Page 68 of For All My Effort
“Come on. You can take your drink with you.”
I accepted Han’s hand, letting him pull me along, up the stairs, to his bedroom. The space was soaked in the scents of him, Zeke, and me. It should have been a weird concoction of pumpkin, berries, and lavender. Instead, it just reminded me of my mates, of comfort and safety … and sex.
Han’s space wasn’t usually this clean. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was raised in a family that had a maid, or if it was because he worked from home and never really needed to worry about his appearance, but Han was the messiest of all my alphas. Not dirty, just messy. Clean shirts that he’d tried on, then decided to change out of were never put away. He liked having all his shoe options on display. He usually kept his closet door open, and he had the kind of decoration style that liked everything he owned to be on display.
For our date, he’d done more than put his shoes and clothes in their proper spot. He set up one of his laptops on the edge of the bed, stacked on top of folded blankets making it slightly elevated. Little fairy lights had been added to the walls, just barely lighting up the place, creating a romantic atmosphere.
Setting my drink on the nightstand so I didn’t accidentally spill any, I crossed my legs and turned to face my mate. “Are we going to watch a movie?” The question was mostly rhetorical since I could see the beginning of the movie paused on the laptop.
“That’s just for the background. I picked one of your favorites in case what we’re going to do is utterly unsuccessful and you hate it.”
I laughed at that. “And what are we doing?”
Lifting the laptop, he set all the folded blankets in my lap, placing the screen back on the comforter and angling it properly. This close, I saw that there were only two blankets. They were thick and fluffy, which wasn’t my favorite, but they each had their own cute design on it. One was black with pink skulls while the other was a light green with little all-white hummingbirds on it.
“Are these what you ordered?” I asked.
Han nodded. “I know you typically don’t like soft blankets, but all the reviews said this type was the simplest to start with.”
He threw a couple more items on the bed before joining me. With his back against the headboard, and his legs extended out long, he somehow managed to look sophisticated as he grabbed the black and pink blanket.
“The idea,” he started, “is that we do each other’s, and then combine at the end. We’ll cut strips along the edges, all the way around, and then tie the two blankets together. Some people even add decorative strings or stones or whatever.”
Spreading out the blanket, I ran my hands over the soft texture. It was a thick fabric, not something I would particularly like to sleep in, but that didn’t mean I didn’t absolutely love this idea. I was getting to create something, to finally be an artist without the frustration of failing or feeling like I was an idiot. This was simple and I could see how much thought went into it.
I leaned over and started the movie, then moved so I was sitting next to Han, my shoulder touching his bicep, both of us positioning the blankets over our laps so we could start cutting them.
Rather than handing me a single pair of scissors, he offered me several, their handles all different colors and the blades all funky shapes. I grabbed the one that made a half-square shape and Han grabbed one that was half-circles.
To my surprise, I already knew this movie. It was weird to think that even in the years that I’d lost, my favorite movie was still the same. Then again, this movie was fucking hysterical, so how could anything top it?
“How come you picked hummingbirds?” I asked him.
“Honestly? I was staring at the website to order the blankets and I froze. They’re custom pieces only, so it wasn’t like they had options to choose from. I kept trying to think of something that represented me.”
“I’m a skull?” I teased.
I watched as Han blushed, his cheeks turning pink, the color spreading to the tips of his ears and down his neck. I chased that color with my lips, kissing his cheek, the cusp of his ear, his jaw, and down the column of his throat.
“Anyways,” Han continued, “I was trying a lot of different things at first. Like a computer and a necktie and even the fucking sun. I wanted something that represented me, not just one aspect of my life like my job or my clothes.”
I nodded, slowing down on my cuts to the blanket since I was basically racing through. We had time and I wanted to use it.
“It’s kind of cheesy, and a lot convoluted now that I’m saying it out loud. But I kept thinking that one of the best parts about my life is that we spend our days together, working close to each other. And I knew a random interesting fact about hummingbirds and how they have to constantly work for their food because they’re so fast and their wings beat so hard. Wait, I think I could explain that better. So, when I was looking up—”
“I get it, Han. Truly. And I like it. I’ll always see hummingbirds and think of you now.” Somehow, I managed to get even closer to my mate, the outer part of my leg pressed against his. It made our arms slightly awkward as we cut, but neither of us complained.
When I finished my blanket, Han still had his last side to go. I looked over at his, then did a double take. “Uh, how long were we supposed to cut the strips?”
“Just a few inches, I think.”
Holding up one of the edges of my blanket, I started laughing, the sound bubbling out of me dramatically as I let him take in my work. I’d literally cut maybe an inch of fabric, my cuts close together compared to his, which were more artfully placed apart.
I was laughing so hard that my stomach was starting to hurt, and my volume had definitely reached its max. Simultaneously, I felt like I was going to die from laughter and also like I was never going to be able to stop.
My artistic ability was so bad that I managed to repel the simplest of activities. I totally should have asked more questions or looked at an example. Zeke had given me fake confidence that I’d be able to do artsy stuff after our date. Apparently, I’d forgotten that he’d done literally all the prep work, making my only job tracing the outline of the tattoo.
When I was finally able to catch my breath, my stomach felt like I’d laughed a six-pack into existence. “I’m going to go back around and make some of these longer.”