inwardly groaned when I saw Jake’s number on the display. I turned my back to Cin who was tending the waffles and answered.

“What’s up?”

“Oh you know, just calling to see how your night went,” Jake answered.

I glanced back at Cin. “It was fine.”

“Just fine? As in you just laid in bed and talked about your hopes and dreams?” he teased.

“No, not like that, smartass,” I said.

“So, then how was it?” he asked again.

“We are not having this conversation.”

“Why not?” he protested. “Honestly, I’m happy for you. Now you can understand fully why I’m so crazy about the girl.”

“Yep, not having this conversation.”

“I mean, not saying it’s just the crazy-good sex,” Jake said. “Although fuck, it is crazy good.”

“Goodbye Jake.”

“Wait, can I come over and join you guys? I’ve got sparring in a few hours, but I could stop by and…”

“Talk to you later.”

I hung up, feeling Cin’s eyes on me. “He wanted to come over. Should I have let him?”

“No,” she said, smiling a little. “I’ve only got enough Eggos for two.”

There was more to it than that, though I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly. It wasn’t that I wanted Cin all for myself now that we’d been intimate, or even that the thought of Jake coming over made me jealous. It was more that I wanted right now just to myself. Cin and I would only have one breakfast after hooking up for the first time once, and I wanted it to be just me and her. We could see Jake after.

Besides, Cin had a point, I realized as I gazed at the plate of two well-syruped waffles she set before me. There were only enough for two – and if I remembered correctly just how good they were, then I was in for a treat.

--

Hours later, at my massage therapist appointment, Cin still wasn’t done with me apparently.

“Pretty new girl, eh Owen?”

“What makes you say that?” I said in what I hoped was a convincingly innocent voice.

Raymond chuckled. “The tight muscles never lie.”

I only chuckled reflectively along. How into and how great the night with Cin was, was not a conversation I wanted to be having with my sixty-eight--year-old massage therapist.

“Can’t blame a man,” Raymond continued wickedly. “I mean, normally your massage therapist is supposed to be a sexy woman, so I guess you had to find it elsewhere.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said dryly, although we both knew Raymond was just joking.

This whole ‘your massage therapist is an old man’, was a running joke between us – Jake too. Mainly since it was Jake’s shenanigans that got us into this position in the first place. He’d slept with one hot massage therapist too many, then dated Amelia, hot bitch massage therapist extraordinaire, who’d apparently spread the word that we were ‘cheap bastards’, since calling us ‘bastards’ wasn’t enough to dissuade the others. Anyway, word got around, so now here I was, on the table being massaged by an old man – who was surprisingly good at it.

As he kneaded my back, releasing a new wave of tension, he said, “You went to that Battle Sports place I recommended with her, didn’t you?”

I twisted my head to eye him. “You a massage therapist or a psychic?”

“Who says I can’t be both?”

“Huh,” was all I said, allowing my head to sink back down as his expert fingers moved to my lower back.

“Really like this one huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, staring into the face rest dully.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Good-looking guy like you, she’s probably already smitten.”

“Thanks Dad,” I said, and we both chuckled.

Although it was a bit sad too. Dad would’ve never given me a pep talk like that – or any pep talk for that matter. His specialty was more in the art of negative reinforcement – “Don’t screw up and make the family look bad.”

It had played a role in Jake’s and my success, sure, but also had the annoying habit of popping up when it really wasn’t wanted. Like now, a kind of clasping hand squeezing fear into my heart.

For the first time in a while, I had something worth losing, and with the work situation being how it was, let’s just say there was a damn good reason for those tight muscles.