In all honesty, he wasn't sure why he'd reacted the way he had when she'd kissed him. It wasn't that he didn't want to kiss her, because he did. In fact, he would've liked to do a lot more than kiss her. He supposed it was mostly because he'd been trying the whole time he'd known her to not get attached that way. He'd tried to keep things strictly professional. At first he'd tried to convince himself that he only needed her because his last manager had been such a useless thing. Then when she'd gotten shot, he'd realized just what she'd come to mean to him.
Maybe he did love her, he thought absently, sitting in the study wondering what she was doing upstairs since she'd run away from him. He'd never really loved anyone before, except for maybe Harley. Sometimes he wasn't even sure if he'd loved her, really. But Adelaide... she was different somehow. She was so independent and powerful, so... sexy.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt like an idiot. He wasn't sure if he even could feel love. But if he could, he realized, he definitely did. He loved her. He laughed a little bit to himself at the thought, and the laughs sounded almost painful. So he did love her, but he had no idea how to show her.
Adelaide sat on her bed, forcing herself not to cry. She wasn't going to let him get to her that way. She wasn't going to let anyone get to her that way. She grabbed a duffel bag from her closet, shoved some clothes into it, and made her way downstairs. She had to pass the study on her way to the front door and J called after her, asking where she was going.
"As far away from you as possible," she called back, not looking at him. Out of nowhere, one of his goons stepped in front of her at the door. "Get the fuck out of the way," she told him, and he shook his head.
"Afraid I can't do that, Miss," he said, nodding towards something behind her. She turned to see J standing there, his eyes sad.
"Come talk with me, Adelaide," he said, and she had to resist the urge to throw him the finger. She knew that it wasn't going to do any good to argue, so she dropped her bag and stepped toward the study. She closed the door behind her when she entered, but stood near it, refusing to look him in the eye.
He was silent for a long time, and she wasn't sure if he was expecting her to talk first. Finally, he made a noise in the back of his throat and asked her to look at him. She did so reluctantly, and was surprised to see just how sad his eyes had gotten. She'd never seen so much emotion in his eyes, except for when he was full of rage.
"I don't know what you want me to say," she told him a minute later when he still wasn't saying anything else.
"I'm just... trying to figure out what I want to say. I'm not expecting you to say anything," he told her quietly, sounding very small and very human. "I don't try to make you feel like shit. I hope you know that. I just don't really... know how to do the whole love and emotions thing. You know that."
"I know. I was stupid to think you could," she said, much more venom in her words than she'd intended.
"I didn't say I can't. I said I don't know how."
"Well, I never said I knew how."
"We could learn together."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I love you, Adelaide. I'm not sure how or when it happened, or what to do about it, but it's there and it's real and I thought you should know," he said, and she looked up at him and realized that his eyes were still so sad. She couldn't figure out why.
"I already told you that I love you. I don't just throw that term around, you know," she said, moving just slightly closer to him. Without a word, he closed the gap between them and before she knew it, he was standing right in front of her face. His features were expressionless, unreadable. She wasn't sure what he was about to do. He stood there for a moment, and then he kissed her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer to him. He kissed her like his life depended on it, leaning in to her and holding her tightly.
They pulled apart a minute later, and she couldn't help but smile at him. "How the fuck did this happen?" she asked him, and he shrugged, wiping at his smeared makeup.
"No clue, dollface. No clue," he whispered, his left arm still hooked tightly onto her waist.