“I’ll stop at Deb’s Pizza, right up here.”
I nodded, the shakes fully coming on. I wrapped my arms across my chest, and clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. I had just yelled at my father. I never yelled. I’d thrown my phone, that one time, from sheer frustration. But never had I reacted so dramatically in front of my father.
Deb’s Pizza was pretty quiet at nine p.m., thankfully because I wasn’t entirely sure I could keep it together for much longer. “Here,” Adam, said, leading me down to the bathrooms. It’d been a long time since I had been to Deb’s, and in my current state I couldn’t discern where the bathrooms were.
“Fuck.”
I looked to what Adam was talking about, seeing the out of order sign on the ladies room. My stomach pitched and I braced a hand on the cool tile wall. I wanted to press my face against it, to let the tiles cool my inflamed skin.
“Here,” Adam said, pulling me into the men’s room. Before I could protest, he led me to the lone stall, past one urinal, and said, “I’ll stand at the door, make sure no one can come in.”
If I had been thinking clearly, I’d have given him a grateful smile at that. But my focus was on getting into the stall and facing the music.
I wasn’t even sure if I had locked the door. The bathroom floor was probably disgusting, but I sank to my knees anyway and stared at the toilet, waiting to vomit.
But strangely, the nausea went away. I stared at the surprisingly clean bowl and felt no desire to empty my stomach. It must have been a fleeting feeling, a side effect from the adrenaline wearing off.
“You okay?” Adam asked.
I swallowed and tested my voice. “I think so.” I pressed my palms flat on either side of the stall walls to stand. One leg wobbled, but I attributed that to being hungry after barely eating any of the dinner we’d been served.
Remembering everything my dad had said, I did something out of character for me: I pressed my forehead to the stall’s wall and flattened my hands against it. My eyes closed and I said, “I’m so sorry, Adam.” It was a pathetic apology, not at all the kind of apology he was owed.
“Don’t be,” he said. I heard the squeaky approach of his steps across the linoleum and when I looked down, I saw the tips of his shoes almost touching mine under the bottom of the stall wall.
“If I’d known that was going to happen—that way—I’d never have taken you along.”
“I don’t expect you to be a mind reader, Hollis.”
“But still. What he said to you was inexcusable.” I winced thinking of how he’d referred to Adam like he was somehow less of a person merely due to his paternity. “I really am sorry.”
“Would you stop saying that?” I felt a slight give of the stall wall, and realized he was pressing on it from the other side. “Stop saying sorry. You didn’t do this. And besides, you’re no more responsible for your father’s behavior than I am for mine.”
I closed my eyes again and released a shuddering breath. “I said a bad word.”
“You did. Two, actually.”
I pulled away from the wall and buried my face in my hands.
“It was pretty fucking great.” He chuckled lightly from the other side of the door. “A damn sight.”
“I never say those words, not to my parents.”
“They had it coming.” He paused before asking, “Are you going to come out, or are we going to hash this out in the men’s restroom of a pizza place?”
I exited the stall and looked up at him sheepishly. “I’m embarrassed, Adam. Really. I didn’t expect…” My voice trailed off and I winced, realizing my face must be a mess. “I probably look terrible right now.”
“Hollis,” he said in a hushed voice. He framed my face in my hands. “All of that at your parents’ was bullshit anyway. Your family photos, all posed and perfect, are bullshit. Seriously, fuck them. Fuck that whole museum they call a home.” He tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “I like you like this. You don’t have to be embarrassed or apologize for not being perfect, Hollis.”
I swallowed, hoping the movement would uncurl some of the tension that lived deep in my gut.
His thumbs brushed along my cheekbone, rendering me speechless. “Let’s grab a couple pizzas and go back to my house for a little while. Okay?”
I could only nod.
26
Adam
When we pulled up in front of the house, most of it was dark. Dread ripped through me, acute and aching.
I threw the car in park and barely said two words to Hollis before I was out of the car and sprinting toward the entrance.
“Casey?” I called out when I entered the house. I looked around, searching for any sign of her or my dad, but saw none until I went to Casey’s room.
She was curled up in bed, facing the wall, her knees pulled all the way to her chest. I wasn’t sure if she was awake until she said, “I’m fine, Adam.” But she didn’t sound fine. She sounded miserable.
I sat on the edge of her bed to get a better look at her. Her eyes were clear—thank God—but her face was blank. She wouldn’t even turn her head to look at me. I wanted to kill him. A rage I was all too familiar with lit through me. “Where is he?”
“He said he was going to get dinner, but didn’t come back.”
“How long have you been here alone?”
“About an hour. Not long.” She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “He was in Gram’s bedroom for a while before he left.” Her head rolled to the side, and she finally made eye contact with me. “He probably stole her pills.”
I wanted to call him a dozen very creative swear words. I wanted to find him and force him to sign off on custody papers. I wanted to tell him what I really thought of him, the kind of person and father he was. But I couldn’t do any of those things. No matter how I felt about my father, I had to be sensitive to Casey’s feelings about him.
She blew out a breath. “I should’ve gone with Mrs. C. You were right. I just thought he was here for my birthday.” She rubbed her lips together, blinking back a sheen of moisture on her eyes. “He sucks.”
“He does. I know he loves you, though.” It physically hurt me to say the words, because while I knew he loved her in the way he could, I couldn’t understand how his love for anything else could surpass the love for his own daughter. It was a hard thing to understand, from the side of someone related to an addict. I supposed unless I was in his shoes, I would never get it. But I wouldn’t support him, not anymore. Not after seeing how resigned and unsurprised Casey was. When he’d bailed on her years prior, she’d always been surprised by it, as if he had ever proven himself to be anyone other than a fucking flake. But the fact that she didn’t seem shocked, that she seemed almost indifferent, told me exactly what I’d do the next time he came to town to bond with her. “I’m sorry he left you alone.”
She lifted a shoulder, looking so weary that I wanted to shake my dad until he physically hurt in the ways his daughter hurt deep down.
“I’m a teenager. I’m not little anymore, Adam.”
“You’re still my little sister. Always will be.” I vowed then and there, to never abandon her the way my dad always did.
“Little?” She scrunched up her nose. “I might be taller than you one day.”
“Keep dreaming, shortcake.”
“Dad probably just wanted you to leave so he could get Gram’s meds.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, though I wanted to tell her an emphatic yes. I should’ve locked the meds up, I supposed, though I doubted that would have prevented him. If anything, it might have meant him being a bigger dick to Casey when he couldn’t find them.
I just wanted to make this better for Casey, to make up for my dad, but I knew that I couldn’t. “Are you hungry?” I asked. “I brought pizza.”
“No. I made some canned soup a little while after he left. I had a feeling he wasn’t coming back.” She pulled her comforter up higher and rolled back to her side, facing the wall. “I just want to go to b
ed, if that’s okay.”
“Of course that’s okay.” I brushed a hand over the back of her head. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
She merely nodded.
In the living room, Hollis was setting up the two pizza boxes on the coffee table and had already grabbed plates and beer from the kitchen. “There was beer in the fridge. I hope that’s okay.”
I looked at the beer a moment, well aware of my dad’s inability to control his addictions. “I could use a couple,” I said.
She handed me one after popping the cap. “I take it your dad is gone?”
I nodded and she rubbed her lips together. “Pepperoni or cheese?”
I pointed the beer at the pepperoni pizza and eased onto the couch. What a fucking night it had been. I knew Hollis must be thinking the same, but appreciated that she hadn’t pressed me for details about my dad.
“Mind if I sit next to you?” She motioned with her plate at the empty spot on the couch.
I gave her a half smile. “If you don’t, I’ll just have to put you here myself.”
She settled beside me on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table as I was doing. “I almost never do this,” she said, wiggling a little like she was delighted.
“Do what exactly? Seems like it’s been a night of firsts.”
“Okay, that’s true. But I mean this.” She held up her plate. “I hardly ever eat on a couch. I’m used to eating at a table.”
That was what had delighted her? I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes, you seem so…alien to me. You don’t eat at a couch? I eat at least a couple of my meals here every day.”
“You set the table that night I ate here.”
“Yeah, well, that was for you.”
Her cheeks pinked adorably and she stared intently at her plate, boring a hole through it. “Why…” she started, but didn’t continue.
“What? What were you going to ask?”
Her tongue darted out, moistening her lips. “Why do things feel different?”
I pondered that for a moment. “I think we’re starting to get more comfortable with each other.”
She nodded and picked at a piece of pepperoni. “I guess that’s probably true. I do feel more comfortable around you in some ways. Less in others.”
“Which others?”
She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Mostly when we’ve been close enough to kiss. I feel awkward, like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
That sent off bells in my brain. “Are you a virgin?”
Her eyes widened and I worried for a minute that she would drop her pizza.
“I mean…” I continued, feeling like I was backpedalling on a stationary bike. “You don’t have to answer that. Sorry for asking.”
“No, I’m not a virgin.” She popped the piece of pepperoni in her mouth and chewed for a minute. “But I wouldn’t say I’m whatever the female equivalent of a lothario is. I don’t have a lot of experience. So, I’m sorry if I seem awkward or whatever.”
“Stop apologizing, Hollis.” I waited until she looked me in the eyes. “I just don’t want you ever to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“You don’t,” she replied quickly. “I like kissing you.” Her voice had gone softer. “I just don’t know how to take you sometimes. You’re so hot and cold. One minute you’re kissing me and the next time I see you, you look like you want to see me struck by lightning. It’s quite the conundrum.”
Shit. Did it really feel that way for her? I could admit to being hot and cold, but had I really made her feel like I wanted to see her hurt? “I know. I can be pretty moody.” I thought of all of Sarah’s recent texts, her accusing me of avoiding her. “I guess there’s just a lot happening right now, with my gram and Casey and the new job and now my deadbeat dad briefly making an appearance. And us, of course.”
“Us,” she repeated.
“Yeah. Us.” It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that us wasn’t just some show pony we needed to parade around her parents to benefit her. We were something more, something real. The feelings she brought up in me were definitely real, and the song she’d inspired was more real than I had known in a while.
She shifted her position on the couch and looked contemplative. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go for it.”
“If things were different—say, if we hadn’t entered into this with the purpose of deceiving people. If all the stuff from high school hadn’t happened. Would you take a second look at me?”
I pulled my head back. “What do you even mean?” Would I take a second look? No, I’d take a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. And as many as it took until I got her out of my fucking system. But then again, I didn’t really believe any number could accomplish that.
“I mean, you know, I’m not the girl you take a second look at.”
“No, actually. I don’t know that. Who the fuck says you’re not a girl someone would take a second look at?”
She gestured a hand down herself. “I know I’m not ugly. I am perfectly pleasant looking. But I am unremarkable.”
When I opened my mouth to protest, she shook her head and put her fingers to my lips, shushing me.
“You don’t have to say anything, Adam. It’s okay.”
It was fucking not okay. I grasped her wrist and pulled her fingers from my lips. I probably looked at her like she had lost her marbles. “You are beautiful, Hollis.”
I could tell she didn’t believe it, didn’t lap it up like someone thirsty for validation might.
I set my pizza and beer down and turned my body toward her. I paused long enough to watch her squirm. It was my favorite thing, watching the effect I had on her, and feeling it on her skin when I touched her. “You are beautiful,” I repeated, the words heavy in my throat, like I was carrying something I couldn’t articulate. “Your skin is creamy and golden, and your lips are the kind people write love songs about.” I swallowed away the nerves I felt for being as honest as I was. “Your hair, well,” I wrapped my hand in her hair, tugging just a little so that I made sure I had her attention. “It’s like a shampoo commercial. It’s lush, long, completely remarkable.” Still holding her arm, I brought it to my mouth and did something out of character even for me: I kissed the delicate skin where palm met wrist. She was warm and her pulse fluttered beneath my lips. “And your eyes, when I do something like this…” I kissed her wrist again, and dragged a finger over the back of her hand, “Are so fucking expressive.” I leaned closer, close enough that our breath mingled. “And the only thing stopping me from kissing you right now is knowing I won’t get to see into your eyes when I do.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Oh.”
I loved the curve of her lips when she said that. “Yeah.” I scooped up the pizza and beer. “Oh.”
“That’s the nicest thing any guy has said to me.”
Was I going to have to set my pizza and beer down again? Once again, I looked at her like she was out of her mind. “Come on, Hollis. You meet guys all the time. Or, at least your dad brings them to you.”
“Right. But they’re not really interested in me. They feign interest long enough to get on my dad’s good side, to get an internship or a highly coveted position in his main office.”
“And do they?” I asked. “Get an internship or a job after fake wooing you?”
She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Sometimes, yes. I would never accuse him of it, but sometimes I think he hires these guys thinking I’ll be impressed.”
“But you’re not.”
“Power doesn’t impress me.” She shook her head, staring at her pizza. “My dad has power and I see what it does—it makes people fearful. I haven’t really had time to seek these guys out, to even hear them out, if I’m being honest. I’m very focused on school.”
“That’s why you’re such a smarty pants.” When she winced, I frowned. “What’s that face for.”
She picked at the side of her crust. “Ever
yone assumes that because I get great grades and because I was in honors classes in high school that it’s because I’m smart. And maybe I am, but not in the way everyone assumes. Good grades don’t necessarily mean there’s some kind of innate intelligence. At least, it doesn’t for me. My good grades are from my natural inclination to stay organized and prepared and my own drive to be my best.” Her head whipped up, eyes searing into mine. “I know, that sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I took a large bite of my pizza so I had the time to mull over what she’d said as I chewed. After swallowing, I said, “So you believe intelligence isn’t natural for you, but your drive to push yourself is what makes you such an all star on paper.”
She nodded solemnly. “Exactly. It’s a lot of pressure when people expect that you just know the answer because it lives somewhere in your head. I know, this is a first-world problem. But I can’t tell you how many people say, ‘Hollis knows,’ or ‘Hollis can do it, she’s smart.’ I don’t think I’m not smart, mind you, but it’s not like calculus comes easily or that I have some kind of photographic memory where the answers to every test problem are scorched into my brain. I work really hard. Maybe harder than I ever need to.”
I chewed again and after swallowing, I nodded. “And you claimed there was nothing remarkable about you.” I tipped my beer at her. “That, Hollis, is remarkable.”
“What? That I try?”
I ignored her sarcastic reply. “That you have the drive to keep working, even when it isn’t easy. You know how many people I know who give up at their first attemp? In Colorado, I saw so many guys who gave up when they went weeks without booking a gig. Guys who came on the scene thinking it was easy, a walk in the park. Guys who later left and instead of taking ownership for realizing it wasn’t their true passion, they blamed the industry or some other external factor other than the fact that they didn’t want it bad enough. If you want something bad enough, if you work hard enough for it, I can’t call that anything but passion. And passion, that’s what is remarkable.”
I took a long pull of my beer, realizing I was on a slippery slope with Hollis. I admired the hell out of her. She was beautiful and she was strong, and she spoke freely when it was just the two of us. She didn’t play coy, she didn’t tease or test me. She wasn’t starved for anyone, and she had goals that didn’t fit into any kind of neat box. It’d been a long fucking day, a day of discovery, of disappointments. But Hollis hadn’t been one.
One Little Lie: a hate to love rom-com Page 24