Maybe she should just let Adam go now. Probably, she was supposed to be single because, clearly, she did not understand how any of this was supposed to work. She had no foundation to build on.
Adam sighed, his chest heaving and giving away his frustration. He looked as though he’d been sad and tired for a while now. “That's what I want, too, Hailey. I want to work this out.”
He shook his head. Adam still hadn't entered the apartment—she was still blocking him, leaving him out in the hallway, talking so all her neighbors could hear. He said it to her and to whoever might be listening in. “I want to find a way to make this work—to make us work.” He gestured in between them and she felt her walls start to crack. He kept talking and driving the wedge into her resolve. “I missed you for a long, long time. I didn’t realize back then that you deciding to leave was actually a reasonable decision. I thought you left me.”
Hailey fought hard not to blink. If she blinked, tears would start to fall, and she’d had enough of crying already. She clenched her jaw and tried to remain stoic. They were supposed to be friends with benefits. None of this mess was supposed to be happening. They were supposed to get together and it would be casual—easy—whenever they were both in town. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him again. Still, she couldn't deny the way her heart twisted and reached for him, even when she told it not to. She wanted what he talked about, even if she didn't quite believe it could happen.
Without really deciding to do it, she stepped back and allowed him into the apartment. “What do you want Adam?”
35
Adam gripped the steering wheel. Hailey was already asking questions. “Does your mother have cancer? Did you find out if she had it last time?”
He’d talked her into leaving her apartment and coming to the hotel with him. He wanted someplace where they could get food if they needed it. Somewhere neutral—not hers or his—and where they could stay until they figured this out. A place they could both leave from if they went separate ways, though he didn’t like to think about that option. Hailey was going to follow him here, but her car wouldn’t start. So they were already not quite on track, but since Adam didn’t know where the hell the track was supposed to be, they were winging it.
He was driving away from her apartment and all the baggage they both had there. He was also hoping for a place where the neighbors wouldn't complain if he and Hailey yelled a little bit. He couldn't imagine that this would be pretty, but it was long past overdue and he was ready to fight for her and hold on with everything he had.
“I don't know if she has cancer or not,” he answered. “I asked to see the reports and she said she didn't have any. I asked her about the last time—eight years ago—and she changed the subject. Then I got mad and left and only later I realized I still don’t know. Maybe in another week or so she'll give me some kind of evidence, but I didn't see any.”
“Holy shit.” Hailey flopped back in the bucket seat as though she were surprised to be right. “I honestly never thought you'd believe me.” The words came out on a stark sigh of relief and Adam hated the way it made his heart clench.
“Why would you think I wouldn't believe you?”
“Because you never did before.” Her head turned to stare at him almost in disbelief.
“But you never told me that my mother didn't actually have cancer. You didn’t ask me if I’d checked her reports!” He was frowning, shaking his head. They weren’t supposed to do this until they got to the hotel and had a place to duke it out.
She was frowning right back at him. “Yes, I did! I told you, Adam. I told you so many times that she didn't like us being together, that she was actively trying to keep us apart. I told you that I didn't believe Chelsea had an emergency on homecoming. You didn’t believe any of the smaller things. So, I told you that I didn’t think she had cancer, but I wasn’t smart enough then to ask you to prove her diagnosis to yourself with a report or by talking to her doctor. You didn’t believe any of it. I was tired of fighting someone who didn’t believe me anyway.” By the time she finished her little rant, her voice had softened and she was looking out the window at the passing scenery rather than at him.
Adam almost closed his eyes, but he was driving at high speed down the freeway, looking for a place he could check into at eleven o’clock at night. He wanted to change the subject, but he didn't know what to say. “I didn't get it back then, Hailey. You didn't give me specifics. You didn't tell me to ask Chelsea. And I knew you didn't like my mom.”
“I didn't tell you to ask Chelsea because she was still lying about it, at the time. She was too young to defy your mother back then. Honestly, it was a crapshoot this time, too, because your whole family does whatever the hell she says, Adam.” Her voice was climbing, but Hailey still looked out the window rather than at him. Not a good sign.
He was opening his mouth to say that he realized now that Hailey was right about his mother, when the sound and the light caught him off guard. Blue splashes of light suddenly swirled across his dash, casting strange shadows as the cop car lit up behind him.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. The last thing he needed now was interference. Any cop who came to this car would probably pick up on the tension inside the car. They were probably going to ask Hailey if he was abusing her and if she was in the car willingly. Good Lord.
He had to have been going too fast. There was definitely a ticket coming his way. Pulling to the side of the road he tried not to swear or to look at Hailey.
Fifteen minutes later, he turned the engine back on with his ticket in hand for he-didn't-know-how-much-money but surely it would be a crazy, expensive speeding ticket. He waited while the cop car pulled out around from behind him before merging back into traffic.
Getting pulled over was never fun but, sure enough, the officer had asked Hailey if she was being coerced in any way. She'd offered up her country star smile, almost startling Adam that she could turn it on seemingly at any time, even when they’d just been in the middle of a fight. Even when she'd been accusing him of never listening to her. The cop smiled back at her—of course he did—and handed Adam the ticket.
“Here,” Adam said and passed it off to her for safekeeping. He was done for now. He just had to drive at a reasonable speed, but as she took the ticket her fingers brushed against his and he felt the spark shoot up his arm almost as though an electric current arced between them.
“What was that?” Hailey asked, clearly as startled as he was.
“I don't know. Are you okay?”
She took a moment but then said yes and tucked the ticket into his glove compartment. This time, he managed to stay quiet. So did Hailey until they reached the hotel.
But what was that shock? Suddenly, he felt as though he could read every emotion coming off her now.
36
“I don't know, Adam!” Hailey almost yelled the words.
Despite the ticket and the arc of electric buzz in the car, Hailey had stayed quiet. The world had shifted just a little when his fingers had brushed hers. She didn’t know why, after all, they’d touched a thousand times before and nothing like that had happened. But the shared experience made her feel a little more connected to him. In that moment, she knew she belonged to Adam, she just didn’t know if he still wanted her to.
They’d made it to the hotel room and reopened their “discussion.” Her heart ached from the things she was saying. Things she’d never told him before. Things she hoped that this time he would finally hear. Still, she was trying to fortify herself to walk away again if she had to.
She was pacing while Adam sat in one of the chairs, elbows perched on his knees, hands clasped as though to hold himself together. As if he might actually explode if he got up and paced like she did. She tried again. “I don't know how to be seventeen years old again and give you whatever freaking evidence you needed about your mother.”
“I wasn't an adult either, you know.” His voice was calm, but she could sense the tig
htly leashed frustration in him, too.
She'd been two years younger than him and, at that age, those years made a difference.
“I just wish—” he started.
“No!” she cut him off. “You don't get to wish. It’s over and done with. I get it—she’s your mother. Your family is the only family you knew. And it's taken me a while to figure it out, but I did. We don't question our families; it’s just the way the world is. Your family was the only reason I knew families could be different from mine. But I don't know that yours was much better.”
He at least acknowledged that with a silent nod. It was far better than anything she'd ever gotten from him while they were in high school. Back then, he’d always insisted his family was good. They weren't rich, but they loved each other.
That was the part Hailey had always questioned. Maybe she'd been more cynical all along. Maybe she was more used to family crap than he was. She was certainly the one who was actively looking for it. “Adam, I dealt with my mom. I dealt with her cheating, conniving boyfriends. I know manipulation when it looks me in the face and lies to me. I always have. What I didn’t understand back then was that you didn’t have that skill, too.”
“She was my mother.” He sighed as though that was an excuse, and maybe it was. “When she told me to do things a certain way, she was right. Those things worked out. So, I tried to do what she told me. I didn't know how manipulative she was, honestly, until two days ago. And I'm going on thirty, Hailey.”
“Well, I'm sorry you had to find out.” She really was, but she couldn’t be with him if he was going to choose a family that lied to him over her. “And I'm sorry I was the one to tell you.”
He shook his head again. “I'm not sorry. It sucks. But it's better to know the truth. I am sorry that I didn't see it years ago.”
She tried to keep going. If they were apologizing for all the wrongs they’d committed against each other when they were kids, then she had several more in her back pocket. She pulled one out. “I'm sorry I walked out. I could have waited another year or two or three.”
“I don't think it would have made any difference.”
She shrugged. “I should have fought harder for us.”
Adam’s reaction startled her. He seemed almost bitter. “Why? Why would you have fought for me? It seems I was blind about everything going on around me.”
Hailey sniffed again. Her emotions were rolling off her in waves and about to leak out her eyes. She couldn’t contain them if she tried. “It doesn't matter. When you love someone, you fight for them. You keep fighting. And I guess I got tired. I had these dreams and I needed them for myself. I needed to be away from my mother. But I didn't need to be away from you, too.”
She trailed off and, once again, the silence settled in thick and heavy between them. She hadn't known when she'd come here how things would turn out. She thought they might yell and stomp away again, slamming doors, turning backs and deciding never to see each other again.
It was possible they might figure out how to love each other. But she hadn't expected that they would apologize and have that be the end as though nothing sat between them now—that they might be okay, but not together.
She felt as though she’d cut herself wide open and showed him everything inside. She felt like crying, but she was trying to be an adult and hold it together. As she’d proven to herself recently, she was perfectly capable of crying all by herself.
“What do we do now?” It came out as a raw whisper. Surely, he could see everything she felt, everything she needed from him, but even she didn’t quite know what that was.
He whispered back to her. “Let's try. We were good together once, and I think we're better together now. We're finally saying things that we should have been saying all along.”
“We're finally listening.” She offered up what was most important as the silence settled in again.
“Will you?” he asked as though he doubted her, “Try? Be with me. Give us a real go. Be my girlfriend.” Adam grinned on the last word.
Despite the heavy, happy tears that threatened to fall, so did she. “You want to go steady?”
“Yes!” His smile split his face ear to ear, popping out the dimple that she hadn't seen in so long. The one that only came out when he was truly happy. But they didn’t fall into each other’s arms. For all that they’d agreed to, it still didn’t seem like they were quite reconciled yet.
He waved his hand toward the bed with a mildly suggestive grin on his face. “We’ve got a hotel room for the night.”
Hailey nodded, but protested. “I have a meeting with Brenda at ten in the morning.”
The grin fell away as he seemed to absorb that. “What’s your meeting about?”
“New songs I wrote, for the reworked album.”
“New songs about what?”
Hailey had to laugh, but she told him. “About how much it sucks when the person you love just walks away.” She’d thrown her hands out as though tossing the words out casually and only at the end realizing what she'd said.
He paused and looked at her. This was her Adam. She knew him, every part of him, whether he was hers or not. Whether they worked out or not. She knew he was going to ask her if she meant it.
37
Adam’s heart stuttered at her words. She’d said…
He wanted to ask her if she meant it.
“The person you love” had fallen from her lips so easily. Years ago, he would have known that referred to him. He wouldn’t have been so damned afraid to ask. What if she said, “It was just a song.” Or even “I wrote about eight years ago…not now.”
He simply wasn’t ready to deal with her rejection. It would break him.
In the past, he would have made her play her cards first. He would have asked her what she meant but he told himself he was going to man up now. So he stood, walked over, and took her hands in his. He looked straight into those big, blue eyes and simply said, “I love you, too, Hailey. I always have.”
Then, whatever bravery he had found fled. He kept talking, words rolling out of his mouth as though if he filled the space she couldn’t reply. His chatter would keep her from saying, Oh, I didn't mean it, or not like that. “I know you have to get to work in the morning. And so do I. I took this crazy break from work to come see you the other night and I still haven't made it back to the office. I’ve got a business to run and it's in Knoxville—”
“And you love it,” she finally interrupted the drivel coming out of his mouth. Even so, he heard the sad note in her voice.
“I do. But that doesn't mean I won’t do everything I can to make things work with us.” He felt the conviction coming back. She hadn’t said she loved him, too, but she wasn’t telling him he was an idiot. Or was she?
“I'm on tour again in three weeks.” She threw it out like a barrier, as though she could toss up a blockade to what he was suggesting.
For a moment, Adam nodded. Then he said the thing that hurt the most. “It's okay if you don't want to do this. That’s not how I want things to go, and it'll—” He waved his hand around as though to gesture to the future. What was he going to say? That it would suck? No. It would do far more than suck. It would break him.
He thought he finally understood. He was all in, but she could still say no. And he owed her that opportunity. He loved her. And the stupid old adage about setting something free was true. He had to let her know any decision she made was okay.
“If it's not worth the effort to you, or if—” Adam was shaking his head, not even able to look at her, struggling to contemplate that it could all come tumbling down around him. He’d found her again. He’d screwed it up again. But this time, he’d fixed it. Only what had he fixed? He and Hailey finally had some peace about their past, but what if that’s all it was?
He was entering full panic mode when her hand hit his forearm.
“That's not it, Adam. I was just warning you this isn’t going to be the easiest thing. We live three hours
apart. We’re both dedicated to our work—and we have to be. Neither of us has a career that can be put on hold. Your family is still in the picture. Hell, your mother might actually have cancer; we don’t know.” She took a breath and he felt it in his chest. Then the knot he’d carried all night loosened as she said the words, “But if you're in, I'm in. And I love you, too.”
38
Six months later, Hailey took a seat at the picnic table in the wide backyard. The grass was crowded with tables heavy with potluck food. The yard swarming with the staff and musicians from Heart Beats. All four of the guys from Wilder were raiding the food table. JD’s friend Kelsey had donated her house for the party and was ever corralling JD’s young daughter with her own kids. Brenda was pushing her own kids on Kelsey’s swingset and her husband was hanging nearby. Ginger was talking up Craig Hibbetts, finally relaxed in a space she wasn’t in charge of.
Hailey breathed easy. Despite the fact that this wasn’t her party, she and Adam were celebrating tonight.
He'd been making huge payments on the debt for his company and finally had it down to a reasonable percentage. He’d hit a goal and was celebrating finally having some breathing room.
Hailey’s newest hit had broken the top 100 on the country charts. Everyone at Heart Beats was off their rockers for her… and for Wilder, who’d managed to chart with their single the same week.
She’d earned this. So had Adam. He’d thrown a party for his employees just the night before and he'd wanted her to come to Knoxville for that. He was one of those bosses that believed if you paid people well and kept them happy, they would stay with the company.
So far, it seemed to be working. Though, honestly, Hailey thought it didn't matter if it worked. It made Adam happy and that was what was important to her. This morning, they’d visited his mother, then driven the well-worn path back to Nashville to be here tonight. When Adam had finally filled his paper plate and said hello to everyone he passed on the way back to their table in the corner, she looked up at him—really looked. She’d found him again and she’d spent six months dedicated to not messing things up. She owed him an apology tonight. “I'm sorry about what I said to your mother earlier.”
That Night in Nashville (Ticket to True Love) Page 12