I bit my lip. “I don’t know. I have to do laundry, and if I eat with you, I won’t get to it until tonight. The laundry room is crowded after eight.”
He shrugged. “Do it here. I have a washer and dryer.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You do? Really?”
“My apartment’s a lot bigger than yours, remember? Do as many loads as you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I smiled. “You’re making this very hard to say no.”
“That’s what she said.”
I snorted. “Ha! Office humor. I’ve already changed you for the better. All right. Let me go take a shower. I just cleaned a house that should have been condemned,” I said, looking down at my clothes.
He stood and reached for Grace. “I’ll take her.”
I tilted my head. “Really?”
He smiled at Grace in a way that made my heart hurt. “Yeah, I don’t mind. I’ll leave the door unlocked. Let yourself back in when you’re ready.”
* * *
I got ready. I got more ready than he’d ever seen me. Not because this was a date, obviously, but because having somewhere to go and getting dressed up was a luxury I hadn’t been afforded in weeks. I was usually just different versions of rolling out of bed these days. Plus, my personal presentation had to be equal to the dish. The man was making lamb shanks.
I put on a slouchy pink sweater and jeans, curled my hair, and did my makeup. When I let myself into his apartment an hour later, classical music was playing. Harry Puppins was curled up in his diaper, sleeping on his dog bed by the sofa. Grace was sitting in her swing at the mouth of the kitchen, where Adrian could see her.
Adrian had a fire going and he stood in the kitchen with a spatula over a copper frying pan, a black kitchen towel draped over his shoulder. He was wearing jeans, a white apron, and a burgundy sweater with the sleeves rolled up. The whole thing looked like a page in a damn Williams-Sonoma catalog.
There had to be an imbalance in the universe. Some poor guy probably got shorted so Adrian Copeland could get his disproportionate share of good looks.
“Hey,” I said, bringing in a basket of laundry and a bottle of wine.
All my fan mail was by the door, carefully organized and in banker’s boxes.
“I had Becky take the donations to the Salvation Army for you,” Adrian said over his shoulder. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starving.”
The place smelled amazing.
He nodded to the hallway. “The laundry room’s the second door on the left.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Can I help you with anything first?”
He looked up at me for the first time since I’d walked in and paused a second. “No. I’ve got it.” His eyes lingered another moment and then he went back to his cooking.
I smiled to myself. He just checked me out.
It was nice to know maybe the attraction wasn’t one-sided. Not for any practical purposes, of course. Nothing was going to happen between us. But it did wonders for my self-esteem.
I stopped and checked on Grace. She was watching Adrian cook with her pacifier in her mouth, eyes wide. I tucked her blanket around her, then took my basket and wandered down the hall.
The apartment was a three-bedroom. The master was to the right of the living room where it shared my wall. That door was closed.
Then there was the kitchen, a nice open dining room in the middle with a table that seated six, and the hallway I was wandering down to the left. I peeked into rooms as I went.
One spare room was a lawyerly-looking office with a floor-to-ceiling cherrywood bookshelf behind the desk. He’d turned the other room into an impressive home gym. There was a full bathroom between them, and then finally a decent-size laundry room.
The whole apartment was immaculate. Nothing was out of place. He was meticulous. Even the laundry room was organized and spotless. All his detergents and fabric softener were lined up in a perfect row on top of the washer.
The walls in the apartment were cool grays with white trim. He had dark hardwood floors, except for in the bathroom. That was some sort of slate-type stone. It was all very cold and masculine.
He needed plants and candles.
I started a load and came back into the kitchen. “God, your apartment is palatial.”
I peeked over his arm to look at what he was cooking. He was braising potatoes with some rosemary in a pan. It smelled so good my stomach growled.
“Why not get a bigger unit?” he asked. “Seems like you could afford it. You’re obviously very successful.”
I put my back to the counter next to the stove and leaned. “I donate most of my money. That’s why I live small. I keep only what I need—plus a little so I can have fun. And wine,” I added.
He poured a splash of merlot over his pan with a sizzle. “Right, I read that on your Wikipedia. You donate to ALS research.”
So he’d been looking into me.
Which meant he knew.
He could watch any one of my videos and get the general gist of what I was about. I talked openly about all of it: my 50 percent chance of having the mutated genes that cause ALS. My inability to test for them. My desire not to seek treatment if I was sick. It was all in there. Maybe not dumped into a single episode, but sprinkled pretty generously around. Not to mention all the articles about me and my Wikipedia page. If he did even the barest of lawyerly due diligence, which it sounds like he had, he’d get a crystal-clear picture of what my life was.
And now I could see where this conversation was going, and I needed it to stop. I didn’t want to get into a casual discussion about my possible terminal diagnosis. I wanted to enjoy this dinner.
I wanted to forget the death creeping into my hand.
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Can I ask you a favor?”
He gazed over at me. Warm, green gorgeous eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about…anything that you learned on my channel. Ever. It’s just…being around you feels like a break. Like, you’re not my crazy family, and you’re not part of the YouTuber world or ALS side of my life either, and I like that.”
He held my eyes a moment. “Sure,” he said. “This has been a bit of an escape from reality for me too. I get it.” He did an impressive flip of his potatoes. “So what wine did you bring?” he asked.
I smiled and got the bottle and held it out for him to see.
“Nice,” he said, grinning at the label. “Were you saving it? That’s a great year.”
“I never save anything,” I said, grabbing the bottle opener on the counter. “I enjoy things as soon as possible. I burn the expensive candle, I use the fancy rose-shaped soap, and I drink the wine, even if the only thing I’m celebrating is the fact that it’s Tuesday.”
He turned down his burner. “Well, I’m glad for my sake that you do that. I’ll definitely appreciate it. Here, let me.” He took the bottle opener from me, which I was fumbling, and opened the wine. Then he took two glasses from a cabinet, poured, and handed me one.
“Thanks.” I swirled the liquid and put my nose into the glass and breathed in. “If you like wine so much, you should visit Tuscany. Have you ever been?” I looked around his apartment for frames. “Where are your vacation photos? Are they on your laptop or something?” I put a thumb over my shoulder. “Because if you have a backup photo album, I’m gonna need to see it to look for dick pics.”