Life's Too Short

by Abby Jimenez

  Unless I spread my legs and let him climb the last two steps between them.

  Oh my God.

  I’d been about to get into the shower when the maintenance guy showed up with the ladder I called for this morning. He wanted it back before he went home for the day, so I decided to blitz the project. So that meant I was in a dark-blue, thigh-high silk robe. No bra, no underwear. Just me and a thin slip of fabric with my head attached to a light fixture. Fuck my life.

  I tucked my robe between my legs and opened my knees, wishing for the floor to open up and swallow me.

  To his credit, Adrian didn’t glance down.

  He climbed two more rungs and his zipper pressed directly into my crotch. I almost fell backward.

  He put a hand between my shoulder blades and caught me. “Maybe you should hang on to me,” he said. “I don’t want you falling.”

  GOD.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and died a little inside.

  “You okay?” he asked, his chest practically rumbling against my cheek.

  I nodded.

  No, I was not okay. I hadn’t been okay all day.

  I’d been to see the adoption attorney this morning.

  It wasn’t certain I’d need to use her. Annabel could still get her life together. But knowing adoption was still something I had to seriously consider was enough to hurl me into a spiral. I’d stifled tears the whole way to Adrian’s office earlier. Then when I got there, I’d broken down and ruined his tie sobbing into it. Afterward, I’d gone home and gotten my hair stuck in a ceiling fan and my stupid tingling fingers couldn’t get their shit together to get me out. And now I was straddling Adrian, which was one part a complete turn-on and the other part just sad since he was perfect and therefore not into me.

  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.

  I shook my head. “You have to get back. You’ll miss—”

  And then I saw it.

  I hadn’t expected Adrian to come over. I hadn’t picked up my place yet—which meant the pair of dirty grandma underwear I’d dropped when I’d changed out of my clothes was still lying sunny-side up between us on the carpet.

  I sucked in a horrified gulp of air and looked at Adrian just in time to see that his gaze had followed mine down to the floor.

  A hot, red blush seared up my neck. I stared at him in wide-eyed mortification for a split second, and then I dove to snatch my underwear. But when I bent over, I stepped on the wizard sleeve of my robe and a boob popped out. I shrieked and grabbed the rogue breast, but it was too late. He’d seen it. He’d seen all of it.

  I stood like a statue clutching my robe closed, a hand over my breast like it might escape again of its own free will. “No,” I breathed. “No no no. This isn’t happening.”

  “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “It’s not a big deal.” The corners of his lips twitched.

  I blinked at him. “My life’s a damn rom-com…” I whispered. “You’re here in a tuxedo and my boobs are loose, just flying around.”

  He was grinning now and looking very amused.

  I shook my head at him. “This isn’t funny! We just went to second base!”

  That did it. He burst out laughing.

  I did my best to look indignant, but his laughing was sort of making me laugh. I crossed my arms over my chest. “You better forget everything you just saw.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

  “Adrian, I will kill you. I am not afraid to go to prison.”

  He was howling now. “Kill me with what? The gun or the stabby thingy?”

  “Adrian!” Gah! “Get out!”

  I wrangled him out the door and I could hear him laughing all the way down the hall, back to his gala.

  I probably needed at least a full month to be able to face him again.

  He gave me about five minutes.

  Someone knocked on my door and when I went to look through the peephole, there was a finger over it.

  “Who is it?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

  “Room service,” he called through the door in a ridiculous falsetto.

  I rolled my eyes as I raked the chain off the lock.

  He was leaning with his forearm on my door frame, still in his tux.

  I crossed my arms. “What? If you’re here to laugh at my boob, you can just go back to your thing.”

  He gave me one of his dazzling grins. “I’m not going back. I brought you something. Let me in and close your eyes.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “What? You’re not going back?”

  “Close. Your. Eyes.”

  I gave him a look, but I pulled the door open and closed my eyes. I heard him come in, then the sound of my sliding glass door opening. “What are you doing?” I asked, feeling a blast of cold air.

  “Don’t peek,” he said from what sounded like outside.

  I heard the door close, and the sound of my curtains yanking shut. When he spoke again, he was standing in front of me. “Okay. You can look.”

  I opened my eyes to find him smiling down at me like he found me amusing. The whole front of his tuxedo was wet.

  “Why are you wet?”

  “Go sit on the couch.”

  “For what?”

  He shook his head with a smile. “Go on.”

  I eyed him, but I went to the sofa and flopped down onto a cushion.

  He went into the hallway and brought in a large plastic takeout bag. He took off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of one of my kitchen table chairs. Then he undid his bow tie and unbuttoned his wet shirt and peeled that off too. When he sat down next to me on the sofa, he was in nothing but a white T-shirt and trousers. He leaned over the coffee table, pulling out containers. Then he opened one and held up a humongous orange lobster and waggled it. “Lobster?”

  I snorted. “You brought me a lobster?”

  “And caviar, prawns, baklava, petit fours—I even brought the garnish for you. Look.” He plunged his arms into the bag and pulled out a halved watermelon with the name of the fund-raiser carved into it and held it proudly.

  I laughed. “Oh my God, they’re never going to let you back into the Depot.”

  He set it in the middle of my coffee table like an out-of-place centerpiece.

  He was still smiling.

  “You better stop,” I said, giving him side-eye.

  “What? I’m just thinking of something funny Lenny said.”

  “You are such a liar.”

  Maybe I should start doing a Kegel every time I embarrass myself in front of him, get something out of all this humiliation. Two weeks and I’ll be able to snap a man in half with my pelvic floor.

  “You know, I’ve seen you topless before. In the painting.” He nodded to the wall.

  “Okay, that is not the same thing. That’s a drawing and he took liberties—”

  “No, he didn’t. Frankly, he didn’t do you justice.” He glanced at me. “At least not on the side I saw.” He grinned and finished emptying the bag.

  I had to hide my smile in my hand.

  “So what do you feel like eating?” he asked.

  “Uh, all of it? But you’re sure you don’t need to go back?”

  He took the lid off a to-go cup of drawn butter. “I think the fund-raiser can carry on without me.”

  “Are you just trying to make me feel better that you had to leave to make sure I didn’t die attached to a ceiling fixture?”

  He laughed.

  I drew my eyebrows down. “How did you get here so fast?” I looked over all the stuff he brought. “I called you and you came in, like, ten minutes. How’d you get all this ready and steal a garnish and still make it to rescue me in under an hour?”

  He cleared his throat and talked to the food he was setting out. “I was already on my way with it.”

  I pulled my face back. “You were on your way home when I called you? Your thing started at six thirty. It’s seven fifteen. Did you just show up with a bag and start pillaging? You weren’t planning on staying?”

  “I guess not.”

  I watched him opening more containers. “Why?”

  He didn’t answer me for a long moment. “I just figured you had a rough day and might want to watch TV with someone.”

  I blinked at him.

  Those tickets were $200 apiece. I checked. I wanted one so I could go with him—not that he’d invited me to. But I would have shamelessly crashed the place if the thing hadn’t been sold-out.

  There was a silent auction and a raffle, live music and dancing. The event ran until midnight. He rented a tux. And he just…left? To watch TV with me?

  Either he really hated hanging out with Marcus or he really liked The Office.

  Or hey, maybe he
has a massive crush on me, can’t stand to be away from me, had to get back to me as soon as possible.

  Ha ha.

  “Do you want to see my surprise?” he asked.

  “This isn’t it?”

  He smiled and got up. I watched him draw the curtain back on my sliding glass door.

  My hands flew to my mouth.

  There, on the tiny snow-covered bistro table on my balcony, was an ice sculpture of a swan.

  “Came right off the dessert buffet.” He put a hand up. “Don’t worry, I didn’t steal it. I donated a couple hundred bucks for it. They were more than happy to let me have it.”

  I shook my head. “You carried that up here?” I breathed.

  “It’ll be there until spring. Every time you see it, I want you to remember that I put that dripping ice cube in my coupe for you.”

  My heart tugged. It reached out for him uselessly like arms trying to stretch across an ocean.

  He was perfect. He was perfect in every single way.

  All I ever wanted was to live. To grow old and have more time. And now I had something else I wanted as much as that.

  I wanted him.

  And neither one was probably ever going to be mine.

  CHAPTER 14

  THESE PEOPLE ARE EATING DINNER IN A DUMP AND YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHY!

  VANESSA

  We pulled into Dad’s driveway. It was 6:30 on Saturday night. We’d left Grace with Yoga Lady. I didn’t want her to breathe the black mold and dust mites that Adrian and I had signed up to endure for the next two hours.

  Adrian put the car in park and looked up at the house. “Are we really eating dinner in there?” he asked grimly.

  I looked over at him. “I thought you said you were willing to get one of the heps with me?”

  He snorted.

  I pulled my Carmex out of my bra. “I don’t trust Dad to cook food that won’t kill us, but I trust Sonja,” I said, applying the lip balm and putting the cap back before tucking it back into my shirt. “I think it’ll be okay.”

  I peered back through the windshield. The Christmas lights were on. I’d like to say this was Dad being festive, but this was actually Dad being festive like four years ago and they never came down. For just one month of the year, Dad’s house didn’t piss off the neighbors.