by Knight, Amie
He knew I was back and he didn’t look too happy about it. It was all finally beginning.
SOMETHING WET WAS ON MY nose. Something really, really wet, but I wasn’t ready to wake up yet, so I snuggled further down into my covers and covered my face with my sheet. I heard an alarm maybe, a bell sound and then I heard Harry whimper.
“Fine,” I groaned, rolling over in bed and looking at my clock. It was eleven. I never slept this late, but since Adam was back in town, I found that sleep was evading me. Since it was the weekend I was taking the opportunity to catch up.
A bell rang again and Harry nudged my face with his nose. Was the doorbell ringing? Raven worked nights at the tattoo parlor, so I knew she wasn’t up yet.
“Great,” I moaned, getting up and grabbing a hair tie from the nightstand and pulling my hair up on top of my head. The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming. I’m coming,” I mumbled, walking to the door with Harry following behind me a little too cheerfully.
I stood on tiptoe and pressed one blurry, still half-asleep eye to the peephole in the door and then immediately jumped back like he could see me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered and thunked my head to the door. What in the hell was he doing here? Again? “I’m not even wearing pants.”
“That’s okay. I can wait,” Adam said from the other side of the door. I rolled my eyes. I really was complete crap at whispering.
I scrambled back to my room and threw on a pair of dirty black yoga pants off the floor and searched for a piece of gum in my purse. I popped it into my mouth and chewed furiously as I ran back to the door.
I peeped through the hole again. Jesus, he was wearing a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket and jeans. And he had lots of stubble on his jaw, like he had skipped shaving this morning. I loved that stubble. And all of a sudden I was sixteen again and swooning like hell. He looked good. So good. And I was wearing a T-shirt and yoga pants sans bra. I hadn’t even brushed my rat’s nest hair.
“Are you going to open the door? I can feel you looking at me.”
My eyes widened in horror. Holy shit. I was a freaking hot mess. I furiously chewed my gum again as I unlocked the deadbolt, so I wouldn’t offend him with my morning breath.
I cracked the door open just barely and pressed my face to it. “Can I help you?”
His face said he was mildly entertained by my crazy antics. “Raven home?”
Oh. That made sense. He was here to see Raven. Not me. I mean, why would he? He hadn’t wanted to see me in ten years. Why should that change now? Only he had come to see me and apologize, and I’d turned him away because I was the biggest chicken shit ever.
I swung the door wide and thrust out an arm. “She’s still in bed, but she should be up soon.”
As soon as Adam walked in, Harry jumped up on him, like he instantly recognized him. And my old dog hardly jumped at all anymore.
“Hey, buddy,” Adam cooed at him, scratching his ears the way he liked. He’d even remembered that. Why’d he have to be so damn perfect?
I walked to the kitchen in desperate need of coffee while Adam shut the door behind him. I could hear him and Harry following me, but I tried my best to act like he didn’t matter. It was hard. Because he did matter to me. So much. Even though he shouldn’t.
The past few days had been excruciating. I hadn’t wanted our reunion at the Gala to be that way. I wanted to us to be amicable. But the way he’d approached me about Braden was not okay. Somehow I’d managed to take care of myself the last ten years. I’d made good decisions. Really good ones. And I could handle myself around Braden. I didn’t need Adam to take care of me anymore. My successes over the last many years were testament to that. And then our awkward conversation at the planetarium about the field seemed even worse than the Gala. At least at the Gala the conversation had been real, our emotions raw. Yes, he’d treated me like a kid, but the moment had felt forced and stilted.
I wasn’t that naïve girl lying under the stars anymore. He needed to realize that if we were going to have a good working relationship.
“Raven still working nights?” he asked, sitting at the small dinette in the kitchen.
“Yep.” I poured water and coffee into the coffee maker and tried not to make eye contact. It was weird having him here in our apartment. And I wasn’t wearing a bra. Fun times.
He looked around. “You guys have a nice place. Looks like y’all.”
“Thanks.” I looked around our somewhat bohemian mishmash of décor in our apartment. It was pretty nice and it did really look like both of us. I loved color and Raven loved black and gray. My pops of color complemented the big dark pieces she’d picked out before I’d moved in. It wasn’t a big place. Just an eat-in kitchen, living area, and two bedrooms. We each had our own bathroom, which pretty much rocked for two girls living together.
“Wanna cup of coffee?”
He nodded. “If there’s enough.”
“Oh, there’s plenty.” Raven and I were both addicted to the stuff, so we hadn’t even invested in one of the fancy one-cup machines. We drank entirely too much for that mess, so we stuck with a twelve-cup coffee maker.
It was quiet while I made our coffee and I remembered how I used to think that Adam and I would never have an awkward moment of silence in our lives. God, how things had changed. We used to lie silently beneath the stars for hours and now every moment one of us wasn’t talking was plagued with tension.
Adam must have sensed it, too. He cleared his throat and took off his leather jacket, revealing even more tattoos than I remembered, and big, thick biceps that hadn’t been there when we were kids.
I came around the table and handed him his cup of coffee and sat reluctantly across from him. I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to do this. This pretending. We should have more than this. Better than this. It was just so sad. Our story. It could have been great.
I broke the tension with a question I’d been dying to know the answer to. “Why are you living on the island?”
He seemed startled by my bluntness, but I was over pretending.
His shoulders rose and fell. “Why not? I have the money.”
Disgust soured my mouth. That island was not for Adam. It never was. It never would be.
“What’s that face for?”
I batted my eyelashes and gave him a fake smile. “What face?”
“That face that looked like you smelled something rotten.” His eyes were blue fire. They were begging for a fight I wouldn’t give him. It was almost like he wanted to be mad at me.
“I do.” I sniffed the air. “You should have showered this morning.” I was a liar. The man smelled like expensive cologne and soap and sunshine, and I wanted to lick the spot behind his ear, the place where his neck met his shoulder, the nook behind his knee. Basically I wanted to lick him everywhere.
He chuckled low and it slid over me like heat off a furnace. My nipples pebbled beneath my white T-shirt and I was suddenly very much aware of my non-existent bra. The fever. I’d almost forgotten, but it hadn’t forgotten me. I was burning up with it.
It seemed like Adam was, too, as his eyes gave the briefest once-over of my breasts. I did my tall girl slump the hell over move and pulled the front of my shirt away from my chest.
We heard a thump from Raven’s side of the apartment and Adam turned his head that way and that’s when I noticed it. A giant rose done in shades of black and gray climbed up the side of his neck where empty space had been so long ago. I hadn’t noticed it the other night or at work. We’d been fighting at the Gala and he’d been wearing a collared shirt hiding most of his tattoos. And truthfully, I’d been avoiding him like the plague at work. I didn’t want any confrontations or weirdness. I needed to keep my job and I needed to protect my heart.
Adam had always liked talking about his tattoos of the stars. “What constellation is that?” I pointed at the rose on his neck.
“It’s not.” He took a sip of coffee, diverting his gaze. �
��It’s a tribute to the only girl I’ve ever loved.”
I was instantly transported back to the first night I’d told him my name. How angry I’d been at him for teasing me about the stars. “Livingston Rose Montgomery,” he’d yelled, as Harry and I walked away.
Wetness hit my eyes and my hands shook around the coffee cup. Then why hadn’t he come for me? Why had it been ten long years?
I stared at him and his eyes softened. And I saw him—deep in the depths of this cold man’s eyes was my boy with the tattoos.
A loud bang sent both of our eyes shooting to Raven’s door as it flew open and she stumbled out of her room grumpily. She thundered out into the living room like a herd of elephants and finally into the kitchen with black makeup all around her eyes and nothing on but a T-shirt and a barely there pair of panties. Her eyes grazed over Adam at the table and then shot to me. “Who invited the asshole?” she asked, heading for the coffee.
“I should go.” I dashed to my room but not before I heard Adam call out, “Liv!”
I closed the door on my name. I closed the door on that damn tattoo that was so romantic and sad it made me want to ball up and lie in my bed and cry all day. But most of all, I closed the door on us. I couldn’t do this anymore.
I’d tried having boyfriends. Seeing other people had never worked and I had the sneaking suspicion it was because I could never let anyone in. I was holding onto the past when I just needed to let it go.
I tried not to listen, but I could hear Adam and Raven talking quietly, seriously but as the day wore on it seemed they slipped easily into their old banter. I could hear them laughing and talking, and I was so incredibly jealous that it wasn’t me out there. That things weren’t so easy between us and I knew it was mostly my fault. It had been my fault he’d gone to prison. I’d ruined his life and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I wondered if Raven would eventually leave me for Adam. Replace me. The thought devastated me. She was my only friend. I spent the rest of the afternoon wallowing in my room with Harry but even he eventually deserted me for Adam. And even after I heard the TV come on and the two of them laughing and having a good time, I still didn’t come out. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve them. Just like I didn’t deserve to look at the stars anymore.
“IT’S DEVALUING OUR PROPERTY,” MY neighbor complained.
I stared at the woman in front of me and then at the long boardwalk and pier I was building along the beach in front of us. I could just see it now. Telescopes every few feet or so, all walks of people lining the pier to stargaze. I’d gotten permission from the town council to turn this stretch of beach on this side of the island into a stargazing and viewing area for the general public all the way from my house to Georgina’s. I was pretty happy about it.
“Is it?” I asked, trying my hardest to move around her and get into my car in the driveway.
“Yes, it is, Mr. Nova. If you don’t put a stop to this right now, I’m going to have to contact Sheriff Rothchild.”
“Please do.” I smiled gleefully as I got in my car, cranked her up, and pulled into the road, giving my neighbor a friendly goodbye wave. I lit a cigarette and was rolling down my window when I saw Georgina on her front lawn clutching her pearls and waving me down. If I didn’t think my smile could get any bigger I was dead fucking wrong.
I parked in front of her house and called out the window, “What can I do for you, Mrs. Rothchild?” Fuck, I was in a fantastic mood.
She charged to my window and leaned down, looking positively murderous. “I know what you’re doing.” She didn’t have a hair out of place and her skirt suit was pristine, but I knew inside she was a fucking mess and it elated me.
“I don’t have the foggiest notion what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t try to be fucking cute, Adam. You think you’re going to come back here and fuck with us, but we will throw your pompous, white, trash ass right back into jail.”
I took a long pull off my cigarette and blew right into her face. “I dare you to try.”
I pulled off quickly and Georgina jumped back before I could run over her Manolo Blahniks. I drove into work at the planetarium in a better mood than I had since I’d been home.
I should have been excited to own this place. It was the dream. I was living my dreams. My mother would have been proud, but I was still eaten up with the need for revenge and some days that was all I could see. That need pulsed through me like a living thing and who could blame me?
I passed by the rec room and looked for Liv. It was as natural as breathing, me looking for her. I couldn’t help it. I saw her through the windows of the rec room at her desk in the back. I wanted to go talk to her, but I held myself back. Some days I called her into my office to talk about things at work that didn’t really need to be discussed, but I couldn’t help it. Even after all this time and despite my reservations, I just wanted to be in her space.
I spent the next few hours going through files of old employees of Carlisle Rothchild’s. My plans weren’t just to bring the mainland to the island. They were bigger than that. I wanted him gone, destroyed. Ruined. Financially and career wise. I wanted to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else. I reached out to a few women who used to work for him, but they were tight-lipped and I was beyond frustrated with the situation.
I pressed the intercom on my phone and called Liv’s office. The intercom clicked on and I heard a long breath before Liv said, “What can I do for you, Mister Nova?”
“Adam, and I’d like to see you in my office.” It was the same, every time. Mister Nova. As long as we were at work, she addressed me this way and I knew it wasn’t for decorum purposes but more to drive my ass crazy. Newsflash. It was working.
She knocked before she came in, ever respectful and professional. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a purple Madison Planetarium shirt. Her shoulder-length hair was loose around her makeup free face. She looked young and beautiful and not at all happy to be in my office again.
“You wanted to see me?” She came into my office with the same attitude she had all week. Like I was fucking bothering her, and I guess I was, but she hid from me like she hid from the rest of the world. And I wanted to watch her. I couldn’t do that from my office unless she was in here with me. Things had been even harder between us since a week ago when I’d visited Raven and her at the apartment. The rose tattoo seemed to have pushed her over the edge and while I’d wanted more than anything to charge into that bedroom and demand that she come out and hang out with us like old times, I couldn’t. Because things were different, especially between Liv and me. I hated it.
“Cat said you wanted a bigger space for the program? Is the recreation room not cutting it anymore?”
She flopped down into the chair across from my desk. “Adam. This is the third time you have called me into the office this week to ask me a question about something I’ve already told Cat.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Am I not allowed to speak to you about things?”
She blew out a long breath. “You said it yourself. Cat’s my boss. I report to her.”
I nodded. “You do and Cat reports to me, which means that sometimes I might need to discuss things with you.”
She started to get up from the chair. “I have to go. The kids will be here soon.”
The kids weren’t due for another forty-five minutes. She was full of shit and still trying to avoid me. And for the life of me I couldn’t understand it. Did she hate me so much? I wondered if she had been in touch with Braden or if she ever talked to Georgina. But she’d never tell me if she couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with me, which was all too clear by her actions lately.
“Wait.” I bit my lips nervously. Why was it that this woman was the only person in the world who could still make me jumpy? God, I wanted a cigarette. “Do you ever talk to Georgina?” I needed to know if it was something I needed to worry about.
Her forehead scrunched. “Why?”
I shrugg
ed nonchalantly even though the conversation was damn important. “Just curious.”
Her face was solemn. “No. I don’t talk to anyone from the island. I cut all ties as soon as I turned eighteen and only came back at twenty-one to collect my inheritance.” This was the best and most news she’d given me since I’d been back. Relief flooded me. “Can I leave now?”
“Go ahead.”
She couldn’t wait to get away from me.
As she was turning, her eyes landed on the virtual reality goggles sitting on my desk. “Are those for LUNA?”
I smiled, pride filling me up. She knew about the application named after her. Named after the only girl I liked to look at the stars with. “Yeah, you wanna try them?”
She looked hard at me and then bit her lip. “No, I shouldn’t. I should get back to work.”
“Have you ever used it?” I asked, picking up the goggles. “LUNA, I mean.”
She looked past me at the painting on the wall behind my head when she answered, “No.”
I walked around the desk and gave her a smile. “Well, then you have to try it. You’ll love it.” I grabbed my phone from my pocket and slid it into the front of the goggles and started the application. “We’ll use my phone since the app is already installed on it.”
“I don’t know. The kids—”
“They won’t be here for another forty or so minutes. You have time.” I slipped around the back of her and wrapped the goggles around her head, enjoying the scent of her shampoo too much for my own good.
I pushed a button on the phone, turning it on, so it lit up before her eyes. “Alrighty, you’re good. Just tell it where you want to go.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her face mostly covered by the goggles.
“It’s voice activated. Just tell her what you want to see. Walk on the moon. Fly through the Milky Way.”
“Her?”
I smiled even though she couldn’t see me at all. I didn’t want to think she was so adorable. I didn’t want to love her smell so much. I didn’t want to make her happy. I was so incredibly frustrated with myself. “Yep, LUNA.”