Chapter 13
“It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you’re in a constant post-orgasmic daze, isn’t it?”
I slapped my palm over my mouth just in time to catch the water that I’d nearly snorted all over the copy of Pride and Prejudice.
Close call.
“Daphne!” I hissed and craned my neck to peek at where Adam was still shut in the bathroom showering. Granted, I had my headphones in so I doubt he could hear her even if he’d been sitting right beside me. But still. It was a risk I didn’t want to take.
“What? He can’t hear me,” she said. “Wait. He can’t hear me, can he, Harp? I’m not on speaker phone or some shit am I?”
“No,” I whispered. “He can’t hear you. He’s still in the shower. But it’s not like I can talk freely either.”
“Boo. I wanted to hear about his perfect di?—”
“Daphne!”
“What?! It’s not like we ever had these fun conversations in grad school! You were like a nun. I swear, Harp, I was beginning to wonder if you were a lesbian. But then you definitely would have hit on me and you didn’t. So I thought maybe you were or asexual or something. Which also would have been totally fine?—”
“Oh my God, Daphne,” I muttered while letting my forehead drop to the coffee table, hitting the smooth wood with a quiet thump.
“Uh oh. I made you face plant, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Was it the lesbian comment? Or the asexual one?”
“Take your pick.”
After a quiet breath, she said, “Sorry. What I meant was that you were always there for me when I was dating. I got to dish all my dirty details, but I rarely got to be that person for you. And I want to be that person for you, Harp.”
“You are that person for me, Daphne. If I’d had dirty details in college, you woulda been my sounding board.” Unfortunately, she wasn’t wrong about the whole nun-like existence thing.
Mostly, I’d just been too focused on my studies to care about dating. For seven years, all I wanted was to prove everyone in Maple Grove wrong. Prove that I was capable of not only going to university, but excelling there, too.
“Well…” Daphne said, dragging out the vowel. “Now you have some dirty details, right?”
Heat flooded my cheeks.
There were a lot of dirty details. In the last week, Adam and I had spent most of our time here in my bed. When we weren’t working, we were naked. I’d never in my life experienced that level of desire. Never wanted to be with one person doing nothing except exploring each other.
“Okay, fine,” I whispered. “One dirty detail, then I have to get back to work. Pride and Prejudice is almost fully restored. A few more days of clean up and it should be ready to show Dr. O’Macklin… who has been bugging me nonstop about looking at it?—”
“Harper! Jesus, those are not the dirty details I’m dying to hear.”
“Right, right. Sorry.” I took a deep breath and leaned back on the couch. “Okay, so… Adam has a slight curve upward when he’s, um, you know?—”
“Hard,” she finished for me. “Oh yeah, that’s the best. Just a little curve hits just right.”
“Yes!” I hissed. “I swear when we first had sex when we were 18, it hurt so much, I don’t think I noticed or understood. But now? Oh my god, Daphne. He hits this spot, which I swear I thought was pure fiction that women claimed was true but I was just an outcast of some fake club.”
“Oh no girl. That g-spot club is real. Very, very real.”
“Well… hand me my G-card. I’m officially part of that club.”
Daphne squealed and I could just picture her throwing her hands in the air in celebration. “Yay! I’m so happy for you, Harper. Even if this means I might lose you to the States for good.”
The rough reality of that thought scraped over me, making me edgy and uncomfortable. Just like Jules when I pet her fur in the wrong direction.
I pushed off the couch, pacing into my bedroom, Jules and Verne trotting happily behind me, following. “That’s not what I sa—I mean, I don’t know where I’m going to land after this, Daphne.”
I felt caught between two homes. Two homes that I loved. I missed New Hampshire. I missed my family. And I liked what was happening between Adam and me. But was that enough to give up my Mom and brother and best friend and the life I’d built in England?
“You might come back to London?” she asked, both shock and hopefulness in her voice.
“I don’t know. I mean, Adam and I only just reconnected a week ago. I don’t know if that’s enough to make me uproot my life and leave England for good.”
Behind me, I heard a quiet cough.
No. No, no, no.
He was in the shower. He was supposed to be in the shower.
Slowly, I spun toward the sound of the cough and was met with Adam’s back, rummaging around the clothes he’d brought over from his apartment, choosing black denim pants and a soft-looking gray sweater.
“You’re eerily quiet,” Daphne said.
“I um, I have to go, Daphne. I’ll call you later. And I want to hear all about Italy.”
“Does that mean he’s there?” she whispered.
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, I love you, Harp. Call me later.”
I hung up just as Adam was tugging his pants up over a black pair of boxer briefs.
“Hey,” I tried.
Hey? God I was lame.
I cleared my throat, trying again. “I um, didn’t hear you come in.”
“Clearly,” he murmured, back muscles bunching as he pulled a white polo shirt on.
Okay, I thought, giving myself an internal pep talk. Stay calm. You didn’t do anything wrong talking with your best friend… but consider his feelings here, too. That’s not fun news to hear when you like someone. It’s not fun to even think about for me.
“I mean, you knew I had a home in London when this began.”
Well, damn. So much for that pep talk. Way to go, Harper. I can’t even listen to my own damn internal monologuing.
He paused, turning to look at me over his shoulder. Darkness clouded his features, a firm scowl marring his brows and mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did know. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time… right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shoved his head into his gray sweater, smoothing it down over his washboard abs. “You left once before, too.”
Boom. Gut punch.
“Yeah. After overhearingyou and your dad talking all about what a loser I was.”
He snorted, dropping to a seat on the edge of my bed to slide his shoe on. “I really thought it’d be different this time.”
“It is different. You’re different. I’m different. Hell, this time we’re both adults to start with.”
With elbows on his thighs, he dropped his head into his hands, running his hands through his damp hair. “You leaving almost destroyed me last time, Harper. I was devastated. I almost didn’t even go to school that year. It was the only thing my mom and dad ever banded together for since their divorce, that intervention to pull me out of my depression and get me to Dartmouth that summer.”
I sank to a seat beside him. “I didn’t know that.”
“Why would you? How would you when we never spoke again until a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry. I just assumed you’d be fine. I knew you were off to Dartmouth and were planning to leave without ever telling me.”
I thought I was the one devastated by that break up. Sure, I knew Adam had been sad, but the world wouldn’t stop reminding me how much he had going for him… I’d never imagined that he would fall into a depression like that over me.
Sliding my hand to his knee, I gave him what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. “This time is different, though, Adam. We still have weeks together to figure out what to do. I’m not ghosting you. I’m not even sure I’m leaving at all yet. I’m sorry you heard that… but I’m also not going to apologize for talking through a huge decision with my best friend. Especially when it’s only been a week.”
He looked up from his hands, his hair now sticking out in several directions. “Can I at least take part in the conversation this time? You can talk it out with your best friend and Addy and your Dad and whomever else you want to. But promise me you’ll also talk it out with me.”
I nodded and cupped his sharp jaw, a little stubble scraping my palm despite the fact that I’d just heard him shaving forty minutes earlier. “I promise. I like you, Adam. I like you a lot.”
The grim expression twisting his mouth into a frown softened, his eyes glistening against the morning light streaming in through the crack of the curtains. “I…” He paused, searching my gaze for a long moment.
My heart sputtered to a stop like a dying engine in my chest. I knew that expression. I knew that look in his eyes. I’d seen it before. Watched it in his eyes years ago before the first time he told me he loved me.
I sucked in a breath, waiting. Waiting for the words to come.
“I like you too, Harper.”
With a lurch, my heart started again. I blinked, the spell vanishing like the steam dying in the air around us.
Leaning forward, he pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to my lips, then stood. “I have to get to class. I’ll see you in the library later this afternoon?”
“Yeah.” I forced a smile and nodded, repeating my own words back in my head.
It’s only been a week.
Well, A week and seven years.