Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
I’m on the couch, liking and responding to comments long after Lovie has gone to sleep. Chamomile tea cools in my butterfly mug on the coffee table.
@jollyxholly527: I SCREAMED!
@ElleontheL : ME TOO!!!
@SweetiesCakesChicago: so proud of you bestie!
That’s Liss. I type out a response, even though we’ve been texting all night about my newfound fame. I’m half expecting her to FedEx me a congratulatory cake.
@ElleontheL : aw, bestie! I’m blushin’
I keep scrolling until I come across one that sours my blood.
@thatguy3k00: Big deal. There have been 500,000+ clues in the history of @Jeopardy. Obviously they’re running out of material.
Oh, wonderful. Even the trolls have come out to congratulate me. I like his comment and move on to Dakota’s.
@DMillsBakes: WHEN YOU RETURN FROM THE WAR, WE’RE TAKING YOU OUT TO CELEbrATE.
This makes me smile like an idiot at my screen, and I’m so engrossed in trying to get through the thousands of other notifications, I hardly notice the couch dip next to me.
“More Boomeranging?” Adam says. He swipes the remote from the coffee table.
I snort. “You can’t say that. Makes me think of banging.”
“My apologies.” He flicks through channels before deciding on a late-night sports recap. The heat of his gaze is thick on my skin. I can still feel him pressed to my side. His fingers dancing in my hair. His firm thigh beneath my hand.
“I’d tell you to take a picture,” I say, “but since you only just learned what a Boomerang is an hour ago, my hope for that isn’t high.”
His laugh is raspy, like the day is catching up with him. Before my catapult to fame, I was tired too.
“What are you doing?” Adam asks, breaking through my mental gymnastics.
“Replying to comments.”
“ Still ? Are you really that well known on Instagram?”
I shrug. “On everywhere.”
“Where’s everywhere?”
Although he’s still wearing scrubs, he looks more relaxed now that Lovie’s down for the night. His shoulders aren’t tight, his arms loosely crossed over his stomach. Shadows on his jaw for the second night in a row tells me he probably shaves every morning.
I eye the empty spot between us; the middle cushion must be some sort of self-declared No-Man’s-Land.
Thank God I’m a woman.
I slide over, propping my feet next to his, and angle my screen so he can see. “So, this is the internet.”
“Good to know. And what’s this contraption you’re looking at it on?”
“A MacBook?” My eyes slice sideways, and I catch the tail end of his smile before he wipes it from his face. He’s a bigger smartass than I thought. “Well, Adam, this is a laptop. See how it’s in my lap ?”
He nods solemnly. “Internet. Laptop. No Boomeranging. Got it.” He points at my blue checkmark. “And that?”
“Just my verification. No big deal.”
When he doesn’t respond right away, I glance at him. His brows are slashed downward, as is his mouth.
“You don’t know what it means to be verified?” As someone who makes a living through the internet, I consider this a crime. A damn shame. “Oh boy. So, when you have a well-known name or brand or … I don’t know, business or something, you can request to be verified. Which basically confirms you are who you say you are.”
“Okay, but why? Why is that necessary, I mean.”
This is teaching Lovie how to text all over again. “Well, because of trolls.”
“The little elf things with fluffy rainbow hair?” The concern in his gaze is so alarming, my heart skips another beat. That can’t be healthy. “My nieces are big fans, but what do those have to do with anything?”
A laugh bursts from my lips unbidden. “You’ve got to be joking.”
He lets out a soft chuckle of his own, shifting, and I tilt toward him as the couch dips under his weight. “That time, yes.”
I scroll back up to @thatguy3k00’s comment. “This guy is basically my archnemesis. I’m convinced he gets off on pointing out my flaws.”
Adam mouths the words as he reads them, looking increasingly like he sucked a lemon. “Can’t you block him or report him or something?”
“It doesn’t bother me, really. Because for every one of his comments, there are dozens more like this.”
@DFWMama6: How cool! I’m so proud of you and all you’ve accomplished. Love you like my own! The work you do matters.
“This woman is a mom of six who lives in Dallas,” I say, pointing at the different parts of her username. “Her daughter has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and every week while her daughter’s doing infusions, she listens to my show. It’s one of the only pieces of her life she has just for herself. I love giving that to people.”
His chin dips. “So you do it for the Dallas mothers of six instead of those guys .”
My head bobbles in a mix of a nod and a shake. “I do it for me, mostly. I love talking to people. Cutting through bullshit and getting to the heart of what makes us human. These comments are just a bonus.”
He stretches his arm across the back of the couch, much the same as we were earlier. He doesn’t touch me this time. “I was going to ask what the podcast is about, but I think they covered it on Jeopardy! ”
I let out a little squeak, then clap a hand over my mouth. A nervous giggle escapes anyway, my knee pressing into his thigh. I inhale, and a piece of loose hair flies into my mouth.
His gaze catches mine, a sparkle in the deep-blue ocean there. Moonlight reflecting off the motion of the waves, only the same for that one millisecond in time. It feels special to have seen it, like I’ve witnessed something rare. It stretches from one second to several, our stares locked. There’s a magnetic pulse thrumming under my skin, and I get the feeling he’s learning me inside out with those eyes.
They’re almost black by the time Adam lifts his hand and brushes away the lock of hair with the back of his index finger, light enough to send a chill through my limbs. It takes him a few tries to get it. He looks annoyed that it takes so long, his lip caught in his teeth, eyebrows scrunched together.
Even after all the hair is gone, he reaches up again, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. My pulse jumps against my skin everywhere we touch, and I don’t breathe for fear of rupturing this moment we’ve created.
There’s no need for us to keep up pretenses now. Lovie is asleep, her brain resetting as we speak—or stare. Our little love charade can be put to rest, and we can go back to killing each other in our heads again tomorrow.
But Adam, when he isn’t dickish and rude and refusing me my bed, is almost nice to talk to. At least he knows who I am, which is more than I can say for Lovie.
This is one hell of a truce. I could easily get lost here, in the space of being known.
“You’ve had barbecue sauce on your face since lunch,” he declares, his hand falling to his lap with a smack. “It’s probably in your hair too.”
That’ll do it.
As I scoot to the other cushion, I surreptitiously wipe my mouth on my shoulder. Adam snickers, his fingertips rubbing back and forth across his pants.
Feet firmly in No-Man’s-Land as a barrier between us, I swirl my finger around the drawstring of my joggers. “You said you have nieces. How many?” My voice is raspy, sounds unused. There’s glass in my throat. And the corner of my mouth tingles where he touched me, like some of it cut me there.
That could just be the barbecue sauce, though.
Adam lets his knee fall sideways near my foot before thinking better of it. “Three.” He lets out a fake yawn so big they can see it from space. “How do you want to do this sleeping thing? Take the bed every other night?”
I should be generous, full of midwestern hospitality. As it is, this couch could give a slab of concrete a run for its money on which sleeps worse. I stand, stretching my arms above my head. My bralette rides up my ribs. A little yawn of my own escapes as I tug the hem back down. “I’ll take the bed, thanks.”
He nods, not meeting my eyes. “For tonight, or …” His face falls. “Forever. You’re taking the bed forever.”
“I am.” Tucking my laptop under my arm, I give him a dramatic bow. “I usually do a green smoothie at seven before my run. Be there or be square.”
“Wait.” His voice catches me when I’m at the mouth of the hallway, and through the banister slats, I see him stand.
Is he going to touch me again? Finish whatever the hell we started on the sofa? Or maybe even earlier, in the laundry closet. My heart beats everywhere. My skin is hot and sensitive.
He inhales as he brushes past me, avoiding my body as much as possible. “I need my things from your room.”
How could I forget all the precious drawer space occupied by his many, many scrubs? And honestly, how many pairs does a person need? Can’t you mix and match those things? I trail him down the hallway. “Do you have an apartment?”
“I have a place near Goshen.” He flicks on the light in my room, and I follow him through the doorway. “That anxious to get rid of me?”
“Just wondering how far I’d have to kick this to have it land on your doorstep.” I toe his duffel bag.
“If it starts to bother you in here, just let me know and I can put it in the hall closet or something.” He reaches around me, just barely brushing my knee.
I jump, and the mattress catches my legs. I cross them like I meant to fall. “Yep!” I squeeze the mussed comforter into a ball beneath my head. “Perfect.”
He straightens, towering over me. He takes a step back, then another. Adam takes me in one last time, lounging on the end of the bed as if I didn’t literally bolt from his touch, before turning toward the dresser.
“You’re being very cordial.” Somehow, even staring at the back of his head, I know he’s smiling as he rummages through the drawers. “I’ll let you have tonight, considering your great personal achievement. But tomorrow, all bets are off. Tell me, Elle, do you like cayenne in those smoothies of yours?”
I gasp, sitting up fast enough to twinge a muscle. “You wouldn’t.”
“Probably not.” He looks over his shoulder as he moves toward the door. “But I guess we’ll see.”
Yes, we will, Adam. Yes, we will.