"Chinese? Or how about some donair pizza?"
I looked up from the ad campaign materials I was assembling in a binder for tomorrow's presentation and found Luke perched on my desk, grinning, still decked out in his suit with a black, leather laptop bag slung over his shoulder.
I straightened and glanced around and saw that the office was empty. I checked my watch and groaned. It was six in the evening, much, much later that day.
"What are you still doing here?" I asked as I closed the binder and rose from my seat, stretching my poor, sore back and stiff shoulders. "And no, I don't want Chinese food or some greasy donair pizza, thank you."
Just then, my stomach grumbled and I flushed.
He laughed. "Your mind doesn't but your tummy clearly does. No surprise since you only had half of your sandwich earlier. Come on, Terrence dropped off the car keys before he headed to school so I'll drive us."
I slipped off my ballet flats and put on my pumps as I collected my tote. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I have groceries to pick up and I’m already running late. I'm sure you have a cook who can whip you up some gourmet dinner."
"Not really," he said as he watched me roughly re-do my ponytail which had loosened in the past few hours. "I have a housekeeper who comes in a few times a week and brings some prepared meals for me to nuke and eat when I happen to be home for dinner."
I stopped and looked at him, watching for any obvious signs of amusement in case he was just pranking me with the puppy dog eyes and the sad, tired look.
I sighed. "Alright. I'll go sit with you for your dinner out but you have to drop me off at a grocery store so I can stock my fridge and make dinner when I get home."
His brows scrunched up together. "Well, that doesn't make sense. If you're so set on getting groceries, why don't we get a little extra and we can just make dinner?"
I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he knew what he was suggesting.
"You want us to cook dinner? At my apartment? After we get groceries? Together?"
"Yes, yes, yes and yes," he answered with a vigorous nod of his head. He caught my expression and sighed. "Or if you're not amenable to that, we can get groceries and I'll make dinner for us at my condo. You'll have to suffer with mac and cheese though because that's about as gourmet as I can get in the kitchen."
I couldn't help the reluctant smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I slung on my tote. "You're too good at this, you know?"
He smiled back. "Good at what?"
"Getting what you want," I muttered with a roll of my eyes, grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him behind me. "Come on. You know where this all looks bad so it's on your head."
"Just remember what I told you," he reminded me as we went into the elevator. "If anyone says anything to you, tell me."
I decided to leave off that specific topic and asked him about the rest of his day after we parted from lunch. Luke chatted on about all kinds of stuff and I couldn't help but do the same because even though he was my boss ( a few ranks too many above me, really)—he was disarming in his own candidness and volition to confide in me like we were old friends.
We arrived at the same, small lobby that exited to his own private parkade and got into a car different from the one Terrence drove us in when we went for lunch yesterday. This one was a sporty, silver coupe with a cozy backseat and barely enough room in the trunk for our few bags.
"Exactly where are we putting the groceries later?" I asked as we shut the trunk close.
"In the backseat, I guess," he said, scratching his head and smiling impishly at me. "The trunk is designed to carry just your gym bag or a set of golf clubs but not much else."
"I guess we're not shopping at Costco then," I said with a smirk as we opened the car door and slipped inside.
"So where would you like to go?" he asked as he revved up the engine. "Which grocery store?"
"There's a nice, quiet one down the corner of Bernhart and Chalby called Brown Bags," I told him as he wound the car through the parkade. "If you don't know where it is, I can give you directions. You just have to take two rights and—"
"I've never been there but I can navigate the streets, Max," Luke interjected with a hurt tone. "I know how to find that corner so just sit back."
True to his word, we arrived at the quaint, local grocery store in ten minutes without getting lost.
He was grinning like a smug boy as we got out of the car and I just smacked him on the belly with the back of my hand as we made our way inside.
He grabbed a small cart and waited for me as I scanned the weekly flyer which was stacked by the entrance.
"What are you looking for?" he asked, peering over my shoulder to look at the flyer.
"Stuff on sale that I can stock on," I told him as I flipped through the pages. "I normally look through these ahead of time when the flyers get dropped in my mailbox but whoever is delivering around our block missed the last two weeks so I haven't had any. I'm tempted to get the digital copy emailed to me now but I hate getting spammed so much. But it would be nice if I could plan ahead and make meal plans."
I knew I was rambling on and maybe a small part of me wanted to show Luke just how mundane and boring this whole exercise was. To discourage him? Maybe. I wasn't sure. All I knew was that he needed to understand that this was plain old me and if that sent him running, then so be it.
"Look, mushrooms, peppers, broccoli and cauliflower. Some carrots as well," he said, pointing to the produce section on the spread. "There was some chicken on sale on the front page too. You know what that sounds like?"
I suppressed my grin. "What?"
His eyes sparkled. "Stir-fry."
"I thought you only knew mac and cheese," I teased as we walked into the produce aisle and scanned the displays.
He shrugged. "I only know how to make mac and cheese but I surely know how to eat stir-fry with some hot rice."
He grabbed a whole head of cauliflower and tossed it into the cart. I rolled my eyes at him, picked it back up and yanked off a plastic bag to put it into before returning it to the cart. His eyes brightened at that and he went on to grab a few peppers and carrots, bagging up each type carefully before putting them into the cart.
As weird as it was to have Luke grocery-shopping with me, it had its endearing and amusing moments because it was obvious that he didn't do this very much. The whole experience also turned into a bit of a marketing research as we speculated on anything and everything like branding, product placements and discounts. Luke surprised me with his knowledge and experience on the various topics. I guess I thought he was the CEO because he was the natural choice and just became good at it but he impressed me with how in-depth he was in his understanding of the business and the people. His constant shift from business guru to teenage boy whose eyes grew big at the sight of some of his childhood favorites made him downright adorable.
A grocery-shopping trip that would normally take me fifteen minutes became forty-five but I didn't mind. It had actually been quite fun even if I had to stop Luke from buying unnecessary things a few times. The cashier finally snapped at us after we spent five minutes debating who was paying for what. I forced my way by threat of sending him home without dinner if he didn't let me pay for the groceries.
I gave him the directions to my apartment and he pulled up on the last free spot by the sidewalk.
My apartment building housed The Magnolia, a cafe, on its main floor and the four floors above it were all residential rental units. While I found the building cozy and charming with its old-fashioned crown moldings, paisley-print wallpaper and wine-colored carpets, I worried for a minute that Luke was going to absolutely abhor it and never come back.
Well, if he doesn't, then it means less inconvenience for you.
It wasn't really an inconvenience though. Sure, I was going to take up the hours I reserve for reading at night just preparing dinner, having it with Luke, sending him home and getting ready for bed if I wanted to make my usual time but I was strangely looking forward to it.
"Somehow, I pictured your apartment as something very much like this," he commented with a smile as we went up the narrow and old service elevator that took its time going up or down, its gears creaking faintly. "Whimsical, charming. Just like you."
I gave him a you're-kidding-me-right look. "Whimsical and charming? You have a very different vocabulary from people who knew me growing up. I was always the boring, bookish, goody-two-shoes in school. I followed all the rules, did everything expected and only cared about accomplishing what I set out to do. I wasn't known for fun, frivolous things."
He grinned at me as the elevator stopped on my floor. "You probably just needed the right kind of company to bring the fun out of you."
"That sounds ironically ominous," I muttered under my breath as we walked down the short hall to my unit. He was carrying all the grocery bags but he didn't make a single complaint as I struggled to fish my keys out of my tote after I tossed them back into it once we got to the elevator.
All right. Here goes nothing, I thought as I opened the door and held it for him as he walked inside, arms laden with the grocery bags.
I had a tiny, studio apartment that entered through a narrow, galley-style kitchen and opened to a small, combined living space. I had a two-person bar table with high stools snug against the corner and I used that as an occasional desk for my laptop or as a dining table. One wall had a row of cheap, basic book shelves crammed with books and magazines and in front of it was a small coffee table with a twenty-one-inch TV and a DVD player. Across from it was a lime green love seat pushed against the edge of my queen-sized bed which was the only thing I splurged on when I moved in here. The lay out was very open and lacked for any kind of privacy except for the bathroom. Since it was small, it was easy to keep it clutter-free but I was secretly relieved I actually scrubbed the place down this weekend.
"Nice place," Luke said with a teasing smile after most of his attention focused on my bed. He glanced at me with a brow raised in amusement. "Someone sleeps like a princess."
I flushed.
My bed had a tall, white, scallop-edged headboard and a four poster frame I'd adorned with sheer, white curtains currently tied on each corner. The fluffy blue and white pillows were stacked high and the crisp white covers looked inviting. My bed looked like it was plucked straight out of a home design magazine and although I was proud of it, I couldn't help but feel self-conscious.
"What?" I asked defensively as I helped him set the bags down on whatever free counter space we could find. "I don't indulge myself in a lot of things but sleep is one of them. I love a big, princess-y bed, curtains and all. So what?"
He grinned and playfully pinched my nose. "So nothing. I wasn't making fun of you. I think you're adorable."
I made a face. "Like a little sister?"
He made a face himself and he didn't look too pleased about that. "Uh, no way. Banish that thought from your head right now. I don't have siblings and don't any wish to acquire any."
I laughed and got the chopping board out. "So you're an only child. Just like me. But contrary to what most people say, I'm happy to be one. So are you, it seems."
"I'm too spoiled rotten to have to share," he said with a mischievous wiggle of his brows as he began to empty the bags.
"And I don't want to put another kid through the same kind of childhood I had," I murmured as the humor faded away.
"Hey, don't do that," he said as he lifted my chin up and peered at my face. "Don't shut it down. There's nothing wrong with regretting something you lost or never got to have."
I sighed and turned away from him. "It's a pointless exercise—a complete waste of energy."
"Only if you can't accept it and move past it," he said as he turned me back to him and pulled me into a hug which I reluctantly accepted, my own arms wrapping around his back. God, he smelled good.
"Not acknowledging it at all isn't going to make it go away," he murmured against my hair. "You just worsen the battle by spending so much time beating yourself up every time you force yourself to pretend it never existed."
I wondered how someone who'd known me two days could understand me perfectly well from what little I'd allowed myself to reveal but I didn't question it. It wasn't very often that I didn't have to explain how I felt or what I was doing and I revelled in the realization that Luke just understood, no matter how weird that was.
"Dyegoawowprachusipweedager?" I asked against his hard chest.
He laughed and pulled away to look at me. "What did you just say?"
I grinned. "Do you go all Oprah to sleep with the girl? Is that how you find your way into her bed?"
He shook his head. "No, not at all. I never talk about feelings when I'm with a girl—except the feelings of my reproductive organ between my legs when it's in the mood."
I swatted him on the chest as I shoved him away from me, casting him a mock-look of disgust. "Well, even if you did end up talking about your actual feelings, following it up with that will certainly undo the damage."
"Oh? Did I spoil the moment?" he asked, feigning a mortified expression. "Were you about to sleep with me when I blurted that out?"
"In your dreams, Hedenby!" I exclaimed, laughing.
"Always, baby," he said with a wink as he looped an arm around my neck to pull me close, pressing a kiss on my temple which may or may not have caused me a moment of extreme heart palpitations. "Now, let's get this show on the road if we're going to eat dinner before tomorrow."
Making dinner was an event of its own. We shared the task of chopping up the veggies and the chicken and I made Luke look after the rice while I cooked the stir-fry. We burned the entire bottom layer of the rice and Luke grumbled that he didn't know he had to stir all the way to the bottom and that I really should get a rice cooker. I told him maybe he shouldn't have kept abandoning his post to run to the front of the TV to catch some parts of the evening news. We argued about whether the stir-fry was supposed to have garlic or ginger or both and what the actual cooking temperature was for chicken. It was an hour by the time everything was done. We filled two shallow bowls with the rice and topped them with the stir-fry while we packed up the rest in lunch containers for the next day.
By the time we made it to the love seat and started our dinner, it was an hour later and we were already exhausted.
We caught an episode of Big Bang Theory as we ate and there was a moment or two throughout the time we spent on the love seat when I wondered what exactly it was that Luke and I were doing in such a domestic setting, eating and watching TV like an old married couple and hanging out as if we weren't worlds apart.
When the show finished, we grabbed our dirty dishes and went through the motions of actually washing and drying them because I didn't have a dishwasher.
Luke stretched and yawned before glancing at his watch. "It's getting late. I probably should go if we're both to get a decent amount of sleep."
I instantly felt disappointed, God knows why, but I nodded and reached for his jacket which he'd draped over the back of one of the high stools.
"Alright," I told him before remembering to rummage through the fridge and grab one of the two containers we'd put away for lunch and put it in a brown bag. "Here, take this with you. You did half the work making it. You should get your half share of the food."
He glanced at the brown bag I'd thrust into his hands before looking up at me with a boyish grin. "Okay. Thank you. For dinner and everything else."
"Stop with the puppy dog eyes," I groaned. "You don't have to do that with me to get what you want."
His blue eyes shone with laughter. "Don't I?"
"You're incorrigible, Luke," I said with a roll of my eyes although my cheeks warmed. "Now, go home so I could go shower."
"Maybe I should stay then."
I burst out laughing. "Luke! Go!"
"Alright, alright," he said before leaning forward to kiss me on the top of my head. "Goodnight, Max. See you tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Luke," I said as I waited by the door, watching him walk down the hall to the elevator.
Once he was gone, I closed the door shut and pressed back against it.
This was starting to get a little out of hand but I couldn't regret one minute of it.