“YOUUUU SHUT IT!” he snapped back, before turning around slowly once he realised I had opened the door.
“What the hell are you doing here, Adrian?” I hissed, trying to cover up my surprise with anger. “It’s 1AM, and you’re drunk! Go home!”
He was slumped against the wall that connected to my apartment door, and my breath hitched in my throat once his eyes met mine. My conscience must have forgotten the kind of effect Adrian Kingston had on me in real life, because I froze in my doorway as I looked down at his tall seated figure, dark plump lips and strong hazel eyes that were slightly droopy. The smell of alcohol filled my nostrils sharply, the vile stench making me cough a little.
Adrian’s eyes never left my half naked, tired figure, and I sighed and bit my lip while shaking my head at what I was about to do. I moved forward and lifted his right arm to put it over my shoulders for support.
“Don’t make me do all the work,” I muttered at him as I pulled at his right arm in an attempt to get him off the floor. “You’re tall and made of muscle. Get up.”
“Do you know how much I’vvvvvve missed you, Emilyy?” Adrian grumbled as he exerted some effort to pull himself off the floor. “I’ll tell you. A lot.”
I tried to hide my blush from his drunken words as I put more of his body weight against me. “Let’s get you inside,” I murmured, dragging his tall, built frame into my tiny apartment with as much energy as I could muster.
“Didn’t you miss me?” he asked, pouting as he looked into my eyes again. I opened my mouth to respond but Adrian wasn’t done talking. “I hope you did. I thought about you a lot. Especially about our kiss in the beautiful sunnnnnnnshine state. I even called a girl in bed Emily because I was thinking of you. Whoops.” He chuckled to himself and abruptly stopped and frowned. “I don’t know why. You’re always just there. In my head, I mean. Not in real life. I tried to get you out of there, but you wouldn’t leave. You’re so annoying.”
He groaned, making me laugh slightly as I placed him onto my sofa.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him, going into the kitchen and pouring a cup of water for him. I didn’t have any medication that would cure a hangover; even though I had been meaning to invest in some thanks to Amy’s wild nights where she’d crash at my place because she was too lazy to go back home.
I re-entered the living room and handed him the clear glass silently, and watched his throat bob up and down as he gulped down the clear liquid in under 5 seconds.
“Good stuff,” he said with an approving nod. He regarded me with a curious look. “What is it?”
“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.