Theo has the loudest, most obnoxious alarm I have ever heard, and the giant still manages to continue sleeping for a few seconds.

The noisy beeping had my eyes flashing open in a heartbeat to find my hand curled tightly in a thick beard, and a rugged face with long, dark lashes resting against its cheeks, inches away from mine.

I wait for him to open his eyes, and when he doesn't, I give his beard a gentle tug. "Theo?"

A blaring alarm he can sleep through, but either my quiet voice or the soft tug on his beard has him awake in an instant.

"You okay?" are the first words out of his mouth.

"No," I grumble, only to immediately feel bad when he lifts his arm off of me and starts trying to give me some space. "Your dang alarm is loud as hell," I add, and watch as he calms down and allows his arm to rest against me again.

"I'm a heavy sleeper," he tells me while sliding an arm beneath my head to reach toward the floor. I wonder what he's up to but then his alarm stops screaming, and his eyes drift close again. He must have put his phone on the floor last night.

I can't say that I blame him for closing his eyes. I'm exhausted too. "If you were going to allow yourself to be late, why did you insist on keeping your alarm set?"

"I won't be late," he mumbles without opening his eyes, "I have two more alarms."

"Oh, okay." I turn my face to rest my cheek against the arm that he's wedged beneath my head. His bicep flexes beneath my skin when he curls his arm up to lightly stroke the hair above my ear.

Is he drawing me in for a kiss?

I wait with bated breath for his hand to press against the back of my head to pull me closer, or for him to move his face forward to close the gap between our lips, but nothing happens.

His fingers in my hair move more and more slowly until they stop altogether and his eyes remain closed.

The fucker just fell back asleep.

I have the sudden urge to shake him awake, but it turns out I don't have to. His fucking alarm starts screaming again.

I jump at the sound, not having expected it to go off again so soon, and the action startles Theo awake.

"What's wrong?" he asks, pressing his palm to my cheek while he searches my eyes.

"Your fucking alarm, Theo," I complain, ignoring the fluttering feeling in my stomach. "If it's going to go off every two minutes, just get up now."

He lets out a tired grumble and closes his eyes again. "It's the worst, right?"

"Theo!"

He chuckles and moves his hand from my cheek, dropping his arm that is curled around my head to feel around on the floor for his phone again.

"Okay, okay," he draws out after silencing the loud beeping. "But you're going to have to get up for a minute too so that I can get off the couch."

Now it's my turn to grumble and close my eyes.

Theo laughs and tickles my side. "Come on, Milia," he coaxes, "You can go right back to sleep after I get up."

I try to squirm away from his tickling, but it's impossible to get away and remain laying down next to him. Begrudgingly, I sit up and push his hand away from my ticklish side, then stand up from the couch with my hands on my hips. "Okay, get up," I demand, wanting him off the couch so that I can lie down again.

He gives me a lazy grin as if he has all the time in the world, but when I glare down at him, he lets out an old man grunt and uses the back of the couch to hoist his body into a sitting position.

When we were laying down, one of his legs had been underneath mine and sticking off the far side of the couch, while the other was stretched up over the armrest, but now he brings them in front of his body to rest his feet on the floor.

I almost open my mouth to tell him to get up, but then I notice the slight wince on his face while he stretches his legs out in front of him. He leans forward and begins massaging his left shin and calf muscle.

"Want me to get you some Advil or something?" I feel guilty for having him sleep on the couch with me.

Theo shakes his head without looking at me. "No thanks, I'm good."

"Don't be stupid, you're not good. Where do you keep them? Let me get them for you so they can start to kick in before you have to go to work."

Theo moves his hands up his leg to massage his thigh but doesn't answer me and keeps his eyes on what he's doing.

"Stop being stubborn!" I raise my voice to demand his attention, "Where do you keep them?"

"I don't keep them." He looks up at me with a dark expression. "I don't take painkillers. Not anymore."

"What? That's stupid. Why don't you..." I drift off when the glare in his eyes turns into embarrassment and he looks away again. "Oh. Fuck. I'm sorry."

Theo shakes his head. "Nothing to be sorry about."

"Well, first I brought alcohol into your house and then I tried to convince you to take pills, so I'm on a bit of a roll here. Anything else you had a past issue with that you want to tell me about, so that I can offer that to you too?"

He looks up at me with a smirk, and maybe it's just my imagination, but I'm almost certain his eyes roam down my body before quickly moving up to my face again. He shakes his head. "No, just alcohol and painkillers."

"Is that why you let Cal stay here, when you found him on your porch swing?"

Theo nods. "Partly, yes. I'd like to think I'd want to help him regardless, buuut..." he pauses like he's trying to think of how to say the next part, "I don't think I would have given him as many chances if I didn't understand that small part of what he was dealing with. And I definitely would have lost it when he and April—" he stops short. "Well, anyway, I guess I can be thankful that my addictions are what they are."

Somewhere along the way, he lost me, and it wasn't because he had started talking about Cal and April either.

"What do you mean, you can be thankful?"

Theo shrugs. "My addictions helped me know how to help Cal, or at least gave me a crazy amount of patience to deal with him." He continues to massage his leg while he speaks rather than making eye contact. "And I like Cal. He's good for my sister and my niece, and he takes care of them in a way that I couldn't, which makes my life easier. And I don't know, I guess it lessens the guilt just a little, which—"

A deep frown creases his brows. He shakes his head like he's trying to break out of his own spiel, then pushes himself to his feet and looks over at me. "I'm making eggs. Do you want eggs?" He walks to the kitchen without waiting for my answer.

What was that? I assumed he meant he felt guilty about his addictions, but why did he suddenly shut down while talking about them when he had seemed so open a moment before?

I follow him to the kitchen and find him standing in the open fridge. He's holding the door open and glaring at the contents with a faraway look in his brown eyes.

"Theo...?" I'm not sure where I plan to go with this or what I should ask him, but he seems to need help being pulled back into reality.

He glances at me and shuts the fridge door. He starts to wander toward the stove, then turns back to the fridge again. He opens the door and pulls out a carton of eggs. "Two? Overeasy or hard?"

"I'm not really hungry." My head is also killing me but I now know that he doesn't have any painkillers in the house.

He sets the carton of eggs on the counter and places a pan on the stovetop. Once he turns on the burner, he takes a glass from the cupboard and fills it with water. He brings it to me, pressing it into my hand without a word.

When he begins to step away again, I lay a hand on his arm. He turns back to me and our eyes meet.

I reach toward the counter to put the glass of water down, then step forward to close the space between us. My arm wraps around his waist, while the hand I've placed on his arm slides around his side to press into his large back.

He doesn't hesitate to return the hug. Even going as far as lifting me off the ground a couple of inches in his attempt to bring me closer.

"You're a good comforter." He places me on my feet again. "How'd you get so good at this?"

I smile at the foggy memory I have of saying the same thing to him last night. My hand smooths down his back and I keep my body pressed close to his. "I got some lessons from some guy... several hours back."

His hands slip up my back to massage my shoulders while a soft chuckle rumbles out of his throat. "Thank you, Milia." He breaks free of my arms when he takes a step back but he keeps his hands on my shoulders, lightly pressing them into the sides of my neck and briefly stroking his thumbs against my collarbone. "Overeasy or overhard?"

"I said I wasn't—"

"So just toast then?" He drops his hands and reaches for the glass of water on the counter. He moves it into my hand again and then crosses the kitchen to the small island that holds a toaster and a modern-looking breadbox. "Butter or peanut butter?"

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes and take a drink from the glass. "I'm going back to the couch."

"I'll get you when breakfast is ready, if you're not asleep."

This fucking guy.

I can't quite manage to suppress my smile when I walk back to the living room. That is, until I hear a knock at the door.

That's got to be Cal.

A small groan escapes me. I set the glass of water down on the coffee table and walk to the front door to let him in. I'm tired, I'm hungover, I'm a little worried about Theo, and I just do not want to have to deal with fucking Cal right now.

I swing the door open, ready to greet him with an unimpressed "What?" but the man standing on Theo's front porch is not Cal.

My heart drops into my stomach and the sound of a distressed whimper rings through my ears.

What the fuck is he doing here? Did he fucking follow me?

I stumble backward, nearly jumping out of my skin when I bump into Theo who has walked up behind me.

He wraps a protective arm around my waist and steadies me on my feet. "You're early for once, Owen." His hand grazes against my hip before he withdraws his arm. "Emilia, this is Owen. He's catching a ride with me to site today." He speaks in a calm voice while keeping his body close to me, trying to talk me down from my obvious discomfort.

Owen's eyes have gone wide, and I realize too late that he's just as surprised to see me as I am to see him.

He pulls his eyes away from me to look at Theo. "Uh, yeah. Sorry boss, I didn't think you'd have company."

Theo steps back from the door, gently taking my arm to guide me back as well. "No worries, Owe. Come in. Did you want some eggs?"

Owen glances at me for a quick second, then steps into the house. "Sure, thanks." He stoops down to untie his work boots, then slips them off his feet and crosses the living room to the kitchen. "Any chance you're cooking bacon too?"

"Don't push your luck," Theo raises his voice to grumble after him. He waits until Owen has stepped into the kitchen, then turns to me with a look of concern. "Are you okay?"

I quickly nod my head. "Yes. I just wasn't expecting to see... to see someone that I don't know."

"I'm sorry about that. I forgot he was coming to drive with me this morning, otherwise, I would have given you a heads-up. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to Owen though. He's a good kid."

I nod my head. "I was just surprised, that's all."

Theo gives me a gentle smile. His hand begins to reach for mine but then drops down to his side again. "I'm going to run upstairs to change. Do you want me to get Owen to wait outside?"

"No, no, that's okay. Go ahead." I smile back at him and then gesture toward the kitchen. "I'll start the eggs for you."

Theo shakes his head. "No, don't do that. It's—"

"I know how to make eggs, Theodore, and I wouldn't offer if I didn't want to. Go get ready for work. I'll be fine with... Owen, or whatever."

Theo smiles at me again and this time when he reaches for my hand he brushes his fingers against mine. "Thank you, Milia. I'll be right down."

I make sure that he's gone up the stairs and then rush into the kitchen. The moment I step in, Owen is on his feet.

"Please tell me that you didn't tell Theo I was hitting on you all night. What the hell, Emilia? You couldn't have told me that you were already with somebody—somebody that just so happens to be my boss?"