Chapter 9
The next morning, I woke up with a fur scarf strangling me.
The scarf’s name was Jules.
She was laying on my chest, her body wrapped around my neck, tail flicking against my ear.
Sensing my eyes opening, she let out a loud mewling sound and launched herself off my chest, knowing that as soon as I dragged my carcass out of bed, she’d get a fresh can of food.
“You don’t have to wake me like that,” I groaned, shuffling my way into the kitchen to find her a bowl to eat out of.
Sliding my fingernail beneath the tab, the lid cracked open making a hissing sound, not unlike the noise of opening a soda can.
Excited for her meal, Jules ran figure eights around my feet, nearly tripping me as I set her bowl of food on the coffee table. “Okay, okay. Jeez. Here you go.”
She chirped and hopped on the table, diving into her food in a manner that if a stranger had seen the display, she would have been taken away from me for animal abuse… because clearly she made it look like I never fed her. Ever. Not once.
If it wasn’t for her chonky rolls, she might actually convince someone of that.
My own stomach growled, reminding me that if not for the fact that Adam cooked up some frozen waffles last night, I wouldn’t have eaten anything.
And now, six hours later, I was no closer to having any groceries in this apartment.
Outside my door, there was a light thump and then the sound of something scraping at the bottom of the door.
I crept closer to the door, trying to be as stealthy as possible just in case it was a serial killer here to spatter my brains across the wall.
Hm. Maybe I needed to back off on watching true crime documentaries before bed.
Leaning forward, I peeked out of the peephole.
I half expected to see Adam out there, looking right at me.
But instead, a giant dog’s nose snoofed the peephole.
“What the?—”
I looked back at poor Jules, happily eating and oblivious to the potential danger to her right outside our door. Here I’d been afraid for a human serial killer, when a potential kitty serial killer was lurking out there instead.
And seriously, how big did that dog have to be to reach the damn peephole?
I grabbed my keys and cracked the door open, sliding out to see if this dog was just some random lost dog in the building or some sort of Kujo on the loose.
Even just cracking the door, I could tell he’d been on his hind legs, front paws pressing on my front door.
“What in the ever loving… what are you doing!?” I pushed the door more, coming fully out into the hall and the dog started hopping around, clearly happy to see me, like we were old friends. He dragged a blue leash behind him as he danced and wiggled.
He had big, droopy eyes and beautiful golden hair that I was wildly jealous of and had paid a lot of money to a stylist to achieve.
“Well, at least you’re friendly.” I bent to pet him. He jumped to meet my hand, then slurped his massive tongue beneath my chin.
“Verne, come! Verne? Where’d you run off to!?” A deep voice bellowed from the other end of the hall.
“Adam!?” I shouted.
Adam rounded the corner, two Yeti cups of coffee in his hand and he dropped his head back to the ceiling. “Oh thank God. I opened the door and he just took off!”
“You have a dog named Verne that you failed to tell me about?”
Grinning, he handed me one of the Yeti cups, then dropped to one knee to loop the leash around his wrist. “I do. Named after the author of the best book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” he said, pointedly.
I rolled my eyes. “We’ll see about that after I lend you some of his true best works.”
When he stood back up, I tried to hand him the second Yeti cup back, but he shook his head. “That one’s for you.”
I looked down at the Yeti cup, my head spinning with the delicious scent of the freshly brewed roast. “You brought me coffee?”
“Yeah.” His shoulder lifted in a shy shrug. “I figured that if you didn’t have time to go grocery shopping, then you probably didn’t have time to get coffee either. Or half and half. Or sugar.”
I brought the cup to my mouth and took a long sip. It was perfect. Light and sweet, just how I loved it. “Bless you.”
“Two cream, two sugars. Some things don’t change.”
“Hey… why did Verne come to my apartment?” I asked. There must have been a dozen other doors between mine and Adam’s apartments that he could have chosen to scratch at.
“He really likes cats,” Adam said. “Actually, no, that’s an understatement. He loves cats. I can’t explain it, but he just does. He probably smelled Jules in there and beelined for your place.”
I looked down at Verne, panting up at me, his tongue lobbed out on the side. “No one else has a cat in this building?”
“No one on this floor.”
“Well…” I draped my hand on the doorknob. “Is Verne good with cats? Does he want to meet her?”
“He’s really good with cats. He gets excited, but he’s a gentle giant.”
“Then I don’t mind if he comes in for a minute. Unless you were on your way out…” I inclined my chin toward the leash in his hands.
“We were just going out for our morning walk. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
I glanced down at my slippers and pajama pants. But also Adam wasn’t wrong… I had no food, including nothing to make for breakfast. A quick walk to a corner store would do me some good. “Come on in and let me put real clothes on. Then I’ll join you.”
I opened the door and walked in first, leading Verne and Adam over to where Jules was on the coffee table. Her back arched, hair spiking and eyes dilated and alert as the dog entered, but she didn’t seem too frightened.
She liked dogs a lot, usually, as long as they’re not too excitable.
Verne pulled at the leash, panting and trying to get to her. “Verne,” Adam said, firmly. “Easy.”
That one command shifted Verne into a polite young pup. He sat down at the edge of the coffee table and patiently waited, tail wagging, as Jules cautiously made her way over to him, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.
Nose to nose, they sniffed each other until Verne released a big sloppy kiss over her ear. Surprised, Jules shook off the kiss, then butted her head against Verne, chirping and snuggling him.
Adam smiled at me. “I think the coast is clear if you want to change.”
As we walked around downtown Hanover, I was charmed by its quaint storefronts and friendly population.
I sighed wistfully as the woman at the food truck handed me a foil wrapped egg and cheese sandwich and another coffee.
“Want me to top that off for you, too?” The woman asked.
“Top it off? You’ll basically have to fill it to the brim,” I laughed.
“You didn’t seriously finish that entire Yeti cup of coffee I brought you?” Adam gaped at me.
“No…” Holding up a finger, I tipped my head back and swallowed the remaining gulp. “Now I did.” I handed the woman my empty cup, which she quickly refilled and gave back to me.
Smiling, we resumed our stroll down the sidewalk of the cute little downtown area, stopping to let Verne sniff and do his business.
Living in the UK the last several years was nothing short of beautiful. Historic, reverent beauty. Every building, every cobbled stone street was laced with more history than Americans could ever imagine.
And I loved it. Truly, I did.
But I’d almost forgotten that I also loved this. I loved New England. I loved how small and sweet it was here. I loved that there wasn’t a bone-chilling dampness in the air.
“You missed it, didn’t you?” Adam asked, practically reading my mind as we strolled down the sidewalk.
“Yeah. There’s a lot I missed,” I admitted. “But there’s also a lot I miss about England.”
“Like what?”
“Everything over there is so old. It’s like being a miniature part of history just walking down the street. Every stone wall I touch, I wonder who touched it hundreds of years ago. The thought that maybe William Shakespeare touched the very wall I did makes me giddy. And I miss how chipper everyone is at the local pub every night. They know you by name. They shout hello when you come in. They challenge you to dart tournaments?—”
“They challenged you to darts? Yikes.”
“Well, they learned that lesson the hard way,” I laughed. “After my stray dart hit the painting of the original pub owner right between the eyes, I was banned from playing darts in that pub ever again.”
Adam snorted with a little shake of his head. “Same ol’ Harper.”
It was no secret how bad I was at all bar games… darts, pool, air hockey, buck hunter. I sucked at all of them.
“So other than historicity and pubs—which, by the way, we’ve got here in New England, too— what else do you miss?” Adam asked.
“I miss my mom, my little brother, Duke. And my best friend, Daphne.”
He examined me as we took each careful step over the uneven brick sidewalk. “And what did you miss about here?”
I smiled. “The obvious… my dad. Addy. Coen, Cole, and Lacey, too of course. It’s not just them I miss, though. I’m sad I missed so many of their milestones. I never saw Coen and Cole’s first steps. Or their preschool graduation. I missed out on Lacey starting to crawl.” I paused to take another sip of coffee. “But maybe most of all, more than any of that… I missed how large the coffees are here. I mean come on, look at this thing! It weighs more than Verne does!”
I grinned at Adam over the lip of the Yeti cup. “Verne weighs eighty pounds,” he said, voice dry despite the smile splayed on his full lips.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. It weighs more than Jules does!”
Shaking his head, he let that one go. Because my cat easily weighed fifteen pounds. “They don’t have Starbucks and venti sizes in England?”
“Starbucks is literally the only place in Europe that will serve a Venti. But it gets some major side-eye from locals. Basically everything in Europe and the UK is pretty dainty… except for the beer. They sure love ending their days at the pub with a big pint of cold beer and a meat pie.”
“That sounds…”
“If your next word is anything other than delicious, we can’t be friends.”
He looked slowly at me as we continued our stroll.
Friends.
Was that what we were?
“I was going to say that it sounds heavy. Meat pies and beer? It would sit like lead in my stomach. Must just not be my thing.”
I sighed dramatically and rolled my eyes. “Oh, fine. I guess we can still be friends. But if I have to try your stupid ramen, then you have to try a meat pie.”
“Are you making it?”
“God, no. I can’t cook.”
Adam ducked his head to hide his smirk, but I saw it all the same. “Then I’ll try it.”
I went to smack his arm, but he caught my hand gently in his, bouncing his eyebrows at me. “Ninja reflexes.”
“You hear that, Verne? Your daddy thinks he’s a ninja.”
He released his hold on my hand. “Think? Oh no. I know.”
“Oh, really? Would a ninja allow this to happen?”
Swiftly, I lifted the hand he had just released and gently tapped my fingertips to his cheek in a faux slap of sorts.
He gasped, pressing his hand to his cheek, both of us exaggerating how dramatic the slap was. “I wasn’t ready!”
“What ninja needs to be ready for his attacker?”
“I was distracted by your feminine wiles!”
“Oh yes.” I winked. “I’m a wiley one.”
We both start giggling like crazy. Verne sensing that fun was happening without him, circled us, barking and bowing like he was ready for playtime.
His leash tangled around both our ankles and Adam and I both lost our footing, falling into the brick building next to us.
Still laughing.
Verne, still barking, as though he was in on the joke.
Our laughter slowly subsided until I realized that by how we were tangled in Verne’s leash, my body pressed flush against Adam’s, I was pinning him to the brick wall.
His hard length pressed against my hip bone and a swell of heat flashed through my body. Blinking, I looked up, taking a slow inventory of his face.
Soft, full lips that I was drawn to parted in a light exhale that smelled faintly of peppermint and coffee.
Bright blue eyes glimmered with a sharp spike of desire.
“Harper—” My name on his lips was rough and graveled. More masculine than I ever remembered his voice being.
I didn’t want to hear anymore though. Because I was pretty sure the next words out of his mouth were going to be all the logical reasons why we shouldn’t do this. Why we shouldn’t or couldn’t be together.
So instead, I pressed my mouth to his, kissing away his objections.
I had expected him to push me away.
To end the kiss.
Cool, collected Adam who thinks through every life decision to a dizzying extent. Surely, he knew we shouldn’t be doing this. Surely he suspected that there were some rules against it at the university… or that it was at least frowned upon to engage in extracurriculars with a freelance employee.
But he didn’t push me away.
Instead, he wrapped a strong arm around my waist and with a groan pulled me harder against him, deepening the kiss. His tongue slid along mine and I opened to him.
I knew these lips.
I knew this tongue.
I knew this kiss.
Beneath all the growth and changes and degrees and hardships, he was still Adam. My Adam.
And I was still his Harper.
And here, in each other’s arms, was where we belonged.
“Adam?”
A soft, feminine voice came from somewhere beside us. But still in the daze of our kiss, I couldn’t register where or who it belonged to.
I pushed off of Adam’s chest, blinking as the world that had so beautifully faded around us with that kiss, rushed back with a dizzying vengeance.
Standing there beside us, looking even more perfect than usual… was Jasmine.