The Accidental Detective: Finding Her Boss

Chapter 32

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"You're so pretty."

Loriatte glanced up at the mirror and caught Zayden's reflection behind her, who was doing God knows what to her kinky and extremely tangled hair.

He was perched lazily on the sofa, legs stretched out with the insides of his knees touching her shoulders, hands carefully working through her jungle of post-shower curls like he was untying sacred knots with sacred reverence. His eyes were soft, smiling even without the curve of his lips, completely absorbed in her.

He practically had hearts in his eyes.

Loriatte shifted in her cross-legged position on the floor.

"Thank you," she muttered, brushing a few stray curls out of her face, "so, what are we doing for lunch?"

Since neither of them was a culinary genius- and both had a mutual dislike for standing in the kitchen- they had happily surrendered to the life of takeout. Obviously the occasional attempts at cooking happened, and sometimes it's a hit but it's mostly always a miss, and so they'd end up ordering in anyway.

Zayden puffed up his chest like he'd just solved a murder, "I'm cooking today. Spaghetti and some good 'ol falafels."

Loriatte's face twisted in horror, "oh nooooo, please no," She whined, shaking her head, and Zayden retaliated with a flick to her ear.

"Hey! Ow!" Her hand went up to the ear and he smacked it away before going back to assaulting her hair.

After their shower- cough and more cough- Zayden begged Loriatte to let him do her hair since he was the reason it was a tangled mess, her obvious answer was a big fat 'no way in hell', but after he gave her that pouty look with his big green eyes? Yeah, she just couldn't say no to him, her resistance crumbled worse than one of their many cooking disasters.

"What? I promise, I'm not going to burn the kitchen or over salt the food this time," he said, voice brimming with innocent optimism.

"You said that the last time and we ended up eating toast and orange juice for dinner like hungover college kids," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but this time I found a really good YouTube tutorial."

She narrowed her eyes, "you said that last time too. And why on earth are we having spaghetti and falafel for lunch?"

"Have a little faith in me baby, and nobody's here to tell us we can't have spaghetti and falafel for lunch," he picked up the wide tooth comb and brushed a fat twist he just did.

Loriatte winced, "the fuck are you doing?" She took the comb from him, "you comb before you do the twist, not after."

"Sorry," he mumbled, not looking or sounding at all apologetic, then went right back to messing with her hair.

There was a pause- long, quiet and strangely peaceful. Loriatte realised it was the kind of quiet that settles in when you're just...safe, something that was a first for her in a long time.

"Did you know Zenith has a twin?" He suddenly dropped out of nowhere.

Loriatte's jaw dropped as a gasp left her lips, "wait really? There's another him?"

Zayden laughed, "a better him. Her name's Zelda, she's all the way in London doing spy stuff. Literally. Some top secret organisation she can't tell us too much about."

"Wow that's so cool, is she like evil enemy of the state spy or like Ethan Hunt spy?"

"Hmm Ethan Hunt but not as cool," he answered after thinking about it for a while.