Chapter 88 - Willow

After one of the most utilitarian showers of my entire life, we were dried off and back in bed within about twenty minutes. Like I'd been on a bender for a week, everything inside me just wanted to faceplant the bed and sleep for another week.

Ryker curled around me from behind. "Sleep well, cupcake," he whispered against my shoulder.

I meant to say ‘happy sleep,' but my brain gave out before the words could pass my lips.

**

"When you said I could come stay with you, I wasn't expecting to be kicked out of your home so quickly," Jessa said the next morning as I stood at the kitchen island. My weight rested almost exclusively on my left leg, but I was standing. On my own.

"Well, that would be Ryker," I pointed with my chin at the man in question sitting on the couch.

"Guilty as charged," he answered without looking up.

Jessa took a seat at the high counter. "What are you making?"

"Hot cocoa waffles," I said as I added the hot cocoa mix to the dry ingredients for the