by Tori Rigby
I stared at a spot on the wall. “I can’t remember.”
“Okay, well, let me take a stab at it. I like guessing games. I usually win.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Your mom figured out who I was and warned you to stay away from me. But because you’re stubborn, you came here to prove her wrong, and now you’re concerned that she might be right, and you think that if you let yourself feel, for even a millisecond, that I’ll break your heart.”
Finally, I looked at him, and the dread in his eyes made me want to wrap my arms around him and tell him he was wrong, that I was 100 percent confident he’d stick by my side through the good and the bad. But that was a lie.
For someone who worked so hard at pretending he didn’t give a damn, Neil was one of the most observant, intuitive people I’d ever met.
“The last time I let myself care about anyone, he did break my heart,” I said.
“Then screw him. He’s a freaking fool.”
My eyes burned. “But how do I know I’m not just going to be another one of your flings?”
Neil sighed, blinking slowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and the short pause made my pulse sprint. Then he dropped his hand and lifted his gaze to mine. “Because you make me feel something. Because I can’t stop thinking about you, wondering if you’re okay, aching to spend another minute with you. Because I always notice when you walk into a room. Because being with you doesn’t just make me happy—it makes me want to make you happy.”
I held my breath. My stomach was in my chest, and my heart was in my knees. He was being honest—I saw the truth in his glossy, unblinking eyes.
“I care about you, Andie. I’ve cared about you since the third grade, since the moment you put that flower in my hand and told me I was worth something. Every day, I’ve regretted what I did two years ago, when I fucked up everything between us. But I promise you, I will never make that same mistake again.”
I gripped my pant legs, every cell in my body shaking. This was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? To hear that I wasn’t just another conquest? That he really did care about me? Lord knows I’d come to deeply care about him. And now I had my answer. A sincere, earthshattering, beautiful one. So why was I still so terrified?
I swallowed tears. “Neil, I . . . I care about you too. More than you know. But . . . I can’t. Not when I’m . . .” I bit down on my tongue. Physical pain to keep in the emotional pain.
Neil touched my knees. “I meant what I said before about that not mattering to me. I need you to trust me on this.”
I shook my head and turned away. My voice was barely more than a whisper when I spoke, “I can’t ask you to be a father figure to a baby that isn’t even yours. As soon as it’s born, you’re going to change your mind about me.”
A pause. Then he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Would you please stop assuming you know how I think?” His fingertips lingered along my jaw line, and a chill ran down my spine. “Give me another chance to prove that I want to be here for you.”
I looked into his deep-blue eyes. His gaze was intense and unfaltering. A vice gripped my heart. Did I dare to let him in? I reached up and held his wrist, unable to breathe.
“Promise me we’ll move slow?” I asked.
“Promise.” Neil lifted my chin and leaned in, and my palms sweated.
“If you break me, I don’t think I’d ever recover,” I whispered, his lips inches from mine.
“Then it’s a good thing you won’t have to.”
Neil lightly touched his lips to mine, but the kiss still made the hair on my arms rise. He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, and the concern I found there for my comfort—for me—made me feel like I was floating. This was definitely a different Neil than the one I’d kissed years ago. I gripped his wrists tighter and leaned into him, and his mouth found mine again. He kissed me long and deep, sliding his hand to the nape of my neck. My toes curled.
Everything about Neil felt so right—so perfect. The way he held me, the way he smelled, the way he tasted. When he kissed me, missing pieces of myself fell back into place. Carter said he loved me, but with Neil, it radiated from him with every glance, every touch. I should never have denied this.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him harder, my body tingling. His other hand touched my lower back and pulled me closer. Neil’s tongue slipped into my mouth. My skin flushed. My legs parted slightly, beckoning him nearer. A soft noise escaped his lips, and Neil’s hands moved to hold my face. Soon, our kisses slowed, and he pulled away.
He rested his forehead against mine. “Man, you are not going to make it easy to go slow.”
“Sorry,” I replied, my pulse still thrashing in my ears. I attempted some humor. “I’m actually kind of surprised you have a go-slow setting.”
He lifted his forehead off mine and smirked. “Look at you, being all snarky.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “With you . . . I want to do it right, this time.”
The blue of Neil’s eyes seemed to glow, and his cheeks were flushed. Seeing him like this, after such an intimate moment, made my head spin again.
“What do you say I take you home before your mom starts wondering where you are, and we pick this up later?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I can walk yet.”
He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and I couldn’t help myself. I flung my arms around his neck, and the kissing started all over again.
It was only 7:00 p.m. when Neil and I climbed into his truck, so instead of taking me straight home, we went out for a bite to eat.
“Mom gave me my adoption papers,” I said before shoving a piece of chicken in my mouth.
“Well, that’s good. At least we know you weren’t kidnapped.”
“Really?”
He smiled.
I shook my head then told him what the papers said and how Jill was going to try to dig up more information on who my birth parents were.
“You know the court probably sealed that information, right? You can’t get it until you’re eighteen,” Neil said.
I frowned. Eighteen? I had to wait ‘til I was eighteen? That was two years away. Two years of staring at women in their mid-thirties, wondering if I looked like them, if they could be my mother. Goodbye appetite. I swirled my chicken in the cheese sauce on my plate. I was never going to make it that long.
Neil seemed to understand where my thoughts had gone. “Though, if you want, I can help Jill search for more details. I might not be as skilled as her when it comes to hacking, but I do know how—and Owen’s laptop is already equipped for the task.”
I glanced up at him and dropped my fork. His eyes were so bright, his smile so genuine. For a second, my thoughts returned to our make-out session in Owen’s garage. I stabbed my food, forcing the blush to disappear from my cheeks.
“Wow. I’ll have to remember all it takes to get you flustered is talking about breaking the law.” Neil rubbed the side of his foot against my calf.
“Shut up.” I kicked him in the shin, gently, and he laughed. “Seriously, though, are you sure Owen won’t mind you borrowing his laptop?”
“Nah. He’ll probably think his cousin took it to download more porn.”
I shook my head as he popped the last bite of his burger in his mouth, almost unable to keep myself from bouncing in my seat. Between Neil and Jill, we were bound to find information sooner rather than later, which meant I was one step closer to discovering what my life might’ve been like had I not been adopted. Thank God I’d decided to let the emotions in, to spend time with the people who cared about me, to not become a zombie.
Soon, I’d have something to tell my own child about where he or she came from, and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t be part of one family—but two.
chapter eighteen
Persuading Mom to let me spend the weekend at Jill’s was freakishly tough, especially after I ran off yesterday when I was supposed to be grounded. But once I convinced her
that I couldn’t stay cooped up in the house, waiting to pop like an oversized water balloon, she finally conceded. As long as that was the only place I went, and Jill’s parents knew I was going to be there.
Mom dropped me off at Jill’s condo in downtown River Springs around noon, waited until Jill dialed her mom to ensure she knew I was staying, then left us alone to have fun. A few seconds longer, and I would’ve pushed Mom out the door. Literally.
Jill grabbed my bag and barreled up the stairs to the single—albeit, large—room on the top floor. The light-green walls of her bedroom were covered with Marvel, Star Trek, Dr. Who, and Sherlock posters, as well as science charts, like the periodic table and a drawing of a DNA strand. It was so totally Jill.
“Sorry it’s not quite what you’re used to,” Jill said. “My room’s pretty much an attic.”
“I think it’s great. It’s like a mini-apartment.”
She smiled and dropped my duffel near the end of her twin bed. Which, naturally, was covered by an Iron Man comforter. She skipped across the carpet to a desk near a single window.
“Okay, so, my mom’s closing the store tonight, but my dad’ll be off duty around five. And he’s a cop. So, if we’re going to do this, we should probably get started now.” Jill cracked her knuckles before typing a few passphrases on a series of unlock screens.
Somehow, the fact that she had to even hack into her computer didn’t surprise me.
I pulled my adoption paperwork from my bag and handed it to her. “This is all I have.”
She tied her black hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and then took the papers from me. Quickly, she scanned them then laid them on the desk next to a notepad with indecipherable scribbling. Black and green screens popped up on the monitor, and she began typing—what I guessed were—lines of code. I couldn’t keep up.
“This is gonna make me dizzy.”
Her fingers froze. “Oh, sorry. I forgot you’re new to this.” She pointed to a set of double doors opposite her bed. “There’s a folding chair in there. Grab it while I pull up what I found while you were having sexy time with Neil.”
I cringed. “Oh, please don’t call it that.”
She grinned and started typing again. “Hey, I saw you eye hump him when we drove up to Owen’s house.”
My face hot, I hurried to the closet and yanked the chair out from behind her clothes. Responding to that comment was bound to dig an even deeper hole, and I wasn’t going to admit she was right. I did pretty much drool all over myself during my make-out session with Neil.
For the next few hours, Jill broke through firewall after firewall with code after code, but her repetitive swear words told me we were getting no closer to discovering any information. Whatever third party server the adoption agency used had security that was locked “tighter than NASA’s.”
“Not that I’ve attempted to break into their systems,” Jill said with shifty eyes.
At 5:15, Jill’s dad walked through the front door, and the scent of Chinese food wafted up the stairs.
“Jillian, come down and eat!” he shouted. His footsteps followed him past the staircase, deeper into the condo.
Jill hid the thousands of windows she had open on her laptop—okay, that was an exaggeration—and turned to me with a frown. “Sorry I couldn’t get more. But at least we know where to start next time. We’ll crack it eventually and figure out who was working at the agency the night you were born.”
I nodded, unable to keep the frown off my face. “Well, thanks for trying. I didn’t realize it was going to be so hard.”
“Me either. Kind of weird that the agency’s so difficult.”
I followed Jill downstairs and into a small dine-in kitchen at the back of the condo. She introduced me to her dad—who apologized for not getting enough food—and the three of us sat at a round, four-person table in a corner where Jill’s parents had hung baby pictures on the walls. I shared Jill’s cashew chicken as her dad asked me about my interests and family. When I got to the part about my dad dying two years ago, he frowned.
“Yeah, I remember that accident. I was working that night. Took us a long time to catch the drunk driver who forced your dad’s car into the tree. I’m sorry we weren’t able to save him.”
I stopped chewing. I knew I’d seen Mr. Anderson before—at my dad’s funeral. I hadn’t put two and two together, though I should have. He was the only Native American on our police force. Not to mention, his last name was Anderson. I fingered the locket around my neck.
“Dad, seriously, you’re bringing the house down,” Jill said.
Mr. Anderson’s cheeks reddened slightly. I would’ve laughed had we not been talking about my dad moments before. Being reminded of his funeral, of watching his closed casket lowered into the ground. I really missed him. He always knew how to make me smile through my tears. Lord knew I could’ve used some of his humor the last few weeks.
Jill squeezed my hand, and I joined the conversation, pushing Dad from my mind. The rest of the evening was absorbed by video games, and after a quick trip to the Mini Mart—where we said hi to Neil and filled two bags full of junk food and caffeine-free sodas—we stayed up until 3:00 a.m. watching Star Trek and laughing until our sugar comas took over.
It wasn’t until the following Friday that we were able to research again. Between Jill’s mom asking her to help out at the store after school and Neil’s uncle forcing him to cut grass for customers before the season ended, there was no time for us to play Investigator during the week. So, after five days of tutoring sessions at home and trying to keep up on my schoolwork, I was beyond anxious to do something other than stick my nose in textbooks.
Unlike last time, we had the condo to ourselves the whole night. Jill’s dad was on patrol until 5:00 a.m., and Jill’s mom was traveling for some jewelry conference. While Jill typed away at her desk, Neil and I cozied on her twin mattress as he logged into Owen’s computer. Neil’s task: try to dig up information on Denver’s hospital employees from sixteen years ago. Like Jill, he typed random letters, numbers, and symbols into black boxes. I wanted to ask if there was something I could do, but my right hip was pressed against his left, and instead of cigarette smoke, he smelled like cologne. I bit my lip and breathed deep. His new scent was intoxicating.
My eyes widened. I hope he doesn’t notice I’m sniffing him.
“Anything yet?” Neil asked Jill. She was still attempting to break the security walls on Bethlehem Family Service’s third party system.
“No. I don’t get it. They must’ve had a professional hacker set this up ‘cause it’s freaking complex. I think I make progress, and—bam. Another wall.”
“You know, if you’d show me how to use your programs, I might be able to dig up something on my end.”
After Neil had commented that Jill’s room looked like it belonged to a ten-year-old boy, she’d paid him back by refusing to share her hacking secrets. Owen’s laptop did have some of the necessary equipment but nothing like Jill’s. I had to admit: Seeing Neil struggle was amusing.
“Yeah, well, next time, don’t insult Iron Man,” she replied.
“Fine. I’ll just fart on his face.”
Jill spun in her chair and pointed her finger at him. “You leave your stench on my bed, and I will crotch punch you.”
I laughed as Neil smiled. The two of them in the same room was like watching T-rexes slap fight—their heads were too big, and neither wanted to admit the other was the alpha. Or, in this case, smarter.
Not two minutes later, Jill exclaimed, “Yes! I’m in!”
Neil and I leapt off the bed—nearly toppling each other—to peek over Jill’s shoulders. She entered keyword after keyword until we narrowed the folders to all the babies born in my birth year. After a few more lines of code, she broke the password on the main folder for May and found all the babies born on the seventh. There were two of us.
“Well, this shouldn’t be too hard,” Neil said.
“That’s wh
at she said,” Jill replied. “Wait.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work. Usually girls like it if—”
“Can we please look through the files?” I interrupted.
Both Jill and Neil smirked, then Jill unlocked the password to the first file. She really was a hacker genius.
“Male, African-American. Unless you’ve had a sex change and a skin replacement, I doubt that’s you,” Neil said.
I shook my head as Jill opened the other document. My heart sank. I’d seen it before.
“It’s the same one, the same birth certificate. Look”—I lifted the paper—“my parents’ names are even missing.” My shoulders drooped. We were never going to get any closer than this stupid paper.
Neil wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my forehead.
“If I can just figure out who was working at the time of your birth, I should be able to narrow down who handled your case,” Jill said.
Neil took the paper from me, set it on the desk, and led me away from her computer as her fingers started flying over the keys again. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Neil pulled me onto his lap. I rested my hands on his firm chest as he cupped my cheeks in his palms.
“Hey, we’re going to keep looking. We’ve just scratched the surface,” he said.
I nodded. There were still so many other avenues we could take to find a key to my past. But I still couldn’t help feeling that we were going to fail. That I was going to be no closer to discovering who I was. I had so many questions—who did I take after, personality-wise; did I have any brothers or sisters; why had they given me up; were they even still alive?
Neil kissed me as my bottom lip quivered, sliding one hand to the back of my neck and slipping the other into my hair. I leaned into him and let my sorrows and fears drown in his smell, his touch, his taste.
“Hey, you two. My bedroom is not available for hanky panky.” Jill quirked an eyebrow. “Come see what I found.”