Reader POV

I ask him for his jacket and shirt and gesture at my room for him to change into some sweats that belonged to Justine's boyfriend, unless he wanted to be washed along with his clothes. He laughed at this joke in his velvety voice, which was very addictive. I swoon a little bit and give a small, genuine smile.

This was weird for two reasons. First of all, most people find my jokes utterly un-funny in most cases, or unashamedly corny in the other instances. Secondly, I don't smile a whole lot.

Loki complies without a second thought and removes his jacket and shirt right on the spot and hands it to me, forgetting all about privacy.

Justine chooses this moment to burst through the front door, to witness myself standing in the kitchen with a half-naked man that she did not recognize. Even worse, I appear to be eyeing his marble skin and handsome features a bit at the moment she walks in on you. It was just a second glance because I got caught by something unexpected and did a double take, but it's impossible to convince her that her romantic-sexual instincts are incorrect.

'The only thing that would make this more incriminating would be if I were feeding the cake to him,' I thought to myself. Before any comments can be made, I leave to go clean dry clean his clothes with the home dry cleaning kit, and some bleach.

In the meantime, there isn't much conversation in the kitchen, as Justine made herself busy sorting the dishes and Loki was preoccupied with trying to unwrap one of the cupcakes without tearing the wrapper, or damaging the desert, without much success. He doesn't acknowledge me at first, but Justine friend gives me a wink and motions for me to follow her to her room. I follow her before she shuts the door.

"Where did you find this one? Some British host club?" she breathed.

"Whoa, Whoa! Wait," I manage to choke out, "I walked into him when I was picking up the ingredients, then I spilled the sauce all over him and brought the guy over to clean him off."

It wasn't the most satisfying reply, but it was what happened. Why did I bring Loki back to your place anyway? Would it not have been easier to offer him dry cleaning money, drop him off at a cheap motel and be done with it? What DID make me do this for such a pretentious stranger?

She gives an all-knowing look and replies, "Uh-huh," before turning to exit the room to return to the kitchen. "How long do you plan to keep him afterwards? Maybe spill some more liquids on that spiffy suit of his? Give yourself the excuse?"

Enraged, I throw the empty cleaning solution bottle at her before she ducks behind the door.

"I've seen how you look at each other," she pops in to add with a wink before closing the door to prevent further projectiles being launched at her head.

I've got no idea what she was referring to with that last comment. I'm not really the kind of girl that every boy lined up to ask to prom as a teenager, although I wasn't by any means bad looking. I just never really had much luck with the opposite sex in getting much further than a first date, if I even got that far.

The only man that presented himself to me as an option those years was this adorable, quirky guy named Patrick. I was in my senior year at the university, and he had been working for a few years. At least, that was all he seemed at first. The guy seemed interested. As the relationship progressed, we grew apart. He stopped picking up my calls and answering texts. People even made excuses for him, which I was stupid enough to believe.

It turns out that Patrick and I had very different views regarding our relationship. While I saw us as best friends and as this very romantic couple, he just wanted to be friends with benefits. When he felt that I was starting to want too much, he told me he needed to distance himself to, "keep me from getting any ideas." That conversation 3 years ago was followed by a downward spiral of drinking, badmouthing and bad decisions that I didn't want to repeat ever again.

This past November, something unremarkable happened. It had been two and a half years since the last time I saw Patrick, when he popped back into my life. I had since stopped talking to the people that we knew mutually and had graduated from my masters program, with honors and an entry-level job at the firm. I figured that it would be best that I channeled my energy into doing something positive for myself. Patrick just showed up at my graduation party and asked how I was, offered to buy me a drink and all that normal stuff.

Our words to each other were kind, neutral and professional. I was over being angry and wishing to cut out his ovaries with a spork. Hate required passion, much like love, and I had decided that this boy was no longer worth mine.

No, I was never very good at recognizing the signs when it came to romance, or lack of it. It all seemed like a complicated language that I could never get right.

My thoughts snapped back to the present. I exited the room and headed down to the kitchen, where Loki is having some light banter with Justine over the television show, 2 Broke Girls, that had just come on. She believed that Loki's theories linking cupcakes to world domination were completely absurd, and he, in turn, looked like he was ready to stuff cupcakes into her mouth until she gave up on the argument. He was just so cute when he was riled up.

Loki immediately stopped what he was doing and gave me a sheepish grin.

My stomach tugs at my heart just a little bit, but I try not to get swept up.

A/N: Many things and people in this story have very bad timing, but that's part of the beauty of it. Next chapter is much less of a snore, I promise. This chapter was more of a background to set up the events later on in the story.