Page 146 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

She wears them a lot even though they weren’t very expensive so I guess she really likes them.

Update: Adrien high fived me when I went out to practice dribbling and said “the little shit deserved it. I didn’t like him either.” When I asked him if he’d ever met Finley he said he didn’t need to. And then we practiced together for a bit.

Even though Adrien is really rich, he’s not that stupid.

Clarification: Alice’s favorite dress is green-blue and it makes her look like a mermaid. That’s why I thought the earrings matched.

Dominic

“You.”

I pried my eyes open and attempted to raise my head, but sometime between when I’d gone to bed last night and rolled out of it this morning, my skull had turned into a ball of lead.

It took a few tries, but I eventually got it to loll in the desired direction.

Adrien snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Wake the fuck up. We need to talk.”

Talking was good. Talking was progress. Talking was what I’d been trying to get him to do for the last three weeks. “Aight.”

He sighed, half shaking his head. “Come on.”

I may have dozed off then. Because I didn’t recall entering a vehicle or crossing any borders, but both of those things must have happened, because when I came to, we were inside a forest.

“Here.” Adrien put a large mug in front of me, acting as though it was perfectly normal for a kitchen to be situated on this type of terrain. “Chug that.”

He rustled about while I downed the coffee. As soon as I was done, he was tossing a plated bagel in my general direction and refilling my mug. “I’m not hand-feeding you.”

“Uh… ’kay.” I knew I was confused, but I wasn’t sure why. Not until much later, when the plate was empty and Adrien was dumping the remainder of the pot into my mug. “Wait, why would you hand-feed me?”

“Fucking finally.” He got rid of the empty pot and braced both hands on the edge of the counter. “Now. Do you or do you not remember how many times over the last four weeks I’ve asked you to leave me the fuck alone?”

I looked around. “Where are we?”

“My apartment.”

I frowned, not sure I believed him. The leafy vine creeping down the shelf to his left was brushing his arm like it wanted to wrap around it. “Is your apartment in the room with us right now?”

“Dominic. People are starting to write fanfic about us. Youhaveto stop. My CFO’s assistant forwarded it to my wifebecause she thinks you’re courting me.”

“Oh.” I sipped my coffee, glancing down at my watch. It was barely 5:30.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

“About what?”

“The fanfic.”

“What fanfic?”

“Our fanfic.” He slapped the counter a few times. “Wake the fuck up. Someone posted about it on Gossip Gorilla this morning. I need you to nip it in the bud before it catches fire and blows up.”

Hold up. “Someone posted fanfic about us on Gorilla?”

“You own the fucking platform. How the fuck do you not know?”

I shrugged. “It’s not my job to know. I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations of 6Queue anymore. Or any of my other companies.”

My job was to identify businesses that had potential but were undervalued due to piss-poor management, buy them up for pennies, then assign an appropriate team to restructure and rebuild. I was a CEO overseeing a team of other self-sufficient CEOs. My level of involvement was up to me. I could half retire tomorrow, let everyone know that I was available for emergencies only, and that would be that.