A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

29

“Ew, what the hell?”

I choked on a laugh in response to the palpable disgust on Alice’s face when we walked into the house. She was sitting on the floor in the living room, an open textbook laid out on the table in front of her.

“Why are you dressed up as the blue Koolaid Man wearing a suede diaper?” she asked Adrien judgmentally.

I laughed harder. She should have seen him with the raptor teeth, bull horns, samurai wig, and fox tail still on. Her reaction would have been priceless.

“It's a loincloth, Lice. Not a diaper.”

“That’s worse, not better. You look like an idiot,” she said, and then, as though suddenly struck by a realization, her eyes flared in horror. “You did not get into my car like that.”

“I’ll take it to get detailed tomorrow” was Adrien’s response.

“Adrien! My seats are beige!”

“They’re also leather. It probably won’t stain.”

“Your blood will when I gut you!” She hurled a highlighter at his head, but he snatched it out of the air with ease.

“What’s with all the—Addy! What did you do!” Julie stopped in her tracks, her hands flying to her mouth. Anthony, who’d walked in behind her, burst into laughter.

“It was Ria’s idea,” Adrien accused without hesitation, pointing the highlighter at my head.

“Wait,” Alice said, her narrowing eyes gliding suspiciously between her brother and me. “This isn’t like a weird sex thing, is it?”

“No!” I exclaimed at the same time as Adrien said, “Absolutely it is.”

I smacked his arm. He laughed. Alice threw her whole pencil case at him, slammed her textbook shut, and declared that she’d be in dire need of extensive therapy after our visit.

Adrien winked at me, Anthony started snapping pictures with his phone, and Julie pinched the bridge of her nose, quietly chuckling to herself.

I’d have been a lot more mortified if this whole thing wasn’t so ridiculously ridiculous. And if I wasn’t so charmed by it.

Once the ruckus had somewhat died down, Julie insisted that Adrien go upstairs and shower before he got body paint on her beloved hand-picked furniture.

“Dinner will be ready in thirty,” Anthony called after us as we made our exit. He also said something about a patch being installed somewhere, but I was too busy trying to fight off Adrien’s hands to put two and two together.

“You’re gonna smudge blue all over my clothes!” I giggled as he tried to grab my hips.

“It’ll wash out.”

The struggle quickly escalated, turning into a foot chase. I squealed and laughed as I booked it up the stairs, swatting at Adrien’s fingers every time they got too close. My foot caught the edge of a carpet when I took the last turn to our room, but I made a quick recovery and managed to beat him to the door. My heart was pounding, my blood rushing as I scrambled to shut the door in his blue face, but he was too quick and strong.

To make matters worse, he’d managed to pop his fake teeth back in during the chase.

“Noo!” I cried out dramatically as his arms wrapped around my torso. “Gross, you smell like plastic and paint!”

He puckered his lips over his grey-yellow needle teeth and I scream-laughed, twisting my face away from him.

“Iss thiss what you wanted, Ssanchesz? Are you hot for me?”

I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I tried to wiggle out of his arms.

“Schould I put the manbun wig on again?”

“You’re spitting on me, you hooligan!”

“Iss it turning you on? Do you fink I’m iressisstable?”

“I can’t—Adrien!”

He licked my cheek, pointed teeth tracing the long stroke of his tongue, and I was half-convinced I was going to pass out from laughter.

“Kissth me.”

“No!” I pressed my palm against his mouth and pushed his head back. “Go shower!”

“Wamn cmne wimme?” he muffled into my hand.

“Absolutely not.”

His tongue squirmed against my palm, and I yelped, my hand recoiling. And the second he was free he attacked my neck. Burrowed his face and mouth and teeth right in its crook and refused to be nudged away.

“You ssmell like jassmine and fabric ssoftener,” he said. “And Ssanchezs.”

I didn’t know what a Ssanchezs smelled like, but judging by the gentle way he inhaled and pulled me closer, it must have been a compliment.

“What time is it?” I asked for no particular reason whatsoever.

“Five forty-five,” he muttered into my neck. “Give or take a couple minutess.”

“How do you know that off the top of your head?” I’d have checked myself, but my arms seemed adamant on returning Adrien’s hug, even though he was getting blue body paint all over my clothes.

“I’ve been counting.”

“Mmmm” was what I responded with instead of a smart quip or tease, my cheek laying against his head.

And then we just... stood there. Hugging.

Seconds turned to minutes, and neither one of us moved to separate. Because maybe I opted to close my eyes instead of backing away; and maybe I started to gently stroke the back of his head instead of pushing him off me; and maybe it made me smile when he rumbled something incoherent out of pleasure and held me tighter.

“Ssanchezs, how about that trucce?”

He really didn’t want to let that one go, did he? “I’m still thinking about it.”

He sighed into my neck. “You’re sso sstubborn,” he grumbled, as if I couldn’t feel his mouth spread into a smile against my skin.

Eventually, we managed to peel away from each other so he could go shower. I unzipped my bag and reached for the travel-sized pack of makeup wipes I’d picked up during our walk, unable to keep the smile off my face.

Okay, so maybe Jamie had been a teeny tiny bit right. Maybe emotions had been running high at the beginning, there were a few misunderstandings, and Adrien wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. Maybe there was a bit of chemistry between us, and maybe it wasn’t all just physical.

Not that I’d consider pursuing anything long-term or serious with him. Fooling around like this was one thing, getting emotions involved and our lives entangled was another. It would be too complicated with him, and not just because we’d been lying to his parents about... Wait, why is this…

My previous train of thought derailed when I realized I’d been scrubbing the same spot on my forearm with a makeup wipe for what must have been a full minute now, but the color still hadn’t fully come off.

I rubbed harder, checking every few strokes to see if my skin was back to its normal olive. It wasn’t.

Oh, shit.

My palm slammed against my mouth, muffling the shocked giggle bubbling up my chest. If the blue couldn’t be erased with a makeup wipe, chances were high that a bar of soap wasn’t going to do the trick, either. Adrien was going to lose his fucking mind.

Sure enough, a few minutes later the glass shower door slammed open, panicked wet footsteps pounded against stone tiles, and Adrien stormed back into the bedroom with a grey towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist. His eyes were wide with genuine terror. “Fuck my life. Look!”

I looked. His arms, neck, and face were all still covered in sloppily applied cobalt. You could tell where he’d tried to scrub the paint off his left arm, because the top, most vivid layer had been subdued. But a noticeable tint remained.

I lost it. My knees caved, and I hit the floor laughing so hard my body rolled.

“Sanchez!”

I knew I’d said this before, but this was it. This was how I was going to die. I was one hundred percent sure of it this time.

I was fighting for air, my stomach muscles spasming in protest against the uncontrollable laughter. I was in genuine pain, but I couldn’t stop. He looked so fucking goofy.

“Help!” I wailed theatrically, clutching to my sides. “Make it stooop.”

“I can’t believe they put this shit on kids. Every single one of the parents from today is going to send me hate mail.”

I couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to double-check to make sure it didn’t stain. I was crying into the carpet, dying.

“This is all your fault,” he said.

I’d gladly take credit for this. I hadn’t earned it, but I’d take it.

It took almost ten minutes for me to calm down enough to sit up and look at him without my lungs seizing. He was seated on the edge of the bed, facing me. His elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, and his head hung in defeat. He’d fucked up. He knew he’d fucked up. But even so, his cheeks were tight like he was trying to hold back his smile.

And... all right, fine. Yes. I really, really liked that he had a sense of humor. When I sat up and we looked at each other, my stomach did a weak little flip when he grinned at me, and I found myself returning his smile easily.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“For a lifetime,” I decided. I was never going to laugh again. But on the bright side, “I’m gonna wake up with abs. Guaranteed they’ll be even nicer than yours.”

His smile twitched. “Sanchez.”

“Cloutier.”

“I’m fucked.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“I’ve got two video conference calls I’ve got to be on tomorrow morning.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

“They’re important.”

I sighed. “We’ll fix it.”

His right eyebrow quirked. “We?”

“Don’t get too excited,” I said, pushing up to my feet. “I’m only helping because I was promised an orgasm and I refuse to have sex with you like this.”

“I’m more than just a piece of meat, Sanchez.” His dimples were trying their best to stay hidden, bless their dark little souls.

“Mmmkay.”

I plopped down beside him on the bed, fished out my phone, and typed Gargomel'sguide to turning Smurfs into gold into the search bar, but the phone was snatched out of my hand before I could hit Enter. And thus began the wrestling match.

“You’re the one that said you’re more than just a piece of meat!” I exclaimed when my wrists were pinned to the mattress. “I’m just trying to help you reach your full poten— Don’t you dare kiss me right now, Adrien Cloutier. Don’t you dare. You’re going to get your stupid blue all over my mouphnmnm.”

We made our way downstairs fifteen minutes later, Adrien with his proud shoulders pushed back and a cocky smirk toying at his mouth, while I rubbed at my kiss-swollen lips with a makeup wipe.

Alice rolled her eyes when she saw us, then proceeded to haul herself off the couch to go find her spray bottle.