Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(68)

“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





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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.