When Constellations Form (Light in the Dark 4)

“And I married a psycho.”

“Hey,” I snap.

He chuckles. “A very cute—” I glare. “Sexy,” he amends, “smart, psycho.”

“If I’m psycho that means I could kill you and no one would ever be able to trace it back to me, so you better be nice to me.” I raise my chin in the air.

“I’ll try my best not to piss you off.” He taps his finger to my nose as he passes, and I playfully go to bite his finger, but he’s too quick and skirts away. “Finish your ice cream and I’ll work on this.” He points to the plates and glasses I have lined up on the counter to be put away in the glass cabinets above the sink.

I kick my legs up on the table and watch him while I eat my ice cream.

With his back to me he lifts the plates up into the cabinet, his shirt stretching taut across his muscles and I hum in appreciation. He looks over his shoulder at me with a smirk.

“Watching me work, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.” I swirl my tongue around the spoon. “Enjoying my ice cream with a view. The perks of married life.”

He laughs. “I hope you always feel that way.”

“I might get bored eventually, but that’s what sex tapes are for.”

He chokes on a laugh. “I shouldn’t be surprised by the things that come out of your mouth anymore, and yet I still am.”

“I’m pretty sure keeping you on your toes was in our vows, if it wasn’t it was an unspoken one.”

He shakes his head. “Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry you missed it.”

He turns back and starts lining up the glasses beside the plate.

I finish my ice cream and gather up the trash and then realize we don’t have a trashcan yet.

“You should add g

etting a trashcan to your to-do list when you get the groceries.” I set the trash on the counter for now.

Xander finishes with the glasses and turns around. “Something tells me this list is going to be a mile long before the day is over.”

I shrug. “The beauty of being homeowners. It’s always something.” I lean my hip against the counter. “You think you can handle the kitchen? I’ll go back upstairs and start on our clothes. I think that’s going to take the longest. We have a lot of stuff.”

He raises a brow. “We?”

I lift my hands in surrender. “Okay, it’s me that has a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, I’m good here,” he assures me.

I leave him and head upstairs. I grab my phone from the table by the bed and play some music, refusing to work in silence.

I grab the nearest box and rip it open and then begin laying the items out on the floor. I decide to unpack all the boxes and then start putting everything away, figuring it’ll be easier to work if I can see everything.

After a while, Xander comes up to tell me he’s leaving.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says, leaning against the door to our room.

“Can you bring me back a Starbucks drink?” I ask, brightening like a dog about to get a treat.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to be gone forever.”