Chapter Four #3
But would it really be?
I shut my eyes, willing the question to disappear from my mind.
I already knew what I needed to do, how I would solve my problems—at least a few of them.
I’d wait it out, hold it together for the next few weeks, and then retreat to New Hampshire, where I’d plunge into my studies.
Failing Hempstead could not happen, could not be part of my future.
I just needed to up my effort. I knew that.
You can do this, Lila. You can do this…
The low creak of the library door made me open my eyes, sweeping the mental pep talk from my mind. Who could be here—
“Oh, hey, I didn’t think anyone was in here, but I saw a light on and wanted to check and see if someone was in urgent need of an appetizer,” Adam said.
“Um, I—” My tongue thickened in my mouth. “Um—”
“Crostini?” he asked as he walked across the threshold. He held a large silver tray in one hand and wore the most ill-fitting pair of black trousers I’d ever seen. He crossed the room and presented the half-empty tray to me. “I hear they are quite good.”
I jumped up from my place on the sofa, smoothing my dress. “No, I don’t want—thank you, but no.”
“You sure you don’t need one?”
“I’m fine.” I stumbled backward, closer to the door and farther away from him. God, could this be more embarrassing? He probably thinks I’m a spoiled brat, hiding in here and crying like a little kid. “I didn’t realize you were working tonight.” I only thought you worked as the pool boy…
“They needed some extra staff.” He nodded in the direction of the party, and the sounds of people laughing and talking as the string quartet played in the garden. “Your parents put on quite a show.”
“They do.” I scrambled to think of something to say as I rubbed my nose, self-conscious of the state of my makeup. Was mascara running down my cheeks? Did I have lipstick on my teeth? Were my eyes red? God, I hoped not… “They love this night. It’s one of their favorites of the year.”
“I can see why. Since you’re not eating, do you mind if I put this here”—he put down the tray—“it’s just so heavy after a while.
” I took a breath to regard him. Adam was rumpled and awkward like me, but he was also so…
interesting. I’d been thinking that since first meeting him.
If I was honest, I also felt intimidated by Adam Greene.
He was so incredibly smart, and in comparison, with my grades, I felt like an imbecile.
And yet he’s the one who needs to prove himself for a scholarship. It was so wrong.
“Are you having a good time?” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Yes.”
He stepped closer to me, closing the space to less than a foot between us. “No, I don’t think you are, Lila.”
My breath hitched when he said my name, and I cursed myself for having that reaction, for feeling something for him, a boy I hardly knew, whose life didn’t intersect with mine. “W—what do you mean?”
“I saw you out there on the pool deck.” He fixed his gaze to mine. “I think you were crying.”
I looked at him for a long moment before I nodded.
“Why?” A slight frown crossed his face. “What made you so upset?”
“I don’t—you wouldn’t get it.” I looked away from him, forcing myself to stop staring at him, to stop drinking in the fine lines of his jaw, the depth of his eyes, and the way he was so much more of a man than a boy. “It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
I returned my gaze to his, still feeling the flutter of something I didn’t understand in my stomach.
Compared to the boys at school, Adam seemed so much older.
I knew all the girls at Hempstead would call him hot.
And here I’d said, what—one hundred words to him?
“There’s just a lot of pressure on me right now. My parents have a lot of demands.”
“I can tell.”
I frowned. “How?”
“Something in your expression the other day when I was cleaning the pool. You’re not okay.”
“No, I’m not.” I gulped. “I hate it at school. I don’t fit in, and I’m practically failing out.
” I swallowed again, pushing down more of my nerves and savoring the release that came from finally saying that to someone else, finally admitting the truth to another person—someone normal and not at all like my parents.
“And my parents won’t acknowledge that.”
“Why would they?” He looked around the room, as if taking in not only that space, but the rest of the house. “Your parents do a fantastic job of making everything look perfect at all times.”
“They do.” I thought of my father’s earlier comments. “And it isn’t.”
Adam’s gaze returned to me, and then he took his left hand from his pocket. When he opened his palm, I saw the latest origami boat I’d left in his locker. “Nice work. by the way.”
“I like…I like making them,” I replied, my cheeks heating, the small hairs on the back of my neck standing straight.
I wasn’t sure why I kept leaving them for him, but I guess because he had an interest in engineering, they’d become symbolic to me with reaching for your dreams. His dreams. It was probably a stupid thought he’d found immature.
“Why boats?”
Of course, he wanted to know. Shit.
“Truth?” I asked, hoping he’d say no.
“Why not?” Drat.
“Why boats?” He pressed.
“Because…um…I read online one time that the boat symbolizes a great journey, a big trip, moving forward,” I replied, embarrassment still coursing through me.
“And I just—I always have to remind myself to keep moving forward, there is something else after this, something else ahead.” I stopped for a moment and chewed my bottom lip, wondering if I was babbling, if I was making any sense.
“I just…I thought you might need that too.”
“You did?” He looked down at the blue paper, then back at me. “Why?”
“I—ah—I read your application, remember? I know how much you need this scholarship. And I…” I looked away again. I was saying too much and sounded stupid. I needed to shut up.
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
He moved closer to me. “It’s something.”
I let my gaze meet his again. “I read what you wrote about your family. What you’ve had to deal with in life. And I just wanted you to know that no matter what, things can get better from here.”
“You wanted me to know that?” His quiet voice sounded like something between a rasp and a whisper.
“Yes,” I said, still staring into his eyes, which seemed to grow deeper with each breath. I practically swam in them now, searching for something, but I didn’t know what. It felt like I knew every part of him, as if he’d enveloped me. “I wanted you to know that.”
“People don’t do nice things for me very often, Lila.”
There it was again, my name on his lips, round and bold, his mouth extending across its two syllables. I thought I might fall over from the pressure of it, and yet, I wanted to hear him say it again, and again, and again.
“I’m sorry they don’t,” I managed. “I’m so—”
“Don’t apologize. Please don’t,” he begged. He took my hand in his and heat rushed to my cheeks again. I looked up into his eyes and saw such conflicting emotions there it was confusing.
“Lila, you see me.”
“How could I not?”
“You’d be surprised,” he scoffed.
“I hope you didn’t mind—”
His hand reached out and touched my cheek, and just as I closed my eyes from that sensation, Adam’s lips met mine, crushing my words and stopping my thoughts.
In one swift movement, he’d closed the remaining inches between us, and we pressed together.
His kiss felt soft at first, then bolder, and his tongue raced across the seam of my mouth.
I opened for him, breathless and disbelieving.
I kissed Adam as if there was no one else in the world, no party at my parents’ house, no one near us, no one to see us.
The ecstasy intoxicated me, and I wondered for a moment if I’d be able to handle what came after this moment.
Then he pulled away. His chest heaved, and his eyes were bright. “I’m—I have to get back to work.”
I took a few deep breaths, still tasting him on my tongue. “Okay.”
Still staring at me, he moved backward. “I’m, um…” He turned and grabbed the tray of appetizers. “I need to get more crostini.”
I blinked at him. “Right. More crostini.”
“They’ll wonder where I am. I have to get back.”
With a small nod that gave away nothing, he exited the library, closing the door behind him.
I stared at it for a long time, still feeling the pressure of his lips on mine, the fire it had ignited in my stomach, the deep rawness of the way he’d said my name just before claiming my mouth.
He’d kissed me as if he knew me, as if he’d always known me, and as if he always would.
This wasn’t the timid, clumsy, grasping kiss of a boy from school drunk on raging hormones.
I’d had those kinds of kisses before, and they did nothing for my soul, they didn’t knock me off my axis.
Why had he kissed me? It didn’t matter. That kiss had sent me to another planet.