My position on dating had shifted a bit in light of Mr. Copeland. I didn’t feel like it was fair to date someone if I might be sick. But if he knew I might be sick, like Adrian did, and wanted me anyway? Who was I to tell the man what to do? It’s why I told him about my hand earlier. It’s also why I’d strategically stopped mentioning that I was glad he didn’t hit on me. I couldn’t bring myself to come right out and tell him I liked him. I was too afraid of what his reply to that might be. And how does one even broach that subject? Hey, I like you. I know you just went through a really crappy breakup, we’re supposed to be friends, and I might be dead in a year, but you think you could be into that? UGH.
He tolerated my shameless flirting well enough, but he never flirted back—which I suppose was to be expected. But if he ever did make a move on me, I’d climb into his suit while he was still wearing it. He’d have to scatter expensive truffles on the floor to get me off him and then make a run for it because I’d never let him go.
He reached up and put his hands over my head. “How did you do this?”
His chest was right in my face. It had been in my face earlier too when I was crying into it, and just like earlier he smelled good and heat was coming off him and I was reminded that I’d probably go to my grave with cobwebs on my vagina.
“Um, I don’t know? You know, I bet Sloan Monroe gets her hair stuck in ceiling fans all the time.”
“Uh, no. I can guarantee you that Sloan has never had her hair stuck in a ceiling fan. She’s not really a hair-stuck-in-a-ceiling-fan type.”
“Oh, so there’s a type now?”
He fiddled around a bit. “Well, if the fan blade fits…”
I stifled a smile.
I felt it the second he released me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“There,” he said over me. “You’re free.”
I rubbed my head, and he stepped down until his eyes were level with mine. “Do you always get in this much trouble?” He was grinning.
His face was really close, and he was still standing between my open legs.
Sometimes I looked at Adrian and felt like I couldn’t breathe.
At his office earlier when he’d been holding Grace, I thought about how he’d be such a good dad and how proud I was of him, seeing him in his element. He was so intelligent and capable, and over the last few weeks, I’d found myself completely and utterly losing myself in him…and the more I did, the worse my hand got. It was like one thing was connected to the other. Like my growing feelings for Adrian came at a price.
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “You should get going. You’re missing your gala.”
He waited another moment. Almost like he liked standing there. Then he looked away from me, jumped down, and helped me off the ladder.
He didn’t make a move to leave.
He stopped at Grace’s swing and crouched to say hi to her. She beamed at him and her pacifier popped out of her mouth. He tickled her belly and then put her paci back in. Then, instead of leaving, he picked up Harry Puppins from his dog bed and leaned against my dresser, petting him and smiling at me.
Okay…
I wrapped my robe tighter around me. “So I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow?” I said, feeling like I had to fill the silence with something. “Dad’s going to embarrass me. I hope you know that.”
He just stood there. “You’ll be fine.”
When I said this to myself, I called bullshit. When he said it, I sort of believed him. Maybe because Adrian had a way of making things fine. Or making me forget if they weren’t…
Dad wanted me to see the progress he was making on the house. I hadn’t been over there since the armoire avalanche.
Sonja and I had talked often since she started two weeks ago. Dad really liked her. She’d asked to bring in a professional organizer and a cleaning crew that specialized in biohazards. I gave her anything she wanted. Threw money at it with complete abandon. I either spent it now and maybe put Dad in a better place, or he’d end up spending the money on junk after I was dead—I’d rather spend it now.
She also recommended a therapist who could treat obsessive compulsive disorder, which I guess she thought he had. Dad had been seeing her twice a week.
Dad seemed pretty excited about his progress, but I was skeptical. Since I couldn’t even toss a bag of garbage without him picking through it, I couldn’t imagine Sonja was making much of a dent.
Anyway, the only problem now was I wasn’t making enough videos to earn enough money to keep supporting it all. Not for what I needed to accomplish over the next twelve months.
I’d done three vlogs since my Jesus’s Abs one. The first one was me dying my hair and not mentioning a word about Adrian. I know it was crazy just based on how much everyone wanted to hear about him. But honestly, I wanted that side of my life to just be mine.
Adrian wasn’t some anecdote to me. He was real. What I was feeling for him was real. It felt like I was cheapening it to invite millions of strangers to join in on it for their entertainment. But the hair-dying video tanked. My viewers were pissed. People were so thirsty to hear about Jesus’s Abs I was afraid I was going to lose subscribers if I didn’t fold, and I couldn’t afford to not make money. So the next two videos were just me recapping my days with Adrian, acting all starry-eyed and in puppy love—which to be honest wasn’t even acting. Those had some of the highest views since me and Drake. So as little as I liked sharing the private side of my life, it was a necessary evil.
I had something pretty earth-shattering planned for Monday’s post and it couldn’t come a moment too soon. I needed the money. I had enough for my day-to-day living—and Dad’s and Brent’s. And for years I’d been setting aside enough to cover my medical care in the event I got sick. But I needed to think further into the future than that.
I wanted to be able to provide my family with a modest income to live on for the rest of their lives. I’d been to my accountant yesterday to set up a trust for Grace, Brent, Dad, and Annabel—with stipulations that she pass a monthly drug test to qualify for the funds, and she check in to rehab if she didn’t. It wasn’t foolproof, but at least she’d have some accountability.
I had a stipend arranged to keep Sonja on staff after I passed, and I designated a large lump sum to my charity. I made sure I was registered as an organ donor. My DNA defects didn’t rule my organs out for transplant. They could take the whole lot of it—and I hoped they did.
I still needed to make my funeral arrangements, but I wasn’t quite ready for that one yet. I’d pay that off too though. I wouldn’t leave any of the details for anyone else to have to deal with when I went.
I’d been executing this depressing end-of-life checklist every day for the last two weeks while Adrian was at work. And then at night, I’d let it all go. I’d have dinner with him, and he’d make me forget everything. He made my shitty world blur around me until there was nothing but him and those gorgeous green eyes and I didn’t even want to go home at night. I just wanted to stay with him and keep feeling what he made me feel. I wanted to be still.
He pushed off the dresser and put Harry Puppins back in his bed. “You want me to give Grace a bottle while you get dressed?” he asked, folding up the ladder and leaning it against the wall.