“But I paid for it. So I want to see it.”

“You will. Tomorrow night.” I smiled. “By the way, why are you home so early?”

“I’ve decided that I’m not going to be at the office so late anymore. I’m going to be doing a lot of work from home.”

“Wow. What brought on that revelation?” I smirked.

“I’ve been working too much and I think it’s time I cut back and maybe not worry about so many things.”

“So you took my advice?”

“No.”

I placed my hand on his muscular chest. “Listen, big guy, we’re friends, right?”

“I suppose we’re friends. Friends with benefits.” The grin on his face grew.

“Right. I guess you could say that. Anyway, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you’re really uptight and way too proper.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t take offense. You need to let loose a little and stop taking things so seriously. For example, like today in your office, I thought your head was going to explode when you found out about the stripper thing. I did it as a favor. Was I proud? No. But my friend needed me to do it because she’s a single mom and she has the most adorable little boy I’ve ever seen. She really tries to give him a good life and when I heard the manager at the club threaten to fire her, I had to do whatever I could to help. Would I ever do it again? No way. Those men are sex-starved losers who view women as nothing but fuck toys.”

“Did you just say fuck toys?”

“Yes. My point is, sometimes you just need to go with the flow. Another example would be how you can’t even make yourself a sandwich. You run a multi-billion-dollar company, yet you can’t put a piece of meat between two slices of bread.”

“Emerson, it’s not that I can’t make one. I just don’t want to. I have people to do that for me.”

“My point exactly. What gives you the right to order people around like that?”

“It’s how I was raised. We had all kinds of staff in the house that did things for us.”

“Of course you did because you’re a snob.”

The look on his face was getting angrier by the minute.

“I’m not saying this to piss you off. I’m just trying to make you see that you can’t control everyone and everything.”

“Yes I can,” he spoke, deadpan.

I sighed as I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to help you lighten up. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

He glared at me, a glare so full of contempt that it was burning a hole through my soul.

“You think you can do that?”

“I know I can.” I bit down on my bottom lip.

“Okay, then. Good luck.” He turned and walked away.

“You wait and see. By the time I leave California, you’ll be a whole new man!” I yelled.

He walked back into the bedroom and cocked his head. “Let me ask you this. Why do you want to change me?”

“I don’t want to change you, Alex. I just want you to be more relaxed and appreciate the small things in life and not get so worked up over the little things.”

“Are you cooking dinner?” he asked.

“Are you helping?” I smiled.

He took in a deep breath. “Fine. But I don’t know how much help I’d actually be.”

****

Alex

We stepped into the kitchen and Emerson opened the refrigerator.

“Hmm. Well, it looks like we’re making a trip to the grocery store.”

“We’ll just order take-out,” I spoke. There was no way I was going to the grocery store.

“Nope. No takeout for you. Come on, Parker, let’s take a trip to the store.”

“Can’t. Phillip is off for the night.”

She raised her eyebrow at me. That right there drove me crazy. I found her incredibly sexy when she did that. She reached inside her purse, grabbed her car keys, and held them up with a smile.

“We don’t need Phillip.”

“Oh no. We aren’t taking Adam’s car.”

“Yes, we are. It’ll be fun. You can drive if you want.” She threw me the keys.

I handed her keys back to her. “We’ll take my car.”

“Your car? Since when do you have a car?” She frowned.

“I’ve always had a car. Let’s go and get this over with.” I sighed.

We walked into the grocery store, where Emerson led me to the vegetables.

“See all the pretty colors.” She smiled. “Food should be fun and colorful.”

At that moment, I caught myself staring at her as she inspected each pepper before putting it into the bag. I found myself smiling on the inside because as much as I hated grocery shopping, I didn’t mind it with her.

“Do you like salmon?” she asked as we approached the seafood counter.

“Yes.”

“Good, because I make a mean salmon. You’re going to love it.” She patted my chest.

“I’m sure I will.”

Her passion for cooking was undeniable, which led me to think about a few things. As we were on our way home, her phone rang.

“Hey, Adam,” she answered and put it on speaker.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Alex and I are just heading home from the grocery store.”

“What?”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

I let out a light laugh. That attitude of hers.

“Yeah. I heard you. But why?”

“Because I’m cooking dinner for us.”

“You better not be sleeping with him, Emerson,” he snarled.

She looked over at me and bit down on her lip.

“Okay, so you think because we went to the grocery store that we’re sleeping together?”

“Alex doesn’t go to the grocery store and the fact that he’s with you right now leads me to believe there’s something going on.”

“Listen, Adam. You sent me to live with him. He hired me to cook for him because his chef had to go to Florida to be with his sick mother. So if you think that grocery shopping with Alex equals sex, then you need therapy. Good-bye, Adam. Call me when you’re not going all Freud on me.”

She ended the call and I couldn’t help but laugh. “He sounded pissed.”

“Too bad. I’m tired of him thinking he can run my life. He’s not my father and I’m twenty-six years old. Just because he took care of me after the accident doesn’t give him the right. By the way, what did my brother do for you that you owed him a favor?”

I looked over at her for a second and then stared back at the road. “He helped me out with the IRS. Let’s just say he kept my ass out of jail.”

Chapter 17

Emerson

I awoke to the sun peeking through the curtains of the window, my body wrapped comfortably around Alex’s. I lay there and watched him sleep for a moment before he opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“How long have you been awake?” he asked.

“Just a few minutes. I’m going to go cook some breakfast.”

As I began to climb out of bed, he reached for my hand. “I’ll help.”

“Really?” I turned to him with a smile.

“Why not? It wasn’t so bad helping you last night with dinner.”

“Then let’s do it, Parker.”

As we climbed out of bed, I slipped into an oversized pink t-shirt and we headed to the kitchen. After grabbing the eggs from the refrigerator, I took out a bowl and asked Alex to crack six eggs.

“Just crack the eggs into this bowl while I cut up the veggies.”

“What are we making?” he asked as he poured us each a cup of coffee.

“Vegetable quiche.”

As I started to cut up the vegetables, I noticed Alex was having a hard time with the eggs and his finger kept going in the bowl.

“Why are you sticking your finger in the bowl?” I asked.

“Because there’s shells in there.”

I rolled my eyes and silently laughed. “Don’t you know how to crack an egg without getting the shells everywhere?”

“Apparently, I don’t.” He chuckled.

I set the knife down and took the rest of the eggs, cracking them with one hand and letting them drop into the bowl.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“It’s all in the cracking skill, baby.” I smiled.

“Did you just call me ‘baby’?”