"HOW THE HELL is dropping your towel your instinctive response in this situation?"

     "I flail when I get scared! I'm pretty sure we've already covered this! Don't question my life instincts right now I'm naked!"

     "I'm quite aware of both those things," Noel says in a dry voice, neck craned and his framed gaze unwavering from the living room couch.

     My face glows as I haphazardly clutch the towel tighter to my body. As soon as I felt the breeze, I'd scrambled to cover up the most important parts, but in vain, only seconds too late for any salvageable dignity.

     I try to reassure myself that my near-naked body is barely a blip on his severely low opinion on my existence. Still, I can't help increasingly vulnerable sensation as his dark eyes burn into me.

     "Um, you can look away now?"

      His eyes narrow. "This isn't your house, if you forgot. I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but I'm not interested."

     My lips purse, and I try to tell myself the twisting in my stomach had been there before. "Oh my god, I am not coming on to you. And also- don't act like seeing me naked is the most awful thing in the world, okay? I do squats."

     I don't miss the lightning quick flicker of his eyes down the towel, causing an involuntary flush to creep up my neck. His mouth twitches. "This is Mark's house- probably keep the prancing around naked to a minimum. That would be the respectful thing to do."

     My teeth grit, and my gaze recalibrates into a glare. "Mark texts me before he comes over so that we avoid awkward situations like this, and also, another key point, he doesn't just materialize out of thin air like a fucking magician. I didn't even hear you come in!"

    A severe frown tugs at his mouth. "I'm not a magician."

    "Well, your face says otherwise."

    I have no idea what that means.

    "What does that mean?"

    Instead of dignifying his question with an answer I definitely do not have, I grasp the towel tightly to my body and turn on my heel, stalking down the hall. The burning has crawled up to my cheeks now, and I can't handle his scorching, sweeping gaze on my bare skin any longer. When I finally find solace behind a closed door, I sigh.

    From my peripherals, I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror propped up against the wall. With a slight frown, I drop the towel, scrutinizing the tanned skin and soft curves that meet my gaze. While I've admittedly missed squat day for some time, it's like Noel's eyes and his words are speaking to me on two different levels. And his coffee dark gaze wandering my skin only further reminds me that the last time I'd had anyone see me naked was Chad and Chad is an entire lifetime ago.

     Although I'm not holding my breath for Noel to work out his middle-school feelings to help relieve my sexual frustration, and I'm positive that Nat would actually murder me for even thinking of playing with that kind of fire so close to her wedding.

     Which, slightly fair. I clearly did not make the soundest decisions. I slept with and even dated a man named Chad, and despite his magical penis, his name is Chad, and that should be enough.

     At least the Bachelor and Chinese food can soothe my involuntarily celibate lifestyle.

     With a sigh, I trek over to the drawer and rummage around the mess of wrinkled clothes to find a semi-decent t-shirt and a pair of light grey sweatpants. I figure that the more general blob-like I am, the more I'll appease Noel and succeed in my Maid of Honour mending of unmendable relationships.

     Against my better judgement, I trek back into the living room.

     He barely acknowledges my presence when I drop down beside him on the couch. I wonder if it's intentional or not, but when he swallows, his Adam's apple dipping in his throat, I know.

    "No thank you so much for putting clothes on? Thank you for saving me from the awful tragedy of seeing a naked girl? You are so merciful, oh great Vika?" I snicker as I nudge my elbow towards him.

     He fixes me with a measured look. "Do you always take things too far? Is that how you operate?"

     "I have no idea what you're talking about." Nat's words swirl in the back of my mind, but despite my former mortification, his frowning presence seems to only brighten the devious grin smeared across my face. "Also, I didn't watch you sleep, by the way. That's a gross exaggeration. I was covering you up with a blanket because I'm a decent person. I know, the concept of decency might be a little new to you."

     His eyes are trained on the television screen, nimble fingers lacing through Cleopatra's black and golden fur. "I'd appreciate it if you kept as far away as possible when I'm sleeping."

     He replies with a quick glare when I antagonize him with a wiggle of my fingers. "I prefer my men sentient when I kiss them. You'll still be able to wear white on your wedding."

    "I'm not dignifying such baseless accusations with a response."

     Laughter escapes my lips and I shift closer to him, which he acknowledges with a thin press of his mouth. "While I'd love to go over what a joke is with you, and while it's great that you're watching... what is this? Why are there so many numbers on the screen? No, it's Bachelor time, gimme the remote."

     Noel's frown deepens when I lean over him to grab the remote and Cleo deems this a breach of her personal cat bubble, swiftly escaping. The twitch of his jaw tells me that there're more words hovering on the tip of his tongue, but they stay hidden behind his teeth.

     "Cleo and I are getting along great, by the way," I reassure him, nodding to her disappearance into the other room. "We're BFFs."

     "Cleopatra."

    I lean back into the couch cushions, remote in hand. "Hmm?"

     "It's Cleopatra, not Cleo. How many times do I have to say that?" There's a hint of resignation in his voice, punctuated by the tired sigh that follows.

    I shrug. "It's a nickname. Either that or demon cat, but apparently you have a problem with the last one."

    His reply is a deadpan stare, accessorized with his usual deep frown. His body has sunk more into the cushions, shoulders a little less tense as he scratches his stubbled jaw. The masochistic part of me beams at the slightest dip in his hostility. 

     "Do you think the world would actually go up in flames if you stopped frowning for like, five whole minutes?"

     His brows furrow. "I'm not always frowning."

     "He says, while frowning."

     "Ha-ha," he says dryly, but there's a micro-quirk of his mouth upward. I ignore the way the realization of this sparks down my spine. "The common denominator of my frowns when you're around has a lot more to do with you than with me."

     I snort. "And I'm supposed to believe you're just a ball of sunshine the rest of the time? Really? Prancing through meadows?"

     "I'm in a better mood when I'm not being forced to watch garbage television." There's a ghost of a smirk on his face.

     I gasp, an offended hand coming to press against my chest. "What? How dare you? Attacking the golden standard of prime-time television? You come into my house-"

     "Mark's house."

     "- and insult my television?"

     "Mark's television," he corrects, straight-faced as usual, but when he borrows my gaze, I trick myself that I see a glimmer of amusement.

     I don't have any smart comebacks, and so I turn to fish for my cellphone in my pocket. Noel's eyes fall back to the TV despite his mocking comments, and a comfortable silence falls over us. I almost wish I could get photographic evidence for Nat that the two of us could sit next to each other for longer than a minute with no one having a felony hanging over their head.

     "All right," I sigh, earning a curious glance from Noel. "I am, once again, extending the olive branch, this time Chinese food included. What do you want? I'm going to order now."

     A note of confusion passes over Noel's face. "What?"

     I press the numbers in, practically burned into the phone at this point. "I'm buying you Chinese food," I say, a little slower and a little more condescending. "What specifically do you want me to buy for you to eat, Noel?"

     Noel's confusion drops for his usual unreadable expression. "I got that. I'm not hungry."

     I roll my eyes. "Come on, this is a peace offering. Accept the peace. The peace of food." I punch in the last number, bringing the cellphone to my ear and ushering him to think quicker with my free hand.

     If food can't mend our strained relationship, then all hope is lost. 

     He stumbles slightly. "I don't- I don't know what to get."

     I sigh, slightly exasperated as the ringing echoes like a countdown in my ears. "Just get what you usually get, come on, it's ringing, hurry."

     Noel's jaw twitches, and when he averts his gaze, he mutters something I can't quite catch. I almost think I see his ears dusting red.

     I lean in closer. "What? I didn't catch that. Say it again."

     "I don't order my own takeout. Usually someone orders it for me."

     Someone says hello on the other end of the receiver, but they are long forgotten.

     "What!?"

     His alarmed gaze focuses on my cellphone, now clicked off. "Did you just hang up on them?"

     He's more concerned with my apparent disrespect than my wide eyes and gaping face, but I find myself more concerned with Noel finally admitting to being an alien from another dimension.

     "You've never ordered take out in your life ever?" I ask, a couple decibels above what constitutes an inside voice.

    He's refusing to meet my eye, arms folded across his chest. "If I'm late at the office, there's always an assistant around to order something for me, I just eat what's in front of me. I've eaten food in China, I lived in Hong Kong for four years."

     "You can't even throw the homeland in my face." My palms drag down the skin of my cheeks. "Ordering your own takeout is part of the entire takeout experience. Oh my god, you don't even have a favorite - do you know what you've even been eating?. What have you been doing all this time? How have you lived such a deprived life?"

    His eyes narrow. "Helping run a successful multinational hospitality empire, what about you?"

    His bitter dig immediately rolls off my shoulder and I continue to gawk at him as if he's just stepped off of a UFO right in front of me. Which, honestly, might be more believable than what he's saying.

    "Yeah, but you haven't even knowingly eaten takeout. All right, okay, so I guess that just means we must get everything," I rationalize, preparing my speech for Nat when she comes over next to find a monumental amount of takeout boxes stuffed in the fridge. "It's just- it has to happen now. That's the only way you can find your one true order."

     This is clearly just me being a good person and graciously leading Noel through the gates of take out heaven.

    "I said I'm not hungry." His distaste intensifies when he shifts his gaze to see me already on the phone.

    "All right, so we'll get an order of spring rolls, the Moo Shu pork, of course, black pepper beef, oh, the Singapore chow mien, and chicken balls are a safe bet, everyone loves chicken balls, so definitely an order of chicken balls. Are you getting this? Yes, there's more, one sec, I have your menu around here somewhere..."