Tate Graham vs. The Afterlife by Jesi Kellis

Author:Jesi Kellis [Kellis, Jesi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OCD, etc.
Published: 2024-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter forty-four

Then

“Tate … whatever the hell your last name is. Get up and get dressed!” Layla tilts her head, looking down at my portable, economical bed. “What is your last name, anyway?”

“Stalker much?” I guess waking up not-naked with someone for the fourth consecutive morning is as good a time as any to get the typical meet-and-greet formalities out of the way. “It’s Graham. What’s yours?”

“Walkowitz. Tate Graham, I’m about to make you a very happy man.”

“Then shouldn’t my clothes be coming off instead of going on?” I fluff The Second Pillow, which I purchased because I wanted another pillow and had nothing to do with my slight preference that she stay over.

“This is far better than that,” she probably lies.

I roll to my side. “Now you’ve oversold it, and I’ll be disappointed, no matter what it is.”

“I doubt it.” She tugs my quarter of The Blanket off me. “I’m about to make one of your boyhood fantasies come true.”

I hoist myself to my elbow. “You’re going to dress as my junior high math teacher Mrs. Brooks?”

She zips her jacket. “Even better. I’m taking you to brunch.”

“Brunch?” We might have to discuss the definition of the word “better.”

“A brunch buffet. You said you never went when you were a kid.” She tosses me my jacket. “It’ll plug a hole in that Swiss-cheese childhood of yours.”

“Yeah, all right.” Brunch sounds like one of those things most guys do with their … sleepover buddies? I force myself out of bed and into my coat.

The passenger door of my old Toyota creaks as Layla closes it. “You know, your truck kind of fits in around here.”

I turn the key in the ignition. “Are you comparing the Tatemobile to a broken-wheelbarrow lawn ornament?”

She fastens her seatbelt. “I simply meant that it’s rustic.”

The restaurant is eons away by Port Angeles standards, and it’s a full ten minutes before we pull into the sardine-packed lot. What P.A. lacks in nightlife, it over-compensates for in late-morning life.

A hostess shows us to the last open table.

Layla snags a drink menu as she slides into the booth. “A popular accompaniment to brunch is the mimosa,” she says in a tour-guide voice. “It’s a festive blend of champagne and orange juice.”

“Which, sadly, I will not be experiencing because I work in a few hours.”

“Fortunately for me, I’m closing tonight.” She drops the menu as a waiter sets a pair of ice waters in front of us. “Can I get a mimosa, please? And actually, hold the champagne and put in some Jack. And maybe switch out the orange juice for some Coke.” She winks at me. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”

“Not in the continental United States. But somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, sure.”

A few laps around the buffet later, she tsks across our table at my platter of protein as she bathes her pancakes in blueberry syrup. “I think between the two of us, we might have a balanced meal.” She forks a bite of my scrambled eggs.

“Something like that.” I help myself to one of her drenched pancakes as she prepares a photo shoot for her mimosa.

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