Chapter Three

Chinese was about ten minutes out by the time Adam walked out of the bathroom, steam wafting from the doorway and reverberating from his body. He wore simple plaid pajama pants and a tee shirt with something in French written on the front that clung to his still damp body.

"So, what's your drink of choice? I've got vodka or I've got..." Mia thought as she leaned against the kitchen counter. "Yeah, I've just got vodka. Dark alcohol makes me sick and gin is just gross."

"Guess we're having vodka then," Adam spoke with a grin, before leaning across from her. "Gotta say, I'm feeling damn underdressed right now."

Mia still hadn't shifted into the pajamas she couldn't wait to get into. She had nothing cute. She had sexy, and she had adorable, but not cute. Not that it mattered. The man had changed her diapers when she was a baby, for Christ's sake. He would hardly judge her for her sleepwear when he'd wiped shit off her ass so many years back.

While she didn't enjoy dressing up, it was an outfit she looked dynamite in and she couldn't of appeared as if she were seeking to awe him since she was wearing it when she found him asleep in her hallway. "Most of the city is under dressed compared to me," Mia joked. "I don't go out often, but when I do, I make that shit count. So lemonade, orange juice or straight up?"

He thrust himself back off the counter and roamed around the living space. "Straight up for me. Might have a chance in hell of sleeping tonight."

"Well, lemonade for me because I'm a pussy." Mia was not a pussy at all, but didn't feel like being sloppy drunk around Adam. So she seized the booze from the lower drawer and poured them both their drinks.

"Walked into the wrong room first," Adam spoke loudly so she could hear him, though even his loud voice still had that delicate, calming tone. "Saw your collage on your bedroom wall."

Mia's eyes shot up to study at him, but he wasn't facing her. Instead, he was going through her assortment of music on her iPad plugged into her stereo system. She knew what he was referring to.

Half of one of her bedroom walls was coated with every postcard he'd sent her over the last five years, along with photos he'd taken on his travels and sent to her, as well as photos of the two of them in different stages of her life.

Mia walked into the living room just as he began one of her playlists. "I like to call it my stalker shrine, but I'll admit 'collage' makes it sound a lot less weird."

A humorless smile adorned his lips as he took the glass from her hand. "How bad did it hurt you when I left, Mia?"

He wasn't lying before when he said her eyes never could deceive him. Adam had the supernatural talent to look into her soul and see every micro-emotion and thought tucked away in every dark corner of her subconscious. At least, the ones he was searching for. The biggest emotion she felt for him was one he appeared oblivious to, or, if he knew, he never let on.

Adam, on the other hand, was a closed book; a chain wrapped around the cover and a padlock, taking the pages' secrets to the grave. He shared what he wished to share and kept hidden what he didn't want others to see. He wasn't exactly closed off, not to her anyhow, but he had a poker face impossible to decode.

So when he looked at her now, all she saw were shadows of emotions locked tight beneath the surface.

"I'm guessing you want the unfiltered truth."

"Always."

Mia gave him a reluctant nod, clinked their glasses together, and took gulp after gulp until her tumbler glass was drained before she sat on the couch. When they spoke, he told her to never hold back and never apologize or diminish what she felt. It wasn't always a comfortable thing to manage, especially since a considerable time had passed since she had to do so. No one else every demanded this of her the way he had. "Worse than anything else I've felt in my life," Mia replied, knowing that nothing short of absolute truth would suffice.

Adam sat beside her on the couch and Mia looked down at her lap and ran her fingers through her curled hair, her hand likely shaking as she did so. "It took a long time to figure out how to live my life without you in it. Sometimes I think I'm still in the learning process."

When her shaking hand slipped to her side, Adam covered it with his own and tugged her against him, propping her head against his chest. "It wasn't easy for me either, my mini Mia munchkin head."

The sound of her childhood nickname that he hadn't called her since she was a preteen caused her to giggle against him. She could feel a difference compared to the last time he held her like this, just before he left. He was so familiar, her home, but his body had changed in the years he'd been away.

When he pulled her against him as a child or she jumped into his lap, Mia complained about how he wasn't comfy enough, too young to understand that a toned body was something most women desired in a man. There was still slight tone there, but as Mia adjusted herself and settled into his lap, she could feel the difference.

"You're finally comfy!" she squealed as if she were still the small child crawling up into his lap.

He let out a gentle laugh above her. "By comfy do you mean fatter?" He didn't wait for her reply. "Is that what you were teasing me about when you were young? You wanted me to be fat?"

"Trust me, you're not fat, just not as muscular. I wanted cushion and now I have it," she told him, sinking into a relaxed state. "Muscles aren't any fun to cuddle up against. I like a layer of chub on my men and I won't apologize for it."

He wasn't fat by any measure, not like so many of her other father's friends had become. But she was never a big fan of muscular. She enjoyed looking and admiring, but with relationships, she liked a man who she could lay against without feeling like she was on a cement block.

"I don't know how you'll ever find a man with these unrealistic expectations of yours," he joked above her. "Or do you have a man already?"

Though his tone was innocent, Mia's heart still beat heavy against her chest. "Why do you ask?"

"If I'm going to stay the night, I'd like to know if someone will show up and start throwing punches."

Ah.

Her heart slowed back down to a natural rhythm. "Guys aren't a big fan of the stalker shrine in my bedroom and I have no intention of taking it down, so no. No one will be showing up to beat the shit out of you. Though I think my takeout guy from the restaurant has a thing for me, so I can't guarantee what he'll do when he sees you."

"And just how many guys have made it into your bedroom to see the shrine?"

The answer to that question was 'none' as far as this apartment went, and only two when she was in college. She went out on dates, but wasn't a 'casual hookup' kind of gal.

Mia didn't want him to know that every time she'd slept with someone, a small piece of her died and she lost a little more hope.

They were never in a relationship. He'd never looked at her in any way other than a best friend and maybe the child he never had. Yet each time she'd tried to have an actual relationship, it felt like she was cheating on something she would never have.

"None of your damn business."

"Fair enough."

The speaker by the door came to life. "I have your food, Ms. Mia. You want me to bring it up?"

The warmth of Adam's body vanished after she looked up at him, then forced herself up from the couch. She went over to the speaker and hit the button. "I'll buzz you in," she told him, then pressed the button beside it for five seconds.

Adam trotted down the hallway, coming back with an open wallet. "I think I used up all my US dollars on the cab to get here," he admitted.

Mia just waved off the comment and went into her purse. "No worries. My trust fund's bigger than your trust fund anyhow, if you know what I mean." She finished with an incompetent wink, something she never could pull off properly.

Though his father was her grandfather's business partner, along with his brother and her father owning stock and likely would take over the company when the two men resigned, her grandfather had established the business and owned majority stock.

"Ah," he sang out, pointing his finger at her, "but the only time I ever used my trust fund was to buy a first-class ticket back here. And something tells me that living in an apartment like this in the safest part of the city costs you a pretty penny."

Mia looked around her apartment. It wasn't a grand living space, but she couldn't deny it was larger than the rest of her friends who couldn't afford to live in this part of town. It was a little over a thousand square foot, two-bedroom apartment that cost about four grand a month.

She'd lived there for a year now, accumulating to twenty-four grand for her half of the rent.

He had a point.

Her doorbell rang and Mia grabbed her wallet and opened the door, feeling the delivery boy's eyes skimming her body as soon as he saw her. Mia wasn't lying when she told him the kid had a thing for her, except normally she was in her pajamas by the time her food came. She'd never opened the door to him wearing anything so extravagant.

"Wow, Ms. Mia," he said, his words tumbling over one another. "Just... wow."

It was futile to hold back her blush and promptly handed him a fifty. Whenever she ordered, she bought enough to last her the week. She loved leftover Chinese food and never had the time or desire to cook. "Keep the change."

"I can bring these in for you. It wouldn't be any trouble."

One large arm draped around her stomach and tugged her back against his chest while the other snatched the two bags of food from the delivery boy. "I got it, kid."

He was making a point and damn if she didn't want to order food from every horny delivery boy in the city to see just how determined he was to get that point across.

The delivery boy's pleasant and enthusiastic demeanor vanished. "You have a good night, Ms. Mia."

She gave him a gracious smile, feeling a little bad for the kid. "You too, Ben. Thanks for delivering so late," she said before closing the door between them.

She spun around in Adam's clutch to face him, his green-blue eyes on hers. "Marking your territory?"

"He invited himself into your apartment. Just wanted him to realize you weren't alone."

Before Mia could point out he hadn't invited himself in, her front door buzzed again, and Adam released her body.

"Letbme in, Eldie! I'm drunk and hungry and wanna party on the classy side of town!"

Oh, God.

"That's Zoey."

Mia wasn't sure what to do. She didn't want Zoey to come up, but she couldn't quite leave her outside in the bitter cold, either. So she buzzed her in. "I should probably apologize for her in advance. I love her like crazy, but she has no filter. Like at all. And it gets so much worse with booze."

Adam gave her a half-smile. "I appreciate the warning," he said before pointing toward her hallway. "I should probably put on some real clothes."

"Wise choice. Otherwise she might take it as an invitation to get in your bed and cuddle."

Adam laughed. "So she's bat shit crazy then," he said as more of a statement than a question. After an affirming nod, Adam returned it, then headed down the hallway just as a fist hit her front door.

Mia took a deep breath before she opened it.

Zoey stumbled into the apartment, her eyes immediately settling on the display of Chinese food options. "You do love me!" She declared as she ran over to them.

"Zoey, this really isn't a good time."

While Zoey had never met Adam, she knew everything about him and Mia's history with him. She was also very aware of Mia's feelings for him, something she desperately wanted to keep under lock and key while they were in the same room with each other.

"Oh, just come out for one more hour," Zoey whined as she combed through the bags. "It's my birthday and I demand you take me to one of the classy clubs around here. One hour and I'll surrender quietly. You're still dressed. You're ready. Let's go." Zoey grabbed one of the cartons and tried pulling Mia toward the door.

"I have company."

"Who?" Zoey asked. "The invisible man? I call bullshit. All the friends we have, I just ditched. And there wasn't a guy on your arm when you left. There's never a guy on your arm and it's sad. But we can fix it. We can go out, find you a hot rich dude to hook up with and then you'll be happy."

Zoey pressed her two pointer fingers against the corners of Mia's lips and shifted upwards. "See? That's 'happy Mia'. And do you know why she's happy? Because she's going to get some dick, something I'm pretty sure she hasn't gotten since college. She's at risk of her vagina shriveling up and falling off, but don't worry because we're going to find her a guy who's going to put something in it that will make it all better."

Mia swatted the hands away from her face and heard Adam clear his throat from the edge of the room.

Zoey turned to look at him, her face in a grimace only for a moment before it lit up like the Fourth of July. "It's Adam! Adam can make your vagina all better!"

"Wow," Adam muttered, backing up a little before he hit the wall behind him.

"Did you know you are like all over this chick's wall? It's a sad obsession of hers, but I guess we all need our hobbies. I know everything there is to know about you. It's perfect that you're here, really, because this girl needs some serious dicking."

"So I've heard," Adam replied, his eyes moving from Zoey to Mia.

"Oh, God," Zoey moaned out, turning her attention to Mia, "you were so right about his voice. It's so fucking soothing. You didn't tell me it was borderline orgasmic, however, but I forgive you. You were also right about that poker face. I can make any dude blush, and he's not even fucking budging.

"But I'm seriously so happy for you! You have your Adam back." Zoey ran over to Mia and wrapped her into a hug, squeezing so tight that Mia struggled to breathe. Then, in an instant, she let her go and ran over to Adam. "Oh my God, you have to come out. Both of you. I promised her only one hour, and I meant it. But I'll probably be crashing in the spare bedroom, so you'll have to sleep in her bed. You don't mind, do you?" Again, she didn't wait, only smacked him on the chest with the back of her hand. "Of course you don't. She's young. She's hot. She's single. Come on, tell me the two of you will go out tonight so I can hear that sexy ass voice of yours again."

Adam crossed his arms and looked over Zoey's shoulder toward Mia. "She scares the shit out of me."

"Come on, just for one hour, I swear. If I'm lying, you can take her over your knee and spank her." Zoey tugged on his arm like an adolescent.

"One hour," Adam agreed.

This would be the longest hour of her life.