by Jamie Shaw
By the time Shawn comes home, Adam and I are totally tipsy. I tend to Adam’s busted knuckles while he tells the story of punching Brady in the face, and then we both giggle like crazy. Even when I learn that Joel sleeps on their couch, so I’ll have to sleep with Adam, I’m too drunk and exhausted to object. I crawl under his covers that night feeling the alcohol weighing me deep into his mattress. Adam is still in the living room with Shawn and Joel, which leaves me alone with way too much quiet.
Before I can stop them, memories of Brady flood my mind and escape in the form of salty tears dripping on Adam’s pillow. I thought I was over him, but that didn’t make the pain of seeing him with that same girl again hurt any less.
When Adam crawls in beside me a little later, I’m trying desperately to keep from sniffling, and instead I end up hiccupping.
“He’s not worth it, Peach,” he says, lying eye-level with me.
The pale moonlight illuminates the concerned expression on his face, and my voice breaks when I say, “I know.”
Adam sighs, and I finally let myself sniffle. After a long moment of silence, he lifts his arm so that the covers are held up and there’s nothing separating us but open space. “Come here.”
“Why?” I nervously ask. I want to go to him. Badly. But my nerves are making me run my mouth instead of closing the distance between us.
“Because I’m going to hold you.”
“You’re going to hold me?”
Adam nods against his pillow.
“Why?”
He pauses for a moment, and then he says, “Peach?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop asking questions and just get over here.”
While I battle my better judgment, Adam holds the covers in the air, waiting. I cautiously inch my way across the bed and press my front against him, and he wraps his arms around me. I don’t know what to do with my hand, so I wrap my arm around him, placing my palm against his back. And then we’re just holding each other.
Adam lets out a deep sigh, and I gaze up at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he answers without looking down at me. “Go to sleep.”
I snuggle closer, trying to get comfortable, and Adam’s hold on me tightens. My cheek molds to his hard chest, and I listen to him breathe. I want to thank him—for coming to my rescue tonight, for letting me stay with him, for holding me. For everything. But instead, I fall asleep to the perfect rhythm of his heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE NEXT MORNING, I wake in Adam’s arms—which is nice and does all sorts of butterfly things to my stomach until I realize that all of our studying is about to be for nothing because we are running royally freaking late.
“TEN FORTY?!” I launch myself out of bed so fast that my feet get tangled in the covers, and then I’m tripping and hopping and nearly eating floor. “No wonder you’re always late!” When Adam just lies there staring at me, I throw the covers off of him—not caring that he’s only in his boxers—and grab his hand, yanking him to his feet.
He smiles at me as I rant about how he needs to get dressed faster than he’s ever gotten dressed before because I didn’t bust my ass tutoring him all weekend just for fun. With one hand waving frantically in the air and the other clinging to the silky, oversized gym shorts I borrowed from him to wear to bed last night, I’m sure I look insane.
The shorts nearly drop from my waist as I usher Adam toward his closet and then rush out of the bedroom. I sprint to my suitcase in the living room, hastily unzip it, and grab a wrinkled pair of jeans. There’s no sign of Joel or Shawn as I rush to the bathroom and dive into my pants. Adam’s apartment is over ten minutes away from school. Between that and the time it will take to walk to class, we’re barely going to make it. And if he’s late one more time . . .
When I rush out of the bathroom, Adam is fully dressed in long black jeans and a charcoal-gray V-necked T-shirt. His wrists are decorated with bands and string bracelets that he never takes off, and he’s pulling a mug from the kitchen cabinet. There’s a full pot of coffee warming—I’m guessing Shawn made it—but we have time for coffee like we have time to fry up some eggs and bacon and toast and, hell, bake a freaking three-tiered cake while we’re at it.
“No, no, no,” I say, swiping the mug from Adam’s hand and setting it on the counter.
He pouts, eyeing the mug like it contains the secret to immortal life. “Seriously?”
“I’ll get you a coffee after the test!” I insist, circling behind him so I can push him toward the door.
He chuckles and lets me nudge him step by step. At the door, I throw my backpack over my shoulder, and then I grab his hand and drag him into the hall. When I let go, he slips his palm back into mine and grips it tight.
“Guess we better hurry,” he says with a playful smile, and then he pulls me into a run. Hand in hand, we race past the elevator, down all four flights of stairs, and across the parking lot. Adam jumps behind the wheel of his Camaro and starts the engine, throwing his arm behind my headrest.
“You’re going to need to run faster than that if you want to make it to class on time,” I huff.
He flashes me a white smile and then whips the car out of the spot. But we don’t get two full blocks before the worst happens. Orange cones. A burly woman in a yellow vest. A big orange sign that says DETOUR.
I lean forward in my seat, watching Adam’s graduation go up in smoke. “No,” I sigh.
Adam pulls up next to the woman. “Any way we can go around?”
“Is it an emergency?” she asks.
“Yes!” I shout, and her eyes dart to me.
“What kind of emergency?”
“My . . . dog . . . is in the hospital.” When she eyes me doubtfully, her face full of deepened lines, I say, “He got hit . . . by a train.”
Trying to look grave, Adam gazes up at her and says, “It was a very small train. The kind that wouldn’t immediately flatten and kill a poor little Chihuahua like Tinker Bell.”
Thirty seconds later, we’re racing down the detour road, and I’m yelling, “A Chihuahua?!”
“A train?!” Adam laughs.
Dear God, we suck. We are the worst Bonnie and Clyde ever. I’m surprised that woman didn’t bitch-slap us with her handheld stop sign.
My fingers claw into the seat as Adam guns the car through a yellow light. The next one flashes red seconds before we cross it, but he doesn’t slow down. I sink lower in the seat, hoping we don’t get a ticket . . . or, you know . . . die.
When we’re on the last stretch of road that leads to the campus entrance, I’m chewing my nails into stubs. Three minutes left. We’re never going to make it. It’s a physical impossibility. Adam is going to fail and—
He jerks the wheel left, and his car dips into a ditch before roaring up onto the perfectly manicured campus lawn. We coast over the lush green grass until we pull directly up to Jackson Hall.
“You can’t park here!” I protest as Adam pulls to a stop.
“I have to park here.” He shuts the car off and pulls his keys from the ignition.
What the hell is he thinking? They’ll tow his car! Or kick him out of school! “You . . . you . . . oh my God,” I stutter, holding out my hand. “Give me your keys.”
“No way,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want to make you late.”
I’m panicking now because every second Adam argues with me means one second closer to us both being late. “Dr. Pullman loves me,” I snap, gripping his shoulders, “but he HATES you, so just give me your damn keys, Adam!”
He hesitates, but then he hands them over. He stares at me for a moment longer and then leans in, planting a quick kiss against my cheek before jumping out of the car and running into the building. There are students everywhere staring at me as I climb over the center console and tumble into the driver�
��s seat, pulling it all the way up and adjusting the wheel. I turn the keys in the ignition and Adam’s convertible roars to life. Thank God I know how to drive stick, or this would be a whole hell of a lot more interesting. I do a wide U-turn and pull back onto the road, bypassing the main entrance and sneaking into the back entrance of the parking garage just in case security has been called.
By the time I get to class—ten minutes late—the back of my neck is drenched with sweat from running all the way to Jackson Hall. My hair is unbrushed and ratty from the ride here, I have no makeup on, I’m wearing the same shirt I slept in—which I borrowed from Adam and is easily two sizes too big—and my jeans smell like they were worn three days ago and haven’t been washed since . . . because they were, and because they haven’t.
And Adam Everest is looking up from his exam to smile at me from the front row. A breathless sigh escapes me as I approach Dr. Pullman. “Sorry I’m late,” I tell him.
“Are you feeling okay?” The concern on his face reaffirms just how terrible I look. “You can always take this exam later if you’re not feeling up to it, Rowan.”
“No, I’m okay. Thanks though.” I force a smile as he hands me the exam, and then I drag myself up the stairs to sit next to Leti. He looks me up and down, and I can see all the questions he’s dying to ask me spinning behind his golden-brown eyes.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whisper, and then I sit down and get to work. The test is absolutely killer—which is why I nearly dive out of my seat when Adam stands up to be one of the first students to turn his in. I want to body surf over everyone in the rows in front of me so I can stop him from leaving. I want to scream at him to check and double-check and triple-check his answers. But then his exam is in Dr. Pullman’s hands and he’s walking out the door.
God, I hope he passed. He better have passed . . . or I’m going to kill him and then bring him back to life just so I can kill him again.
By the time I’m finished with the test, I feel drained—emotionally, physically, intellectually. I’m tempted to skip speech class and walk back to Dee’s dorm for a nap, but I have a feeling she’d kill me for not showing up to give her all the details of last weekend. I’d wake up hanging upside down from the fire escape, with her standing in front of me with her arms crossed and a fire poker in her hand.
When I stand up to walk down the stairs of the auditorium, Leti stands up too, and I can tell he was waiting on me to leave. We hand Dr. Pullman our tests and then find an open bench in the hall. I sit with my legs sprawled out in front of me and my head resting against the cold white brick behind me. “That test was brutal.”
Leti sits with his legs crossed, his entire body shifted toward me. “Sweetie, I have to ask . . .” I peek my eyes open to stare at him, and he picks at my sleeve. “Is this even your shirt you’re wearing?”
I stare down at the oversized band T-shirt swallowing my torso. “It’s Adam’s.”
“Mm,” Leti muses, tapping his chin and then tapping my nose. “And why are you wearing Adam’s T-shirt, pray tell?”
“This is going to sound really bad . . .”
He waits patiently, even though his arms are hanging awkwardly at his side like he wants to shake a confession out of me.
“I didn’t have any clean clothes when I left his house this morning . . .” Since I’d only packed enough clean clothes for the weekend, Adam insisted I borrow his to wear to bed, and this morning, I barely had enough time to launch myself into a dirty pair of jeans, much less worry about changing my shirt.
Leti’s mouth drops open, but no words come out.
I start giggling, and then I say, “I just spent the night. We didn’t do anything. God, Leti, there’s so much you’ve missed.” I tell him all about the trip and then about walking in on Brady, glossing over the homicidal thoughts that now go hand in hand with the memory of my ex’s face. By the time I’m done, I feel like I’ve just narrated a soap opera. An extremely unrealistic one.
“So let me get this straight,” Leti says. “Adam wasn’t even mad you lied to him, and then he kissed you, and you turned him down?”
“Not right away . . . but yeah.”
Leti shakes his head. “I just don’t even think we can be friends anymore. Some baby angel just lost its wings and died because of you.”
I playfully roll my eyes and slap him on the knee. “Don’t be a drama queen.” But that nagging feeling is back, the one that tells me I blew a chance I should have taken. “You think I did the wrong thing?”
Leti pulls a pack of gum from his pocket and pops a piece into his mouth before offering me one. I take two. “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest clue, baby-angel-killer. I guess what’s right for me might not be what’s right for you . . . Do you like him?”
I stare at my flip-flops and chew on my lip until I can’t bear to hold it in anymore. “I like him a lot,” I finally confess. “Like, seriously, Leti. He’s like . . .” I sigh. He’s Adam. He’s so Adam.
“And I’m guessing that’s why you didn’t let things go further . . .”
I stare up at him, not understanding. “Huh?”
“Adam is a heartbreaker. And you’ve had your heart broken enough.”
Leave it to Leti to hit the nail right on the head. I wrap my arms around his neck, squeezing him tight and breathing him in. He always smells faintly like mint chocolate chip, and he always seems to know exactly how I’m feeling. “Thanks, Leti.”
“For what?”
I pull away and smile at him. “Always getting me.”
One side of his mouth pulls into a smile, and then he asks, “Have you told Dee yet?”
I’m practically breaking into hives just thinking about it. “Not yet.”
“Are you going to?”
If only it were that simple. I hate keeping secrets from Dee, but lately I feel like I have to. Which sucks. It sucks that I have to keep secrets from my very best friend—because if I don’t, she’ll whirlwind through my life and make things crazier than they already are. “Yeah . . . I’m just not sure how or when yet, so don’t say anything, okay?”
After Leti vows his silence, he heads to his next class and I hopelessly try to comb my fingers through my hair in the girls’ bathroom. I only succeed at making it even rattier until I give up and throw my backpack over my shoulder. Outside, I shield my eyes from the bright autumn sun, and then I hear my name.
Dee?
She’s there, sitting on a bench and waving me over, and she’s sitting with . . . Oh God.
Last night, I called her to tell her I’d be staying at Adam’s for the foreseeable future, but I was so tipsy I don’t even remember half of what I said. She must have waited outside our class like a freaking stalker, which I should have known she would do. I take a deep breath and walk over. “Hey.”
Adam doesn’t scoot over to make room for me. Instead, he pulls me to stand between his knees and wraps his arms around my legs. Dee grins at us like a fox—an evil fox with predatory ideas. “So I decided it was time for Adam and me to get acquainted. We’re tight as spandex now.”
I give Adam a questioning look, but he just smiles up at me.
“He told me you guys are headed to get coffee,” Dee continues.
“We are?”
Adam nods up at me. “You said you’d get one with me after the test.”
“And,” Dee interrupts, “he asked if I wanted to come along.”
“Do you?”
Invisible horns grow from her long chestnut locks, knocking the halo right off her head. “I do.”
On the walk to the campus coffee shop, Adam wraps his arm around my shoulder and Dee grills me about what happened yesterday at Brady’s. I still can’t believe that slut was with him again. What happened to waiting until marriage? I mean, seriously. Fucking seriously.
Dee grabs us a s
pot in line to the register and turns around, pointing a finger at me. “I still can’t BELIEVE you went back there! Honestly, Rowan, what were you thinking?” She steps up to the counter, orders a frappuccino, and then spins back around like she never stopped talking. “That man is the WORST kind of people. I am definitely going to go over there and fuck something of his up! I don’t even care if you come with me anymore!”
“Be my guest,” I say with a shrug, and Dee grins at me, surprised.
“FINALLY!” She clasps my face in her hands. “THANK YOU.”
Adam chuckles at us as he orders his drink and asks me what I want. I order an iced mocha, and then we grab a table while we wait. He pulls a stool out for me and takes the one next to it.
“So I’m guessing you need to pick up some of your stuff to take to Adam’s?” Dee asks, staring back and forth at us like she’s already planning our wedding colors and baby shower theme.
“She needs to get all of it,” Adam corrects, which makes her grin even wider. “I’ll get the guys to help.”
I shoot her a warning look, but she ignores it and thoughtfully taps her finger on the table. “I really like your shirt,” she tells me with a devilish glint in her eye. “Is it new?”
My eyes stab another warning look through her forehead, and then I answer, “It’s Adam’s.”
“Hm,” she hums, trying to control the impish dimple threatening to sink into her cheek.
“We’re just friends, Dee.” My tone is flat because I am so not amused.
“That’s such a shame,” she pouts. “His clothes look so good on you.” She turns her attention to Adam and asks, “Don’t you think so, Adam?”
Dead. She is so. freaking. dead.
I cast Adam an apologetic glance, but he returns it with a playful smile and then tells Dee, “I think she looks hot as hell.”