The Assistant(77)

“Water,” I stated with an amused smile.



“Oh. It tastes better than usual.” He studied the glass cup intensely. “Probably because it’s from you.” After a while, he asked again, “Did you miss me, Emily?” He looked at me hopefully, more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him.



I bit my lip, unsure of how to respond. Did I miss him? He was constantly on my mind, and I found myself comparing everything I did to a moment I shared with him while I worked with him. Still, he was a jerk that didn’t deserve to be missed at all, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that I had missed him. Then again he was drunk, and was slurring out nonsense. He probably wouldn’t even remember this night tomorrow morning.



“I missed you, Adrian,” I finally replied, looking him straight in the eye.



He let out a loud sigh of relief, and I watched as his shoulder visibly relaxed underneath the material of his light blue shirt. “That’s good. I think I like you,” he stated, before looking around my apartment. “Your house is cute. Small, but niceeee.” He began to nod slowly and met my eyes again, but I was still staring at him in shock.



“What did you say?” I asked.



“Um,” he frowned hard, thinking. “Oh, I said your house is small but-”



“No, no,” I cut him off, “before that.”



“Oh. I said I like you. A lot.” He repeated it casually, even punctuating it with a yawn. “Where is the bed?” he asked, looking around my living room again.



“I- Um- Uh, how about I drive you home?” I stuttered, still trying to process his words.



“No. I want to sleep with you tonight. That’s why I caaaame hereee.”



I bit my lip as something new processed in my brain. “Hold on. How did you know which apartment was mine? You’ve only been outside my building once…” I trailed off, still frowning in thought.



“I’ve come here before to try and get you to come back and work for me, but you weren’t home. I want to sleep with you in your bed now.” Adrian began unzipping his pants.



I let out a gasp – both from the fact that he was taking his pants off in front of me, and for the fact that he had come here to offer me another chance at the job which I ruined because I wasn’t home – before I shot up from my seat across from him and locking my apartment door.



Once I turned back around, Adrian had already taken off his dark jeans and was halfway done with unbuttoning his shirt. He looked down at his fumbling fingers with a frown etched onto his handsome features; the struggle to unbutton them while he was drunk was clearly evident in his expression.



I walked over to him and gently pulled his hands away from the shirt, before continuing to unbutton it for him myself and slowly pushing the shirt off his broad shoulders.



“Come on,” I said, gently leading him down the short hallway and into my bedroom, “let’s get you to bed.”



We both got beneath the covers and he instantly wrapped his familiar, muscly arms around my waist. As I turned off the lamp on the table next to me, I heard him murmur.



“I like this. And you.”



Then I felt his breathing become even as he fell fast asleep.



I wasn’t sure why he was here or why I let him in not just through my door but into my bed. But there was one thing I knew for certain – this was not going to end well in the morning.





Chapter Sixteen





There are only three things that would force my body into doing any type of physical activity: (1) if I were doing it for charity, (2) if I was trying to prove myself to someone, or – and this was the reason that had my feet pounding onto the moldy pavements of New York City at 6AM – (3) if I was trying to avoid something that is fogging up each functioning brain cell within my mind and I’m trying to get away from it.



Or him, in this case.



I was kind of hoping going for an intense run at the break of dawn would somehow clear up the fogginess in my mind while also managing to make the whole Adrian-is-in-my-apartment-snoring scenario just a figment of my imagination.



Unfortunately, once I returned home from my run and walked into my bedroom to snatch a few items of clothing for my shower, Adrian was still sprawled out on my bed, looking peaceful as his torso slowly rose up and down from his steady breathing. My gaze lingered on his shirtless torso for a little while longer before I left my room and made my way to the shower.



I peeled off my sticky attire before jumping into the warm shower and began to wash the sticky sweat off my skin. How was I supposed to act when Adrian woke up? Did he even remember what he told me last night? While I was able to recite the entire scene word for word, Adrian was intoxicated. I highly doubted he would remember his ‘please come back and work for me because I really miss you’ speech, so I decided to stay silent about it until he brought it up.