Chapter 424: Make Me Wait
Shaking his head as if was enjoying himself and my illicit tea, Zhenlan took my hand as soon as I reached him and pulled me closer to his side.
He carried the food in the other hand and led me through the back doors into the garden with a slight smile on his face as if this was nothing short of perfection for him.
The afternoon was hot, but the rain had left everything bright and wet. Water still clung to the leaves, and the stone path shone beneath the sun. My plants shifted as we passed, opening space for us without wrapping around my ankles or trying to follow.
Zhenlan didn’t take me far.
He led me past the patio and around the side of the mansion, toward a section of the garden hidden behind tall flowering vines. I had planted them before the apocalypse because I liked the colour and then forgotten they existed once everything started trying to kill us.
The vines had grown into a thick wall around a small patch of grass.
Inside, someone had placed a table beneath the shade of an old tree. There were only two chairs, a pitcher of iced tea, and a small fan turning slowly beside the food.
It wasn’t another giant surprise.
There were no lights, projector, blankets, or carefully controlled storm.
It was lunch.
Late lunch, but still.
Zhenlan set the bag on the table and pulled out my chair.
I looked at him. "Did Chenghai tell you to do that?"
"No."
"Yuche?"
"No."
"Did you see it in a movie?"
His hand remained on the chair while he waited for me to sit. "Does it matter?"
"Maybe. I’m trying to figure out where all this came from."
Zhenlan rested one hand on my shoulder after I lowered myself into the chair. "I had a lot of time to think while I was standing across the room."
That shut me up.
He unpacked the food while I drank the iced tea. Chenghai had made grilled chicken, flatbread, roasted potatoes, and a cold cucumber salad that had enough dressing on it to make the vegetables acceptable.
There were also two small pieces of chocolate cake.
I checked beneath the table in case Lingyun had somehow followed us.
Zhenlan sat across from me, but he didn’t stay there long. Once the food was open, he moved his chair around the table until his knee touched mine.
"You know chairs can stay where people put them," I said.
"I know."
He placed a piece of chicken on my plate, added potatoes, and left the cucumber salad on his side until I pointed at it.
"I thought you didn’t like it." he said, his brows furrowing in confusion.
"I don’t like it without enough dressing," I answered truthfully.
The man, being as smart as he was, gave me some salad and extra dressing.
It was considerably easier to eat with him than I had expected. There was no important conversation waiting beneath the food. Zhenlan didn’t ask what the date meant or where I thought the relationship was going. He stayed beside me, touched my knee whenever he reached across the table, and kissed my temple when I stole one of his potatoes after finishing my own.
The garden moved quietly around us.
A vine crept across the grass until one of its leaves reached the edge of the table. I pushed it down with my foot. It returned a minute later.
Zhenlan broke off a small piece of chicken and held it near the leaf.
The vine opened a tiny mouth.
I slapped his hand away before he could feed it.
"It eats enough zombies. We don’t need to be feeding it scraps from the table. It will get into a bad habit, thinking that we’ll always feed it," I huffed out. The vine dropped it’s head like a puppy that had been scolded, but I wasn’t going to give in.
"It appears interested," murmured Zhenlan.
"It’s always interested. That doesn’t mean we encourage it."
The leaf snapped twice in his direction.
Zhenlan looked at me, then at the vine.
I moved the plate farther away from both of them. "I’m surrounded by thieves."
He put his hand on my thigh beneath the table and left the plant to sulk.
By the time we reached the cake, the sun had shifted enough to send a stripe of light across the grass. Zhenlan moved the fan closer to me, then took my fork when I tried to cut the larger piece from his plate.
He did it for me and placed the bite in my mouth.
I let him.
That seemed to please him more than it should have.
When I finished chewing, he leaned close and kissed the chocolate from the corner of my mouth. His hand slid behind my neck, keeping me there while the kiss lasted longer than the first one downstairs.
I forgot about the cake.
Zhenlan’s thumb moved beneath my jaw before he finally pulled back. He looked calmer than he had on the roof, but I could feel the pressure of his fingers where they rested against my neck.
This wasn’t another big date he had spent hours arranging.
It was food in the garden after I slept through half the day.
He still looked at me the same way.
Zhenlan reached for the cake again and told me we had somewhere else to go after we finished eating.
I stared at him.
Zhenlan leaned back in his chair and took another bite of cake, looking far too pleased with himself. The man had spent weeks standing across rooms and pretending he only watched me because danger might appear. Now he had apparently decided to make up for every missed chance before dinner.
I glanced toward the path hidden behind the vines. The plants had already begun leaning that way, their leaves turning like nosy little arrows.
Traitors.
Zhenlan followed my eyes, but he didn’t give me a hint. His hand stayed warm on my thigh while he slowly finished the last cake.
Whatever he had planned, he was enjoying making me wait.