Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(49)

“Adrian, I will kill you. I am not afraid to go to prison.”

He was howling now. “Kill me with what? The gun or the stabby thingy?”

“Adrian!” Gah! “Get out!”

I wrangled him out the door and I could hear him laughing all the way down the hall, back to his gala.

I probably needed at least a full month to be able to face him again.

He gave me about five minutes.

Someone knocked on my door and when I went to look through the peephole, there was a finger over it.

“Who is it?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Room service,” he called through the door in a ridiculous falsetto.

I rolled my eyes as I raked the chain off the lock.

He was leaning with his forearm on my door frame, still in his tux.

I crossed my arms. “What? If you’re here to laugh at my boob, you can just go back to your thing.”

He gave me one of his dazzling grins. “I’m not going back. I brought you something. Let me in and close your eyes.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “What? You’re not going back?”

“Close. Your. Eyes.”

I gave him a look, but I pulled the door open and closed my eyes. I heard him come in, then the sound of my sliding glass door opening. “What are you doing?” I asked, feeling a blast of cold air.

“Don’t peek,” he said from what sounded like outside.

I heard the door close, and the sound of my curtains yanking shut. When he spoke again, he was standing in front of me. “Okay. You can look.”

I opened my eyes to find him smiling down at me like he found me amusing. The whole front of his tuxedo was wet.

“Why are you wet?”

“Go sit on the couch.”

“For what?”

He shook his head with a smile. “Go on.”

I eyed him, but I went to the sofa and flopped down onto a cushion.

He went into the hallway and brought in a large plastic takeout bag. He took off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of one of my kitchen table chairs. Then he undid his bow tie and unbuttoned his wet shirt and peeled that off too. When he sat down next to me on the sofa, he was in nothing but a white T-shirt and trousers. He leaned over the coffee table, pulling out containers. Then he opened one and held up a humongous orange lobster and waggled it. “Lobster?”

I snorted. “You brought me a lobster?”

“And caviar, prawns, baklava, petit fours—I even brought the garnish for you. Look.” He plunged his arms into the bag and pulled out a halved watermelon with the name of the fund-raiser carved into it and held it proudly.

I laughed. “Oh my God, they’re never going to let you back into the Depot.”

He set it in the middle of my coffee table like an out-of-place centerpiece.

He was still smiling.

“You better stop,” I said, giving him side-eye.

“What? I’m just thinking of something funny Lenny said.”

“You are such a liar.”

Maybe I should start doing a Kegel every time I embarrass myself in front of him, get something out of all this humiliation. Two weeks and I’ll be able to snap a man in half with my pelvic floor.

“You know, I’ve seen you topless before. In the painting.” He nodded to the wall.

“Okay, that is not the same thing. That’s a drawing and he took liberties—”

“No, he didn’t. Frankly, he didn’t do you justice.” He glanced at me. “At least not on the side I saw.” He grinned and finished emptying the bag.

I had to hide my smile in my hand.

“So what do you feel like eating?” he asked.

“Uh, all of it? But you’re sure you don’t need to go back?”

He took the lid off a to-go cup of drawn butter. “I think the fund-raiser can carry on without me.”

“Are you just trying to make me feel better that you had to leave to make sure I didn’t die attached to a ceiling fixture?”

He laughed.

I drew my eyebrows down. “How did you get here so fast?” I looked over all the stuff he brought. “I called you and you came in, like, ten minutes. How’d you get all this ready and steal a garnish and still make it to rescue me in under an hour?”

He cleared his throat and talked to the food he was setting out. “I was already on my way with it.”

I pulled my face back. “You were on your way home when I called you? Your thing started at six thirty. It’s seven fifteen. Did you just show up with a bag and start pillaging? You weren’t planning on staying?”

“I guess not.”

I watched him opening more containers. “Why?”

He didn’t answer me for a long moment. “I just figured you had a rough day and might want to watch TV with someone.”

I blinked at him.

Those tickets were $200 apiece. I checked. I wanted one so I could go with him—not that he’d invited me to. But I would have shamelessly crashed the place if the thing hadn’t been sold-out.

There was a silent auction and a raffle, live music and dancing. The event ran until midnight. He rented a tux. And he just…left? To watch TV with me?

Either he really hated hanging out with Marcus or he really liked The Office.