When Adam Met Evie

by Giulia Skye

  “Adam!” she cheered, raising the beaker to him. “You’re back.”

  Everyone turned to him and he had no choice but to step out into the light. Just like standing in the doorway instead of sitting on the sofa, staying in the shadows would only draw more attention. He raised a hand and offered one of his friendliest smiles. “Hey.”

  “Come and meet the Glasweeegians from Brisbane. Originally from Scotland, they now live in Oz and tour the country whenever they can. Isn’t that so amazingly fantastic?”

  Evie was drunk and she was grinning at him like he was the best thing ever. Despite himself, the corners of his mouth kicked up. He stepped closer.

  “This the wee fella you’re paying to chum you along the Gibb?” the woman next to Evie said, raking her eyes up and down Adam’s body. “Aye, I can see what you mean.”

  The woman burst out laughing again and Evie’s guilty eyes caught his, leaving no doubt in Adam’s mind as to what story she’d been telling. He held her naughty gaze. Very mature, Evie. But, those eyes. He couldn’t keep a straight face for long. He winked at her. “I came for the keys.”

  “Ah, stop awhile and grab yerself a drink,” the woman said as Evie handed him the keys. “Plenty of stubbies there. Help yerself.”

  Adam didn’t know what a stubby was, but Evie helped him out by reaching into a cooler and pulling out a short green bottle of light colored beer and handed it to him. “We all chipped in for the booze and food,” she told him.

  He didn’t really feel like drinking but took the bottle anyway. “Thanks.” He wouldn’t stay long. But then someone handed him a bottle opener and the woman, who told him her name was Janet, began to introduce him to everyone else. Adam heard the names Heidi, Baz and Toby, but the others were mumbles and slurs he didn’t quite catch. “Nice to meet you all.” He leaned over to talk quietly in Evie’s ear. “Two parties in one day. You’re quite the social butterfly.”

  “I told you, I’m extremely likable.”

  Just then a wiry looking guy wearing board shorts and a washed-out gray vest came over to join them. His blond hair was tied back in a short ponytail and he held a beer in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. He waggled the wine at Evie but she declined with a bright smile.

  “This is Pete,” Evie said. “Pete, this is Adam, my travel partner.”

  “How’s it goin’?” Pete’s eyes darted from Evie to Adam then back again. He was young—early to mid-twenties—and only a few inches taller than Evie.

  Adam greeted him. “You don’t sound very Scottish.”

  “Nah, mate.” He angled his head to indicate two other guys next to an army-style Jeep with a tent erected on the roof. “We’re from Perth.”

  Perth. Damn.

  “Cool setup.” Adam nodded at the tent trying to make conversation as his mind raced elsewhere. Had these guys heard Michael Adams had been in their hometown? “How long have you been traveling?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “Pete and his friends have just done the Gibb River Road,” Evie said, and Adam let out his breath. Six weeks traveling in a patchy reception zone was enough time for someone to lose touch with the world. Adam took a sip of his lukewarm beer and tuned in to Evie’s easy chatter. They made small talk about the Canadian Rockies and frozen winters, something the population of Perth never truly experienced, then someone cranked up the music and the Glaswegians began to dance.

  “I love this song!” Evie announced and darted off to join their scuffed-up circle. In no time at all, she was swinging her arms high in the air, then low around her hips, pulsing her body to the jagged beat. A wood sprite dancing in a forest.

  Adam told himself to leave. Evie was busy having fun and there was no reason for him to remain now that he had the keys. Poised with goodbyes and excuses to leave, Adam turned to Skinny Pete, but noticing that something on the dance floor had caught Pete’s attention, he followed his eyeline instead. Evie was bending over to refasten the strap of her sandal, the hem of her shorts riding up over the globe of her butt. Adam’s eyes shot back to Pete. No wonder the little punk looked like he was ready to devour dessert.

  The song ended and Evie returned, her skin flushed and sprinkled with sweat. She wiped her forehead and smoothed back her hair, the bun on top listing to one side. Pete held up the bottle of wine he’d placed by his feet but Adam cut in first.

  “You wanna take a walk with me?” he asked, holding out his hand. There was a moment of surprise but then she beamed at him, like he’d just handed her a diamond necklace. He grinned back. He couldn’t help it.

  She had that effect on him.

  It took a while to politely extract themselves from the group. Skinny Pete, knowing there was no further action to be had, slunk back to join his brothers, and Janet, having hugged Evie several times over, only let her go when she made Evie commit to joining them on a boat tour in the morning.

  “You’re going on a boat tomorrow with a hangover?” Adam asked as they left the noise and music behind.

  “Who said I’m going to have a hangover?” They reached the camp kitchen, a two-walled shelter under which stood several banks of stainless-steel sinks. Evie dipped her head under a tap and drank from cupped hands. “I rarely get them,” she said when she surfaced for air. She sucked her wet lips dry then pulled a face. “Yum, warm water.”

  Adam grinned. He’d come to know all about the frustration of no cold water. He realized after that first shower in Broome—and all the showers thereafter—that the ground pipes were so baked this time of year that no matter how long the water was left running, it would never run truly cold. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Two or three glasses.” She wiped her hands on her shorts. “It’s hard to tell because that guy Pete kept topping me up.”

  I just bet he did. “He kept staring at your ass when you were dancing.”

  Evie hooted. “No way.” But she was still smiling as they walked out of the campground and he wondered if she found the skinny guy’s attention flattering. He had to be younger than her by a good five years and he looked like he’d flake after twenty push-ups, if not ten. But maybe she needed a confidence boost after her dickhead ex had gotten another woman pregnant.

  They walked the path along the mudflats, falling silent as they listened to the night. Stars glittered like diamonds.

  “Do you know something, Adam?” she said. “We never actually introduced ourselves yesterday.”

  At that café in Broome? Was that really only yesterday?

  “I already knew your name. The woman in the campground told me.”

  “And I knew yours too.”

  He was about to ask what her point was but realized in her drunken haze, she probably didn’t have one. And if she ever did, it had long since been drowned in wine. “So how did you meet those people?”

  “Janet walked past while I was cooking. We got chatting, she invited me over for a drink, then the Aussie guys with the roof tent joined us.” Evie talked like these things happened all the time. Maybe they did to her. He didn’t know. He didn’t know much about her at all. She was a blank sheet of paper, and as far as she was concerned, so was he.

  As they walked, he listened to Evie chat about the places she’d seen in Australia and how scared she’d been when she’d first touched down, a sole traveler in a foreign land. “When I think back, I still can’t believe I did it,” she was saying. “Zac and I used to do everything together. We used to have the same interests. We …” She trailed off when he threw her a pointed look. “Never mind.”

  He was sorry to cut off her flow but glad she’d paid attention to rule number three. There was something about that dickhead that stuck in his craw, and he was enjoying this walk too much for him to ruin it. “What’s next for you after Darwin?” he asked.

  She reeled off towns and sites with ease. Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbou
rne. “And then, I’ve planned my last couple of weeks in Tasmania before returning to Sydney and flying home. What about you?”

  “Would it surprise you that I haven’t thought about it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” She mock-tutted at his lack of organization. “You said you were going to stay with your friends until Christmas.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting kinda curious to see what Christmas in the tropics is like.”

  “It makes me sad that I’m not spending it with my mum. It’ll be the first time ever. I offered to pay for her flight out here, but she teaches and the Christmas holidays are relatively short for such a long trip. She won’t have time to get over jet lag before she has to fly back, and besides, she gets funny when I spend money on her.”

  Evie funding the majority of this trip was still making him feel funny too. Not that she seemed bothered about it, which made him wonder. “What do you do for work back home?”

  She grinned over at him. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  He frowned, considered it for a moment. “Circus clown.”

  She pulled a ha ha face. “I’m an accountant.”

  He whistled, impressed. “Big job.” He didn’t know what he’d been expecting but of course, it made sense now. All her talk of budgets, costs and schedules. “You must be pretty smart.”

  “I do all right.”

  “And you were cleaning showers because …”

  “Because Lorraine needed someone and I had nothing to do except mope around feeling homesick.” She shrugged. “And I guess it’s not in me to turn down a bit of cash when it’s offered.”

  “I’m trying to picture you in a suit.”

  “I don’t often wear them. Not all accountants do.”

  He was about to say that all of his did but stopped himself just in time. He currently had three—two for different aspects of the Adams-Williams empire that had been built over the past year, and one, Brandon Wahlberg, dealing with his personal accounts. It was Brandon who Adam had emailed tonight to discuss the funds he’d like released for Evie when their time in the Kimberleys came to an end.

  When they reached a set of railings, Evie stopped walking to peer over the side. “Did you have fun catching up with Canada tonight?”

  “Yeah, best time ever.” The way she cocked her head told him he’d failed to keep the bitterness out of his tone. She was looking at him now with her X-ray vision and he wondered what she’d say if he pulled out his phone and showed her all the bullshit he’d read earlier—the craziness on Twitter, his apparent impotence, Saskia’s raging $50,000 bounty. All the paragraphs of legalese from his lawyers concerning defamation and divorce. “I would have had more fun staying with you.”

  The words were out before he’d even had time to think about them. Evie blinked as if she were maybe trying to work out if he’d just spun her a line. He stared down at her mouth, mesmerized by her gently nibbling on her plump bottom lip, and how she toyed with it between her teeth. Right on cue, his naked image of her popped into his head again.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Other than your naked body and how I feel less sexually challenged around you? Well, lots of things. His head ached with it all and the shitty evening he’d had—but mostly, he was thinking about what he would be doing, here, right now, if he really was just some Canadian guy traveling around Australia in a beat-up truck.

  “I’m thinking about kissing you.”

  He saw her long lashes flicker but his admission didn’t seem to surprise her as much as it did him. She pulled herself up to sit on the railings, bringing the top of her head level with his chin. “Why … don’t you, then?”

  Because kissing her would make everything a thousand times more complicated and Adam didn’t do complications. That was Michael’s world.

  “We’ve only known each other for two days,” he told her, backtracking before it got awkward. Why had he been so compelled to tell her the truth when he was supposed to be living a lie? “You might slap my face, accuse me of taking advantage of you when you’re drunk.”

  “I’m not that drunk.”

  Right. “What if you get all weepy on me like you did last night?” He patted his pockets. “I didn’t bring any tissues.”

  A small laugh escaped her. “I don’t feel remotely close to tears.”

  “What if you treat me like a rebound guy? Make me feel all used and worthless come morning.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not on the rebound.”

  The moonlight pooled in her eyes and his gaze turned serious. He could make jokes but what would actually happen if he really did position his lips just a breath away from hers?

  She raised her hand and slowly traced a line over his lips with her fingers. “I’ve never kissed a man with a beard before.”

  Adam felt the tug of her touch in his groin. It would be so easy to pull her toward him, to place his lips on hers and taste.

  But he wrapped his hand gently around her fingers instead, felt them go limp with rejection. “We shouldn’t.”

  She stared into his eyes with her lie-detector gaze. “Is there someone else?”

  “No.” He held her hand firm. “You’re paying me to escort you to Darwin. You’re technically my boss. I don’t want to mess this up.”

  She considered this a moment, her eyes no longer looking directly at his. Eventually she nodded, quietly accepting what he’d said and refraining to ask the questions that he could see were gathering like clouds in her mind.

  “So you still want to travel with me?”

  “Sure, I do.” And after the night he’d had, he was looking forward to it more than ever. “We made a deal.”

  “Phew.” She hopped down from the railing. “For a second there I thought you were going to chicken out.” Then she looked him over from head to toe, a furrow forming on her brow. “Not that you look like the type of guy who’d chicken out of anything.”

  And something in the way she looked at him told him she wasn’t talking about a self-drive tour of the Kimberleys anymore. He’d chickened out of kissing her.

  And they both knew it.

  CHAPTER 15

  The day they were due to leave Derby, Evie called her mum from the internet café.

  “So … about Zac,” her mother said. “He’s got a new girlfriend, then.”

  Evie puffed out her cheeks. They’d been on the phone for ten minutes and after their initial chitchat and catch up, discussing the differences in weather, and the ins and outs of music camp, they were now wading into deeper waters.

  “She’s a bit more than just his new girlfriend, Mum.” Evie had emailed her to tell her Zac’s news, but this was the first time they’d actually been able to speak about it and the hurt began to bleed through again. “I still can’t believe he didn’t tell me he’d met someone else. A month. That’s all it had taken for him to forget—”

  “Darling, don’t take it like that.”

  “How else am I supposed to take it? After all those years together and he didn’t even think I was worth—”

  “Darling, don’t. I can see what you’re doing, and it’s natural, but really, Zac is nothing like …” Mum paused like she always did when trying to find the right words to the describe Evie’s father. It was during these pauses that Evie wished her mother would just come out with what she truly thought of Noel Barker—a man who’d been loved by millions, but despised by the two people he’d ditched long before he’d hit the big time. That spineless weasel. The little lying fuckwit. But Evie knew Mum would never stoop so low. “Don’t let what happened with your father cloud your judgment.”

  Evie gripped her phone. Her mother had come to terms with the past, had risen above it, but there were some things Evie wasn’t ever able to forgive and forget. “Noel flipping Barker lied to us
for fourteen bloody years, Mum. Cloudy judgment or not, Zac shouldn’t have lied to me either. He, of all people, should know how I feel about being lied to.”

  There was a long, awkward pause. “Men can be very weak,” her mother said eventually, and Evie knew what was coming. “And we’re strong women.”

  Evie dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t in the mood for one of her mother’s women-are-empowering speeches—not that she didn’t have a point. She did. Bernadette Blake was one of the strongest, most capable women Evie knew but there were times when Evie was desperate for her to just let rip. What do you mean Zac’s shacked up with someone else so soon? How the fuck dare he forget my daughter so quickly?

  “From what I saw, this Teagan seemed nice,” Mum said.

  “From what you saw?” Evie sat up in her plastic chair. “Have you actually met her?” What the hell was going on back home? “Mum?”

  “I bumped into Zac at Bluewater the day before I left for music camp.”

  So that’s why Zac had finally told Evie about the baby. She shivered under the café’s air con, rubbing the goosebumps on her arm.

  “Darling, I couldn’t interfere. I hope you understand. And he promised me he was going to tell you. Listen, I know it’s hard that he’s—”

  “Mum, please don’t say he’s moved on and that I should do too.” Evie strived for composure as her mother went quiet. “It’s like I told Adam the other night. I left Zac to go traveling so it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve moved on already. Why do people always assume that I haven’t?”

  “Actually, I was going to say that I know it’s hard that he’s become a father after you spent so long trying.”