Page 16 of Adrian (Love Under the Lights 3)

“I'll feed Duke while you figure out where you'd like to spread out your school stuff. Feel free to use the dining room table.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to point at the room to the right of the entryway. “It's a little formal for my tastes, so I haven't used it yet.”

I peeked into the room and had to agree that the oak pedestal table and upholstered chairs didn’t seem like something Adrian would pick out for himself. “Why’d you buy the set if you don’t like it?”

“I’m not the one who picked it out.” He shook his head as I followed him into his kitchen. “The interior designer Jen hired wasn't a fan of my request to turn it into a gaming room. Since I was short on time, I finally told her to put whatever the hell she wanted to in there, and that’s what I ended up with.”

“That’s just...so wrong on so many levels,” I sputtered.

He shrugged his broad shoulders as though it didn’t bother him in the least. “It isn't entirely her fault. I wasn’t the easiest client to deal with because I was frustrated with the whole process. If I’d been a little more patient and hadn’t mouthed off, the room would still be empty, and I wouldn’t need to get rid of a dining room set I never wanted so I can set up my game room in there.”

“You’re way nicer than I would be in the same situation.” Not that I’d find myself stuck with thousands of dollars of furniture I didn’t really want since the stuff in my apartment barely cost me a grand total of eight hundred bucks.

“Don’t let him fool you. He isn’t as nice as he seems,” Jen warned as she walked through the door that led to the garage. She was carrying several bags of groceries, and Adrian hurried over to take them from her. “Or else he wouldn’t have gotten me out of bed so early in the morning for random stuff like spinach, asparagus, feta, and goat cheese.”

“Uh, yeah...that’s totally my fault. Sorry,” I mumbled, my cheeks turning pink.

“Well, crap. Now I’m the one who needs to apologize,” Jen muttered with a frown. “Adrian knows I’m a morning person, and he pays me very well to run errands for him. He’s also cool with me giving him a hard time even though he’s my boss. But judging from the death glare he just aimed my way, he’s not so forgiving when it comes to you.”

Glancing over at Adrian, I caught the tail end of the dirty look Jen was referring to before he smiled at me. “Don’t mind Jen. When I hired her as my personal assistant two years ago, she mistook her job title and thought I needed a sister instead.”

“Luckily, I’m a better assistant than a sister,” Jen sighed, shaking her head. “I feel like a miserable failure since I never thought to play matchmaker with the two of you.”

“Thanks for stopping by.” Adrian nudged her toward the door. “Save the dramatics for your husband.”

“Hey, I get them from you, my work bro—”

Whatever else she’d been about to say was cut off when Adrian shut the door on her. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize. I thought it was funny as heck.” I climbed onto one of the stools lining the other side of the kitchen counter from where he stood. “How much crap did she give you for the text I sent telling her she should fire you?”

“More than I’d care to admit,” he chuckled as he unpacked the groceries and pulled several other items from the fridge.

“Do you want any help?”

“Nope. It’ll only take me fifteen to twenty minutes to make these.” He pointed at my backpack. “And you have plenty of studying to get done.”

“Fine,” I huffed, pulling out the laptop my dad had given me when I started my freshman year. While Adrian fed Duke and cooked our breakfast, I connected to his Wi-Fi and read over the grading rubric for my paper. By the time I’d jotted down a rough outline, Adrian was sliding a plate with two half-omelets and toast in front of me. They were stuffed to the brim with all my favorite ingredients and looked even better than the ones I got when I went out for breakfast with my dad. They tasted better, too. “You weren’t kidding when you said you wanted to impress me with your omelets. These are so good.”

“Eggs were the one thing my mom taught me how to cook that actually took,” he explained. “She hasn’t stopped trying, though. Every time I go to visit, she comes up with a new recipe she insists is so easy that even I can master it. For some reason, she doesn’t count grilling out as cooking.”

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