Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
The banging started at seven-fourteen.
I knew it was seven-fourteen because Adam's alarm clock was right there on the nightstand, glowing at me in blue, and I had been awake for approximately six of those fourteen minutes, staring at the ceiling and cataloguing my damage. It wasn’t bad at all—orgasms worked far better than ibuprofen.
Adam was still asleep behind me, one arm heavy across my waist, his breath warm against the back of my neck. His whole body was radiating heat like a furnace. It was wonderful. But it wouldn’t last. How could he sleep through this racket?
The banging resumed.
"Miss Zoe!" Three rapid knocks. "Miss Zoe, are you in there?"
I pressed my face into the pillow.
"Miss Zoe!" Another three knocks. "Dad! Dad, I have a very important question!"
Adam stirred behind me, his arm tightening for one involuntary second before he exhaled and relaxed again. The man could sleep through anything. I both respected it and resented it.
"Miss Zoe!"
"I'm here, James."
A muffled squeal of joy from the other side of the door. "I have a question!"
"What's your question, buddy?"
"Can you make pancakes with chocolate chips?"
I squinted at the ceiling. Shit, the headache was coming back. I looked over my shoulder. Adam was dead asleep. I guess I was stuck with ibuprofen and making pancakes.
"Yes," I called.
Another squeal. Footsteps retreating at speed down the hall.
Adam's breath was warm against my ear. "You didn't have to do that."
"I said yes before I was fully awake. It's done now."
He made a low sound that might have been a laugh. His lips pressed against the back of my neck, slow and deliberate, and my eyes almost closed again.
Almost.
"Pancakes," I said.
"Pancakes," he agreed.
Adam's kitchen was good to work in.
I'd noticed that before. The counters were at the right height, the pans were heavy and well-seasoned, and everything was where it made sense to be.
James sat at the kitchen table in his dinosaur pajamas with his Ankylosaurus in front of him, giving me a running commentary on armored tail clubs while I mixed the batter. Adam leaned against the counter with coffee, contributing nothing, watching everything.
"The tail club is actually called a knob," James said. "Some people call it a club, but the real word is a knob."
"Knob," I confirmed. "Got it."
"It could break bones." He considered this. "Do you want to see how the tail moves?"
"Show me in a minute. My hands are in the batter right now."
“Okey-doke.”
The chocolate chips went in. I stirred. The first pancake hit the pan and the kitchen filled with pancake aroma.
"Miss Zoe?"
"Mm."
"Next time you sleep over can you sleep in my bed? It’s small, but I could make room. You’d like my racecar bed. That way we could talk at night. I have a lot of good stuff to talk about."
I turned to look at him. You had to give him credit for logic. I looked at Adam. I gave him the he’s your son look.
Adam, who had just lifted his coffee mug, grunted like he was briefly reconsidering all of his life’s choices.
"Buddy," he started.
"It makes sense," James said. "Because then I would get to talk to Miss Zoe at night, and Miss Zoe and I could have breakfast already started in the morning when you woke up. Isn’t that good?" His smile could have powered all of Jasper Creek.
I flipped the pancake. It was perfectly golden. I took a moment to appreciate that, because I needed it.
"That's a very thoughtful plan," I said.
"Thank you."
"Can I think about the logistics?" I asked.
Adam caught my eye over the top of James's head. His face was somewhere between mortified and completely at a loss, which I found hysterical. He was so good at everything. It was nice when the four-year-old got him.
I mouthed say something.
He mouthed back something that looked like what do I even say?
I turned back to the stove.
"You know what I think?" Adam said finally. "I think for right now, the sleeping arrangements are pretty good the way they are."
James considered this. "But my room is closer to the kitchen."
"That's…true."
"So, if Miss Zoe needs water at night, she wouldn't have to walk as far."
"James." Adam set down his coffee. "Let's talk about something else."
"Like what?"
"Like the knob tail."
James brightened so fast it was almost comical. He launched immediately into a detailed account of tail-swing biomechanics and I kept my face pointed at the stove and my shoulders perfectly still while I stifled my laughter.
We were halfway through the stack of pancakes when the front doorbell rang.
"I'll get it!" James was off his chair before either of us could respond, bare feet on the hardwood, dinosaur still in hand.
Then he stopped and looked at his dad. “You should get it.”
“Good job, James.”
Adam went and opened the door.
I heard a woman's warm voice. "Hey, Adam."
"Miss Carrie! I'm eating chocolate chip pancakes! Want some?" Now that it was someone safe, James was in front of Adam.
"I can smell them from out here.”
"Miss Zoe slept over! She's made pancakes! She's very good at it! Do you want some?”
I continued to sit at the table, shaking my head and laughing.
Carrie Lancaster appeared in the kitchen doorway in a barn jacket and jeans, her hair pulled back. Knowing her, she’d been awake for two hours and accomplished six things already.
"Morning," she said.
“I have an offer for the two of you.” She looked from Adam to me. “Rumor has it you have to go in and talk to the sheriff today. I thought I might take James to the movies with my kids.”
James’ eyes went wide. “Can I? Can I really? Please, Dad.”
Adam’s shoulders relaxed. I know he was wondering how he was going to explain the trip to the sheriff’s office to his son.
"Sure, bud. Shoes, socks, pants. Like Aunt Carrie said."
He zoomed out of the dining room like his feet were on fire.
Carrie looked at me. "You look like you had a rough night," she said.
"Eventful." I touched the stitched and bandaged cut above my eyebrow self-consciously. "Long story."
"Renzo texted Tommy this morning. The movies were Tommy’s idea.”
"Tell him thank you," Adam said.
“Will do.”
James reappeared in the doorway fully dressed, shoes on the correct feet, Ankylosaurus tucked under his arm. He looked between Carrie and me.
"Why are you laughing?"
"We're just happy," I told him.
He accepted this. "Can I bring my dinosaur?"
"Absolutely," Carrie said, pulling herself together. She stood, planted a quick kiss on Adam's cheek, and pointed at me. "Rest. Head injuries aren't a joke." Then to James, "Say goodbye."
James crossed the kitchen and hugged my legs with his free arm, brief and hard. "Bye, Miss Zoe."
A lump formed in my throat. "Bye, James. Thank you for the dinosaur facts."
"I have more," he said, already turning for the door. "For next time."
Then they were gone. The front door closed. The house went quiet.
Adam refilled both our coffees without asking.
I sat at the kitchen table where James had been sitting, the Ankylosaurus gone but a small smear of chocolate on the placemat still there. Adam set my mug in front of me and took the chair across from mine.
The morning light was coming through the kitchen window at the angle it got around eight-thirty, falling across the table between us.
He looked at me for a long moment. Not the checking-for-damage look, though that was in there. Something underneath it.
"What?" I said.
"Nothing." He turned his coffee mug a quarter turn. "I should have gone straight to Gathered and picked you up instead of expecting you to just come over. I should’ve been with you from the moment I got off work."
"That's only slightly stalkerish. Besides, it wasn’t Pacific Rim, and you’d handled them. You couldn’t have known I hired an idiot drug dealer. I’m the one who should have known. Maybe I’m the dumb one.”
“But I should’ve—”
I put my mug down. "Adam."
"I know." He set his coffee aside. "I know. You got yourself free. You found the crate. You were handling it."
"I was," I said. "But I was also really glad when I heard your voice."
Something in his face shifted.
"Good," he said. "Because that's what I'm here for."
He reached across the table and turned my hand over, his fingers tracing a slow line across my palm.
"You are my heart, Zoe." His voice was quiet, the directness in it the kind that had nowhere to hide.
"I know we've been dancing toward this, and I know there's been a lot happening, and I know I'm not always good at saying things plainly.
But you are my heart. You are the reason this place feels like somewhere I'm supposed to be. "
I looked at him across the table.
"You complete something in me I didn't have words for before I met you," he went on. "I thought I knew what my life was supposed to look like. I thought I had all the pieces. Then you showed up in a ditch and you turned out to be the piece I didn't know I was missing."
My throat ached in the best way.
"Adam—"
"Let me finish."
I pressed my lips together.
"You asked me once if I'd be happy here.
In Jasper Creek. For the rest of my life.
" His thumb moved across my knuckles. "The answer is, I'll be happy wherever you are.
That's the honest answer. You could tell me tomorrow that you wanted to move to Portland, and I'd start researching neighborhoods.
" He paused. "Though I'd lobby for you to reconsider, because I've put a lot of work into this community. "
"That sounds like you."
"But here's what I actually know." He looked at me steadily. "Nothing would make me happier than having you as my wife. Nothing. That's what I want. You, James, the life we'd build. I want it so much I've been thinking about rings."
My breath caught.
"I don't have one yet," he said. "I haven't found the right one. I'm not doing this the way I planned to, in a restaurant, with a better speech and an actual ring box." His jaw tightened slightly. "But I mean every word of it, and I didn't want to wait anymore. So, consider this a pre-proposal."
The morning light sat between us.
"Consider this a pre-yes," I said.
His eyes held mine.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." I turned my hand over and held his properly. "When you find the ring, and you're down on one knee somewhere you planned, with your better speech — my answer will still be yes. I just want you to know that. So, you can stop worrying about it."
A long breath left him.
"I wasn't worried," he said.
"You were a little worried."
"Marginally."
I stood up from my chair and crossed to him. He pushed back from the table to make room, and I settled in his lap. His arms came around me immediately, warm and solid and certain.
"I love you," he said against my hair.
"I love you." I turned my face up to his. "Pre-proposal and all."
He kissed me.
Slow, and sure, and unhurried, the way you kiss someone when you have all the time in the world.
Finally he lifted up.
"How's your head?" he asked, seriously concerned.
"It hurts. I think I need another orgasm to cure it before we go to the sheriff’s office.”
He burst out laughing.