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I guess I’d have to share the Chinese food.
Fuck.
Cade, now emboldened to enter, knowing we wouldn’t be at risk of getting busted in flagrante, handed me the plate of donuts and made his way into the sitting room.
I bit into one of the donuts, and the sugar hit my bloodstream like an actual drug. I could actually feel what the fat and sugar were doing to my body, sparking little parts of me back to life.
People could tease me about my eating habits all they wanted. It wasn’t like I was chowing down for kicks. The display I’d put on tonight had burned more calories than an entire Olympic swim team would spend combined for a whole meet.
I needed to regain some of what I’d lost, otherwise I would legitimately waste away to nothing.
Plus, I really fucking liked food.
The donut vanished with embarrassing speed, followed by a second. I was licking the icing off my fingers when I caught him looking at me.
“What?” I said.
I couldn’t read his expression. He was leaning against the back of the couch, his chin rested on one hand and the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
“You love it,” I retorted, not thinking before I spoke.
His eyes became clouded, and the smile flickered.
Suddenly I felt incredibly stupid, standing ten feet away from him holding a plate of donuts.
Before I could offer him a penny—or a pastry—for his thoughts, a knock at the door interrupted us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When room service arrived, Cade, Leo, Sawyer, and I were sprawled out on the couches, watching a late-night comedy news show.
The food took up four full carts, all of them heavily stacked with paper bags and cardboard takeout boxes. The smell of it was so intense I thought I might have died and this was my perfect afterlife.
“Did you order one of everything?” Sawyer asked, goggling at the stacks of food.
Oh right, she was new here.
“Yes.”
She stared at me with a mystified expression, then started peeking through the bags. They were labeled with red Chinese writing and a drawing of a lucky cat. Go figure. The English name on the bag was Mr. Wong’s Chinese.
Mr. Wong was my new favorite person.
Cade had gotten up first and tipped the room-service guys—probably to make sure they knew he wasn’t getting up to any funny business with me—and had first crack at the carts. He swatted Sawyer out of the way.
“Lady of the hour gets first dibs. So, where do you want to start?” He looked over my options, smirking to himself.
“Kung Pao chicken,” I said, my tone greedy. “And some rice please.” I mean, if he was offering to serve me Chinese, I was not going to say no.
He dug through a couple of bags until he found what he was looking for, then joined me on the couch with some white-and-red takeout boxes loaded in his hands and two pairs of chopsticks tucked neatly between his lips.
I relieved him of the chopsticks and some of the boxes, and he settled in, kicking his feet up on the table and opening a box of chow mein. Leo and Sawyer didn’t wait for an invitation to help themselves to the remaining bounty. Soon the four of us were happily munching away on rice and noodles, all making happy little food groans as we carved a dent in my order.
Leo had taken control of the remote and paused on a station talking about the weather. “In somewhat related news, let’s revisit that amazing opening ceremony from the Convention of the Gods in Las Vegas, where the Rain Chaser of Seth, Tallulah Corentine, put on a show for the ages.”
I flushed. It felt very strange for anyone to know who I was. So much for my days of relative anonymity. I might have more trouble sneaking in and out of small towns unnoticed after this week.
