“And you were being Jealous-Boyfriend-Adam, who I didn’t even know existed!” I said.
A small smile twitched across his face, and his gaze finally landed on mine.
“I didn’t know he did either,” he answered.
I leaned up on my toes and planted a quick kiss on his lips.
“So you’re okay?”
He nodded. “You came all this way for that?”
I looked up at the too-high ceilings and pushed my lips to the side. “Maybe I could stay for a bit?”
Adam waited until my eyes drifted back down to him to answer, “If you’re going to be here you’re going to have to help me teach these rascals.”
“I’ve got no problem with that.”
“Let’s go then!” he ordered with raised eyebrows and a tilt of his chin back into his classroom. I followed him and closed the door as quietly as I could behind me.
“Alright, kids! We have a special guest today!” Adam clapped his hands, and the kids turned to him with attentive expressions. It was obvious they admired him. “This is my friend, River.”
“She’s pretty,” a little blonde boy commented.
“You’re very right about that,” Adam answered. “She’s going to teach you guys a song today.”
Adam smirked at me, and I ran my tongue over my teeth.
He thought he was clever. He’d taught me how to play the guitar when we were teenagers, and I had a good memory of it.
I smiled at the kids and grabbed the old Yamaha acoustic off the wall, taking a stool next to Adam.
“Alright kids—my mom used to sing me this song all the time when I was a kid,” I said as I took the pick Adam produced smugly from his pocket.
“What is it?” a little girl scooted closer to me, cupping her chubby cheeks in her hands.
“Yellow Submarine by the Beatles’. Has anyone heard of that?” I asked.
Adam chuckled to himself.
What he didn’t realize was I knew how to play more than just one Beatles’ song. I’d learned over thirty of them in the time that had passed since he’d taught me to play.
I began to strum the guitar and sing. The kids soon joined in when they learned the chorus. Adam sat with one foot on the floor tapping out the beat, the other foot on the brace of the chair, and his chin in his hand.
Adam clapped when the song ended.
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You’ve been hiding something from me, mhmm?”
“Would anyone like to hear another?” I called to the kids, ignoring him.
By the time I’d finished the hour’s worth of Beatles’ songs Adam was sitting on the chair shaking his head.
“Wow,” Adam said as the kids ran outside to recess. “You’ve really been holding back on me.”
I shrugged as I handed the guitar back to him. “I really like this guitar. It’s a lot easier to play than that bulky Fender you taught me on.”
“That’s because it’s ancient,” Adam said as he took it and placed it on the hook. “It’s the school’s.”
“I figured as much—you’re not much for acoustic.”
“I still have that bulky Fender,” Adam corrected me.
“Then I can show you what else I can play,” I said, biting my lip and letting it slip through my teeth.
“The fact you knew those Beatles’ songs was impressive—now you tell me you know more than just those?”
I nodded. “I know some Deftones, and even some Tool.”
“The secrets you’ve kept from me,” Adam murmured with a shake of his head.
“What, you like that I can play guitar?”
He pulled me into his arms. “I like the fact that my kids love you, and that I know I taught you to play that well.”
“Yes, it’s all you!”
“Shows me I actually do know how to teach!”
“Hey! What’s that suppose to mean?”
Adam sat down on the edge of his desk. “It means you didn’t really take to it from what I remember.”
“I was faking so you would spend more time with me,” I said as I fluttered my eyelashes at him.
He shook his head. “Of course, you tricky, tricky woman.”
“So…what are you doing tonight?” I asked as he put his hand on my hip and let his thumb drift under my shirt.
“It’s Thursday so it’s boy’s night out, but after…” His voice drifted off as his eyes moved up the curves of my body to my face.
“I see how it is,” I purred. “You’re using me for my body.”
Adam let his hands slide around my waist to my backside.
“Oh, that’s just an added benefit,” he whispered.
The intense look in his eyes made me want to do very bad things to him. I let my fingers run over his tie before wrapping it around them.
“Oh, what I could do to you if there weren’t small children in the general vicinity,” I said.
Adam placed pressure on my backside, pulling me into him so his lips were hovering over mine. His eyes lingered on them before meeting mine.
“That’s very naughty.” His voice was hoarse, and I knew he was thinking about it just the way I was.
“I have a desk in my bedroom,” I suggested, and I knew my cheeks were pink from the heat I felt there.
His chest rose. “I can be at your place at ten?”
“Isn’t that a little late for a school night?” I asked.
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyways.”
I heard the little feet running through the hallway and pulled away from him just as the kids flooded back into the room.
“Miss River—will you come back again sometime?” one of the small boys asked.
I looked over my shoulder at Adam who was cracking his knuckles as he took a deep breath.
“Only if Mr. Beckerson wants me to,” I replied.
“Mr. B, can your friend, Miss River, come and help you teach us again?” the boy asked with a huge grin as he slid his tiny hand into mine.
There was no way he could have said no if he wanted to.
“Of course she can,” Adam replied with a smile that set my heart racing.
The little boy looked up at me, beaming. “See Miss River, we all love you—Mr. B does, too!”
I looked over my shoulder at Adam with the boys hand clasped in mine. Adam’s eyes were locked on me, and he nodded.
“Who couldn’t love her?” he replied.
Chapter 35
I should have been used to Adam’s boy’s night out, but waiting for him was killing me. I wasn’t much for TV, and there wasn’t much on anyways. I ended up watching a rerun of The Big Bang Theory I had already seen about three times already. It didn’t matter, because I really wasn’t watching.
I let my mind rerun the moments of the day—the happiness of playing guitar with Adam, and the way he made me feel. I took a deep breath and looked down at my watch. It was 10:30, and Adam still wasn’t here. I sighed, and headed into my bedroom to change into my pajamas. Then the knock I had been waiting for came on the door and Adam snuck in.
“Hey,” he said as I came out from the bedroom. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
“You brought your guitar?” I asked with a nod to the hard case he was carrying. It was rather beat up, and it wasn’t one I ever recalled seeing before.
Adam smirked as he placed it on the couch and flicked open the bronze buckles.
“Nope,” he replied as he opened the lid.
The Yamaha guitar I played earlier in the day was nestled in soft red velvet.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
He lifted it out of the case and handed it to me. “I made a trade with the school. I took this one, and I bought them a brand new Fender. They thought it was a fair trade.”
I looked down at it in wonder. “But it really isn’t.”
“To them it was, new versus old—new will always win. At least that was what I was figuring on when I asked,” Adam said as I handed the guitar t
o him over the couch, and he placed it back in the case. “Do you like it?”
“Of course I do,” I said as I looked at him, breathless.
He was wearing dark wash jeans and a black button-up with the sleeves rolled up, but his hair looked like he had been sweating from the way it was matted down.
I couldn’t keep in my curiosity anymore.
“What exactly do you do on your boy’s night?” I asked.
Adam snapped the bronze buckles shut before looking up at me.
“It’s a secret,” he replied as he pulled his lip ring into his mouth with his upper lip.
“Is it something I’d approve of?” I asked, picking at the seams of the cushion underneath my hand.
Adam walked around the couch before tilting my chin so our lips grazed one another. “I’d never do anything you didn’t approve of.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then why aren’t you telling me?”
His hand went to rub the back of his neck as he thought over his answer, and with each passing second I felt my breath slowing until it felt as though I wasn’t breathing at all.
“I’m in a band—I swore Bobby to secrecy a few years back,” he finally admitted.
“Bobby knew, but you didn’t tell me?”
“Yeah…it was a really heavy metal band at first—and I didn’t want you to know about it, because I didn’t want you to be around that scene.”
“But?”
“Now, it’s more Five Finger Death Punch slash Of Mice and Men with a hint of 10 years, so it might be safe for you to come,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet.
I stepped back and leaned against my couch, arms crossed. “But you don’t want me to come.”
“You might hate it.”
“I love your voice,” I replied as I took his hands and ran my fingers over the calluses.
“Really? Cause I kind of hate it,” he admitted.
“It’s amazing—especially with that kind of music,” I said.
When his affectionate eyes met mine they were insecure, and it made me reach up to cup his face.
“When I hear you sing it’s like the whole world fades away. If I’d heard you sing years ago I never would’ve been able to keep my feelings from you secret—it’s like you’re singing to only me…just me,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes and smiled before resting his forehead against mine. “That’s because I am. I just think of you, and I lose myself in it.”
I leaned on my toes and gave him one soft kiss, letting my lips hover over his as I pulled slightly away. Before I could move away from him, his hand found my chin and tilted our lips to touch again. I let my lips wander down to his neck, and he moaned softly.
“Every time you touch me,” he murmured. “I feel like I’m going to light on fire.”
I responded by nipping at his ear, and he pulled my legs up around his waist, lifting my bottom to the edge of the couch before tilting my head back and letting his mouth wander down my neck and to my chest. My breath came out in a gasp as he slipped my shirt off and continued to kiss my chest as his fingers unhooked my bra and it slid away. I tilted my head back as my hands buried in his hair.
A single knock came on the door before it swung open. I barely had enough time to pull my body into Adam to cover my naked upper body before we both turned to see Bobby standing in the doorway.
His mouth was stuck open in an O, and the veins in his neck were bulging as he looked at me wrapped around Adam half-naked.
“What. The. Fuck,” he finally managed to choke out before turning and slamming the door so hard the wood cracked at the edges.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. “Shit.”
“That was not the way I wanted him to find out.” Adam swallowed, his arms still balancing me in the air.
“You should’ve locked the door,” I said, but there was no anger in my tone.
We’d both made the mistake of not thinking of it in our mad dash to rip one another’s clothes off.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Adam set my feet back on the ground. “What are we going to do now?”
I hooked my bra back and reached over to retrieve my shirt.
“Explain it to him?”
“Yeah…that sounds like a great way to end a night. I kind of like my face the way it is,” Adam scoffed.
“Me too,” I heaved a sigh as Adam placed his hands on the edge of the couch and leaned forward, head bowed.
“This is so fucked up,” he said.
We stood in silence for a moment. I stared at the top of Adam’s head between his tensed shoulders as he thought about his decisions.
Mine weren’t anything fabulous either.
“When were we going to tell him?” I finally asked.
“When we knew Tara had fixed the whole obsession with you thing,” Adam said as he began to pace.
“Do you really think even if he didn’t still have feelings for me he’d be okay with this? With us?” I asked as I sat down next to the guitar case.
Adam stopped pacing and locked eyes with me.
“No, because everything is a competition with him, and you were the ultimate prize.”
I crinkled my nose at the idea of being some sort of trophy, but I knew Bobby well enough to know Adam was right.
It wouldn’t matter if he was married to Tara; this would still drive him nuts.
“I don’t think of you that way,” Adam said, coming around the couch to sit next to me and placing his hands over mine.
“I know…it just means there never really was going to be a good time, or way, to tell him,” I admitted.
Adam bit his knuckle before standing. “I guess I should go talk to him.”
“Let me grab a sweatshirt, and we can go together,” I suggested.
Adam nodded, and I went to my room to grab one. When I came out Adam was standing in the same place staring at the door.
“Ready?” I asked as I slipped my hand in his.
“Can you stand in front of me so my face doesn’t get rearranged?” Adam joked, but his voice was tense.
“Anything to keep you looking pretty,” I said with a smile over my shoulder.
Adam smiled back and kissed my forehead before we headed across the hall.
I opened the door and stuck my head in.
“Bobby?” I called.
There was no answer.
“Bobby?” I called again as I walked in the door with Adam behind me.
I went to the balcony off of the kitchen and stuck my head out of the open window. Bobby was leaning against the wall, one foot pressed against the bricks and a beer in his hand. He didn’t look at me, but his body went rigid, and he took a deep swing of the beer before speaking.
“So how long has it been going on?” he asked.
I held my hand up to signal Adam to stay inside before I slid through the window.
“A few weeks,” I admitted.
“I thought you’d never find out,” Bobby said, chewing on his inner lip. “I never thought he’d have the balls to realize he loved you almost as much as I do.”
“I’m not sure what balls have to do with anything…” I tried to ease the situation, but Bobby’s icy eyes remained cold and straight ahead.
“Doesn’t matter now.” His voice was bitter. “He’s got you wrapped around his finger.”
“You might want to consider your words closely,” Adam interrupted as he climbed out the window to join us.
“Mhmm,” Bobby scoffed. His eyes twitched, but remained set on something in the distance.
“We’re dating now. I didn’t want you to find out like that—” Adam began.
Bobby finally reacted and started towards Adam. I stepped between them, hands on either ones’ chest.
“You didn’t want me to find out EVER!” Bobby yelled.
“I wanted to wait until I knew you’d act like a normal fucking human being!” Adam fired back.
“What’s t
hat supposed to mean?”
“It means you treat River like some sort of prize, even though you have a girlfriend!” Adam snapped.
“I never said River was a prize.”
Bobby backed away, and I knew he saw Adam was right.
“It’s not what you said. It’s what you did,” Adam said.
Bobby shook his head. “I’ve been trying to compete with you for fifteen years for her.”
“I’m not a competition!” I shouted as my composure broke. Hearing him admit I was some sort of pawn in his sick game was painful.
I felt nauseous as I looked at him. Years as my best friend all boiled down to a petty competition over my heart.
Bobby’s eyes met mine at the sound of hurt in my voice.
“I know…I just.” He heaved a sigh. “I don’t fucking know anymore.”
“We’re dating now,” I repeated. “So you need to suck it up.”
Bobby’s eyes looked heavy as he nodded.
“Sure,” he answered.
I stared at him for a moment as he looked down at his hands and played with his leather bracelets. I took a deep breath before turning on my heel and nodding for Adam to lead the way out. He looked at Bobby over my shoulder with his lips in a thin, pissed line. His eyes darted over his brother’s frame, and I could tell Adam believed Bobby about as much as I did.
This would not be the end of it.
Chapter 36
In the decade Bobby had been my best friend he never once made me feel like I was a prize or that my love was a competition. I suppose that was because he felt he was winning the game. He never really saw Adam as competition, because he was Bobby, and he always won. It didn’t matter when I told him I was in love with his brother; he still tried to sway me to see he was the person I should be with. We went years dating other people, but never one another, and he still hung on to that notion. I never once looked at Bobby and felt the way I did when I looked at Adam. Still there was a level of guilt I couldn’t explain associated with my actions. Maybe it was because things with Bobby didn’t feel like they’d ever be the same. Then there was that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw him with Tara. I was reminded of it as I watched them walking to Bobby’s car laughing, Bobby’s arm slung tight around Tara’s waist.
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