22. Adrian
CHAPTER 22
ADRIAN
I wake up with a single thought on my mind: Jane is moving in, in mere hours.
Working with my cleaning lady, I make sure the house is spotless, particularly the bigger of the guest rooms, henceforth known as Jane’s room.
Your movers are here, Jane informs me via text. Did you pay them extra to make sure I wouldn’t lift a finger? Because I haven’t.
I grin.
No, but I’m going to pay them extra now. I like the idea that the move is going to be easy for you.
We text like that for the duration of her move, and then the movers descend on my apartment like a plague of very polite and diligent locusts.
They not only bring the stuff in but ask Jane where she wants everything laid out, and then they do as she says in such a tidy way that even Marie Kondo would approve.
“Well,” I say to Jane when the invasion is over. “I want to officially welcome you to my humble abode.”
She looks around her new room—which is about the size of her townhouse on Staten Island. “Humble. Sure.”
Leo trots in and starts sniffing Jane’s things.
“See?” I say in his voice. “When I tripped the nice-smelling lady, I knew what I was doing.”
Jane chuckles and ruffles the fur on Leo’s head.
“Let me show you around,” I say. “I don’t think you entered most of the rooms during the earlier tour.”
She agrees, and I take her to all the rooms, the last one being the pool/ball pit area.
“It’s exactly as I imagined,” she says after examining the million and one multi-colored balls. “And it still smells a little bit like chlorine.”
I narrow my eyes at Leo. “Someone drools excessively over the balls when he plays in the pit, so the cleaning people are forced to use chlorine to disinfect the place from time to time.”
I’m not sure what Leo imagines I said to him just then, but for whatever reason, he rushes at me, tail wagging madly.
I don’t care what you say—you’re the best. And you smell nice. And ? —
Fuck. I’m on the edge of the pit, waving my arms around like a scarecrow in a hurricane, praying it helps me regain my balance.
Jane leaps toward me and grabs my hand.
Nope. All she accomplishes is dragging herself down with me as I finally fall.
Plop.
The fall doesn’t hurt, of course. It’s fun, in fact—especially the part where Jane ends up on top of me, her breath frantic and eyes wild.
“I’m so sorry,” I say as soon as I catch my breath.
“I’m not,” she says, then rolls off me and dives into the balls.
Grinning, I dive in too, and Leo jumps in after us.
The next ten minutes are the kind of fun you can only have during childhood. We laugh so hard that my jaw hurts, and Jane’s makeup runs from happy tears. For Leo, this is a regular Monday, of course.
“As soon as Piper is old enough, you have to let her do this,” Jane says after we climb out and rest on the nearby lounge chairs.
“Definitely,” I say, and feel a pang of anxiety at the reminder that I could lose my custody battle and never get the chance to play with Piper here or anywhere else.
Leo climbs out of the ball pit with a yellow ball in his mouth—which is his favorite color.
“I like to play with Piper too,” Leo says. “And sniff her. And lick her. She’s superior to Adrian in every way.”
Jane chuckles, and then her stomach rumbles, to which she responds by turning redder than any of the balls in the pit.
“Sorry,” she says. “I guess I’m a bit peckish.”
I take her to the kitchen and serve her a crab cake sandwich with what I claim to be leftovers. In reality, I made everything fresh for her earlier today.
When she takes a bite, her eyes roll back into her head—which causes a stirring in my Yoda region because that is probably what Jane’s O-face looks like.
Yoda doesn’t feel any better when she swallows.
Or when she takes another bite.
And another.
Even when she drinks a sip of water, she makes it somehow look erotic.
“So,” she says when the sandwich is gone. “What are you up to today?”
Ah. Right. Getting back to the mundane is a good way to calm things down in the libido department.
I hope.
“Piper is visiting tomorrow,” I say. “So I was thinking of setting up some more decorations in the nursery.”
Jane narrows her eyes theatrically. “You haven’t shown me the nursery.”
“It’s a big apartment,” I say, doing my best not to sound too guilty. The truth is, out of all my recent projects, the nursery is what I feel most insecure about. I’m a guy, and Piper’s my first baby, so what do I know about readying a room for an infant in general, let alone a little girl?
Jane leaps to her feet. “Show it to me. Now.”