by Abby Jimenez
My smile fell a little.
Did he?
Brent looked over his shoulder at me. His smile was enormous.
Maybe he did want my approval. I couldn’t imagine Dad’s meant much to him.
And I was proud of him. So, so proud. And I decided right there in that moment that I’d always make sure he knew that, as long as I was around to do it.
CHAPTER 21
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ESCAPING THE FRIEND ZONE
ADRIAN
When Vanessa texted that she’d be back in five minutes, it was a full hour later than she said she’d be home. I’d been through a symphony of emotions over the last four hours, none of them good. I’d landed solidly on bad mood and wasn’t planning on changing.
I was hurt that Vanessa said she regretted kissing me and that it was a mistake. I was pissed that she didn’t tell me about Drake. I was jealous, frustrated, and scared I was going to lose her to this guy.
The fucking medicine-woman swaddling…
Grace seemed to like it. I don’t know why this pissed me off more than anything else that had happened today, but it did.
Grace smelled like him—I had to give her a bath. She smelled like incense.
I was at the dining room table on my laptop with a baby monitor next to me trying to get through emails when Vanessa finally let herself into my apartment. I had Harry next to the table in his little dog bed and he raised his head at the sound of her coming in and growled like he was mad at her too.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, closing the door behind her. “There was a mob outside the restaurant. I had to autograph, like, two hundred sponges. And I think someone cut a piece of my hair off…”
I didn’t look up at her. “I changed her diaper about an hour ago. She was a little fussy. I gave her some gas drops and she seems fine now. She’s in the playpen in the office, sleeping.”
Then I slid my chair out, got up, and went to the bar.
“Well, you’re in a mood,” she said from behind me.
I pulled the stopper off the bourbon. “So does your ex own any damn shirts or did he get frostbite on his nipples?” I mumbled.
“Drake? He should own a shirt. He wore one on the cover of People when he got Sexiest Man Alive.”
I scoffed.
I heard her set down her purse. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me about him?” I said, not looking at her.
She laughed. “Uh, why would I?”
“He’s obviously someone who’s important to you.” I dropped ice into a tumbler. “We talk. I thought we didn’t keep things from each other.”
“Yeah, I thought that too. But I didn’t see you running to tell me that you loaned money to Brent.”
I twisted to look at her and she stood with her arms crossed.
“He asked me not to,” I said. “It was between me and him, and you had to wait all of forty-eight hours to find out about it. It’s not the same thing as hiding an entire relationship.”
“I didn’t hide Drake.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly volunteer the information.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’d have to live under a rock to not know about Drake. And I’ve never talked about him because he wasn’t worth mentioning.”
“Right.” I went back to my drink, putting the stopper back in the decanter. “I thought you weren’t dating anyone.”
She laughed at my back. “Are you serious? You’re crabby because I went on a date? You want me miserable and alone with you in solidarity? Is that it?”
I set my drink down, turned around, and crossed my arms. “Are you getting back with him?”
She threw her hands up. “And what does it matter? It’s not like you want me.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “You have made it exceedingly clear to me, since day one, that you don’t have any interest in me beyond friendship.” I gestured between us. “This is what you wanted. You wanted friends only, you set that boundary. I respected it. Then you kissed me, declared it a huge mistake, and I’m the bad guy?”
She put a hand to her chest. “I set the boundary?”
“Are you getting back with him?” I asked again.
She laughed. “No. I prefer my men a lot less gay.”
My arms dropped. “He’s gay? Since when?”
She snorted. “Birth?”
I gawked at her. “Well—what the hell was all that shit about online?”
“Adrian, there’s a certain level of theater that goes into what I do. Drake and I hung out so much because he was dating my cameraman, Laird. He wasn’t ready to come out yet. People assumed what they wanted to assume. That dinner today was a collab. He’s announcing their engagement, and he teased it with a video entitled ‘He Proposed!’ with clip of us in a restaurant and him showing me a giant ring. It’s clickbait. Then when you play the whole video, he’s inviting me to the wedding. It gets both of us views and new subscribers. He was doing me a favor.”
I blinked at her. “So you’re not seeing him.”
“No! I’m not seeing anyone. And I probably never will, ever again, if that makes you feel better.” Then her chin started to quiver. “And don’t worry, I won’t ever try to kiss you again. Gross, right?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
I shook my head. “I don’t get you. Did you want me to kiss you back? You wanted me to cheapen our friendship with something that didn’t mean anything to you? You wanted a fling? This isn’t some game for me, Vanessa. Kissing you means something to me.”
She blinked at me through tears. “It…it does?”
“Of course it does. How can you even ask me that?”
She sniffled. “But…but you didn’t kiss me back.”
“You were drunk,” I said. “You were so drunk I had to carry you home. I don’t kiss intoxicated women. Even if I want to. And then you said it was a mistake, that you…” I didn’t finish. I couldn’t.
I paused for a long moment, turning away from her. I dragged a hand down my beard and then looked her in the eye. “I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you.”
And there it was. Out in the universe.
She stared at me, speechless. Shocked.
Nothing was going to be the same after this.
I wondered how much damage was done, if we’d even be friends now. We might have moved past her drunken misstep. But not this. My one-sided feelings would be too much.
I waited for the letdown that I knew was coming. The gentle “I don’t see you that way” or “It’s me, not you.”
She looked at me with wide apologetic eyes and licked her lips. “Adrian, I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you too.”
It hit me like a storm throwing a door open. Everything inside me burst into chaos. My heart launched into pounding as hope ripped through me.
A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “And I’m not drunk now…”
I broke into a grin and was clearing the distance between us before she took another breath.
CHAPTER 22
LEARN THE NUMBER ONE SECRET TRICK FOR PERFECT ABS!
VANESSA
He crashed into me.
And I do mean he crashed. The impact knocked the emotional breath out of me and butterflies dove right from my stomach directly to my crotch.
His hands raked into my hair, his beard scratched my face, and his lips pressed warm against my mouth…
This.
This was the kiss he didn’t give me last night. This was the kiss that felt like a thousand kisses built up and funneled into one. He’d been holding this back for weeks. And I knew because so had I.
“I can’t believe you went to Vermilion without me,” he breathed against my mouth, smiling.
“I didn’t like it,” I whispered.
He bit my bottom lip gently. “Liar.” He grinned against my lips and then he devoured me again.
Oh my God, he was a good
kisser.
He trailed his mouth along my jaw, down my neck, and over the bare skin of my collar bone and I gasped, tipping my head back. I still wore my jacket, and he peeled it off my shoulders until it caught around my back in the crook of my elbows. I shed it and it dropped to the floor behind me.
His breathing was ragged. He was already hard. A boner was pressing through his pants into the front of my dress.
“Let’s go to your room,” I breathed.
He nodded and then threw me over his shoulder. I shrieked and he turned us for his bedroom door.
“Wait, wait! The baby monitor!” I said, giggling, tapping his shoulder.
He backed up and leaned me over the table so I could grab it, laughing. Then he hauled me straight to his bedroom.
I’d never been in there before. It felt like he’d just carried me off to his lair, some inner sanctum that I’d never been invited to explore.
It smelled like him and looked exactly like the rest of the apartment. Dark furniture and a gray bedspread, neat and orderly. I wanted to look around, but I had more pressing activities to see to.
He sat me down on the edge of the bed and stood between my legs while he kissed me, reaching around my back to undo my zipper.
I tugged at his belt buckle and he peeled off his shirt. Then he backed up to take his pants down as I wiggled out of my dress. When he pulled his underwear off and his penis sprang free, I froze in the middle of slipping an arm out of my bra. “What the fuck…” I breathed.
It was amazing.
Breathtaking.
It was that moment at a hibachi restaurant when the chef does some crazy thing with the rice and you realize you’re in for a good show.
I twisted onto my side and reached for the phone on his nightstand.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Calling Kristen. I have to tell her the prophecy is true.”
He snorted. “Well, can you wait until after?”
I turned back to him. “But what if I need tips? Best practices? I am not prepared for this, Adrian.” I stared at it. “My God, no wonder you have those abs. You’re doing a crunch every time you stand up. It’s like a twenty-five-pound dumbbell hanging there.”
He laughed and climbed onto the bed, sliding over me. He finished taking off my bra and started kissing his way between my breasts, down my stomach.
Heat radiated off this thing like a lightsaber. I watched his head dropping farther down my body. “I mean, what if I can’t lift it?” I breathed.
Fingers wrapped around the waistband of my underwear and dragged them down my thighs. “I’ll do the heavy lifting,” he said, throwing my panties over his shoulder. He reached to the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a condom. He tore the wrapper with his teeth. It was a Magnum. I was afraid it still wouldn’t fit.
I sat up on my elbows to watch him put it on. His eyes raked down my body as he did it, taking me all in. I could see how much he wanted me. He looked like he was about to fuck me into the headboard and I was totally here for it.
I needed to savor every second. Press my lips to every surface that I’d been shamelessly ogling for the past few weeks. I was going to treat his body like a decadent dessert at the end of a great meal—because really, that’s what he was. He was the grandest of finales to a life well lived. The cherry on top of the cake.
He was very likely the last man I’d ever sleep with.
And it occurred to me that this would have been true even if I wasn’t probably dying.
CHAPTER 23
SEE WHICH CELEBRITY IS
YOUR SOUL MATE!
ADRIAN
I’d never had sex like this. To say it was fun was the understatement of a lifetime. She was as playful in bed as she was outside of it and she had no problem asking me for what she wanted. We couldn’t get enough of each other. We woke each other up in the middle of the night. I was on about three hours of sleep.
I loved the unique language of her affection. She climbed and explored me. Hung from my neck and kissed my Adam’s apple, hugged me from behind while I cooked a midnight snack for us, bounced off me and boomeranged back. She beamed at me, nestled into me, perched on my lap, peppered me with kisses. I wish I’d been able to unlock this level sooner. I wish I’d met her years ago. High school. Grade school. A previous life. It all felt like lost time.
It was Tuesday morning and I was getting ready to head into the office. I’d dealt with Annabel’s arraignment over the weekend. She was getting released from the hospital today straight into a rehab facility in Iowa. Sonja and Gerald were taking her.
She’d specifically requested that Vanessa not come. She didn’t want to see her. She was mad at her sister, probably for cutting off her credit cards and phone. Vanessa seemed hurt, but she was just glad Annabel was getting help.
I stood over the bed, putting on my tie, smiling down at the sleeping woman curled up in my comforter.
I loved having Vanessa in my bed. I loved waking up and being able to pull her in instead of staring at a wall between us or waiting for her to wake up and text me back. I loved the smell of her hair on my pillows and the things she’d say when she was half asleep. I loved when I got to get up with Grace and bring her back to give her a bottle in between us in the bed and we felt like a little family.
The corners of my lips fell.
Grace.
The best possible scenario was that Annabel would get clean and take her daughter back. Then I could still see her. And with Annabel heading to rehab, the chances of that were good.
It was the other thing that bothered me. The reason Vanessa couldn’t adopt Grace herself.
She’d be going back to work soon.
In fact, the sooner Grace was gone, the sooner Vanessa would be too. And I didn’t like what that would look like. On any level.
Vanessa was usually gone so much she didn’t even keep a place here. All her stuff had been in a storage unit for the last two years. She’d rented an apartment because she’d planned to be home for a few months to help her sister with the baby. Then she’d ended up with Grace altogether and got stuck here. But when that was over…how did I—us—fit into that?
I didn’t fly. And even if I did, I couldn’t leave work for weeks at a time to travel the world with her. And she couldn’t stay here and make videos. Not in the long-term. She was already clutching at straws trying to come up with content as it was…
But I was trying not to look at the sun.
Annabel was months away from completing her ninety-day program. After that she’d move into sober living. She wouldn’t be able to have Grace there. That meant Vanessa was still months away from leaving. We had some time to figure it all out.
Vanessa stirred, and I smiled down at her. She peered up at me sleepily. “Where are you going?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“I have to go to work.”
She put her lip into a pout. “Awwww. Stay with me.”
“I can’t.” I smiled, knotting my tie. “I changed Grace and gave her a bottle. I gave Harry his meds and put some wet food down. Satan has been fed.”
She laughed. She threw the blankets off her and stretched like a cat.
She was naked.
My hands froze on my tie.
She looked at me over her shoulder and gave me a mischievous grin—and then grabbed her T-shirt, pulled it over her head, and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she came out, she started jumping into her pajama pants.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You’re leaving. I have to go home.” She climbed onto the mattress and stood on her knees on the edge of my bed and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing my waist.
“You’re not going home.” I smiled. “I don’t ever want you to go home. In fact, I think we should cut a door between our apartments. Use yours as a closet.”
She laughed and smiled up at me with her chin on my chest. “So I get to stay here while you go to work?”
/> “I’ll give you a key.”
“I’m gonna snoop through your medicine cabinet.”
“Let me know if anything’s expired.”
She grinned. “So, what? Does this mean I’m your girlfriend now?” She bit her bottom lip and bounced her eyebrows.
I smoothed the hair down on the top of her head and looked at her seriously. “That title doesn’t even feel worthy of what this is.”
And I meant it. It didn’t. It felt wildly inadequate.
She beamed up at me. “Hey, since we’re exclusive now, we can stop using condoms if you want. But we both have to get STD testing first,” she said, looking at me sternly.
“Okay.” It wasn’t a bad idea. I always used protection, but you could never be too safe. “But what about birth control?”
She shrugged. “My tubes are tied.”
I jerked my face back. “What? Why?”
“Because I don’t ever want to accidentally get pregnant and pass down my shitty genes.”
I snorted. “Okay…”
Her smile fell a little. “Does that bother you?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really. There’s more than one way to have kids if you want them. And I’m good either way if you do or you don’t. It’s just that it’s such a permanent procedure.”
“Well, I needed a permanent solution. Took forever to find a doctor to do it. Heaven forbid a woman in her twenties knows what she wants to do with her fallopian tubes.” She nipped at my bottom lip. “I got you a Christmas present,” she whispered against my mouth.
I made a dismissive noise in the back of my throat and went to kiss her again, but she shook her head and draped her arms around my neck. “I have to give it to you now so you can think about it.”
I smiled. “Okay. Give it to me now, then.”
She bit her lip and beamed up at me. “I got us into Badger Den.”
I pulled my face back and grinned at her. “You did? When?”
