Chapter 18
Jo
Ididn’t read the three letters. I sent them right into the trash. I didn’t need to see this person’s thoughts about me to know I didn’t want them in my life or mind or anywhere near me.
They’d been coming more frequently. One or two a week instead of each month. Was he threatening me now? Or was it still the awkwardly personal fan mail like it had been the first few times?
Josie, I love your words and the way you write your heroes. Are your hands soft like Shailey’s in book two? Is your hair blond like Iris’s in book three? I’d like to touch you, to see you, and know how much of yourself I’m seeing in these beautiful stories.
The trickle of unease that usually accompanied seeing the standard envelopes clearly holding a substantial stack of papers inside with the familiar Valentine’s Day stamp in the right corner doubled, then tripled, despite having tossed them as quickly as I could.
I rushed out the post office door and fiddled with my phone, pulling up the group thread with the girls in search of distraction.
A body stopped a foot from me, and I only registered it when a hand reached out to grip my arm.
I startled and yelped, dropping my phone in the bushes next to me.
“Hey, whoa. You okay?” Adam’s intense blue eyes gazed at me with equal parts alarm and concern.
“Yeah. Of course. I’m just in a rush to get back to writing. Big scenes today.” My heart thundered in my chest, the fear from running into someone after thinking about the letters still grabbing at me. It’s just Adam. Everything’s fine. I exhaled slowly, willing my pulse to slow.
“Need any help? I’m free today.”
I should’ve said no, but standing next to him took the edge off my fear, and before I could stop myself, I accepted. “Sure. Come over whenever. I’ll be home.”
And then, I nearly jogged to my car and narrowly escaped speeding home. In ten minutes, I was parked, up to my apartment, and snuggled on my couch under a soft throw, wishing I hadn’t checked my PO box, wishing I didn’t care so much, wishing I’d told Adam no.
He’d been so apologetic when we’d talked last night, and I couldn’t lie and pretend I’d kept my eyes off him when he’d come back inside Craic a few minutes after I had. He was just so handsome and kind, and I didn’t like how hurt I’d been feeling. I hated how I’d been so frustrated with him, I’d almost yelled and I’d definitely lost my patience.
And yet, he hadn’t seemed altogether surprised. He hadn’t tried to defend himself either. He’d explained his thinking, but it hadn’t made sense. Maybe at some point, I’d need to dig into his statement that he thought he was doing the right thing.
Could he mean he believed Ethan liked me, and therefore it made his encouragement right? Ethan had liked me initially—I knew that. And though sometimes he seemed to look at me a little longer than a friend would, I didn’t get the feeling, especially lately, that he still held a candle for me.
But what else could it mean? And why was I still thinking about it?
“Jo, Please. I—I want you to be happy.”
I sank into the couch, melting into the cushion at the memory of the pleading in his voice.
He’d said it from his gut. I’d felt it, the way he’d meant it so completely. And it’d stuck with me as I’d agreed to friendship, something that felt like an imitation of what I really wanted and yet couldn’t have. It’d floated around in my mind as I watched him at his table, smiling and even laughing with his friends, then later wandering out into the summer night with Beast and Kenny long after Tristan had come to take Winnie’s hand and Bruce had pressed a kiss to Nikki’s head and led her away.
I was a mess of emotions, and after a poor night of sleep last night and restlessness this morning, I forced myself to focus on work for a while until finally, the words started coming more easily. At some point, the bell rang and I didn’t startle quite as dramatically as I had when Adam touched me earlier, so I gave myself kudos for that.
And speaking of, Adam stood at the door with a takeout bag in one hand. “I’m hoping you haven’t eaten.”
“I just had—” The oven clock caught my attention. “Wow, I thought it was at most three, but I guess I’ve been in the zone again.”
His smile quirked up. “That’s a good thing, right?”
Stepping back so he could come in, I agreed. “Yes. Definitely. I’ve been kind of stumped for a few days, and it’s been like pulling teeth to get words in, so I’m relieved. I should be done and the deadline approaching amps up my anxiety when the writing is slow.” It never failed that when he helped me, I wrote up a storm, but this strain between us had made it all feel like typing through mud.
I needed my muse here… my very hands-on muse, please and thank you.
“If it’s better I go, just say the word. I don’t want to keep you from doing what you need to do.”
Well, there it was. My out. I could accept what he was offering and tell him it was important I keep writing without him. Logically, with how raw I still felt, I should do that.
But having him here felt so good. I’d missed him these last few weeks between his being gone and then our time together feeling so fraught, then absent. I just wanted to talk with him and hear his stories about crazy ways he’d saved people’s lives or which operators had been big babies when they’d gotten small injuries. I wanted to know him and for him to know me, and all of that was… it was probably a little more than friendship territory, but tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to go.
And yes. I wanted more of that muse-level inspiration he brought with him.
“If you went to the trouble of bringing me dinner, you should probably stay.” I moved past him to get plates.
“Good. Thanks.” He fumbled with the bag and began removing takeout containers. “I got what I remember you getting last time—hope it’s right.”
Not that I doubted, but he’d remembered. Even down to no green peppers, he’d gotten the order exactly right. We sat at my tiny table, chatting about superficial things, and I tried not to feel a small thrill whenever our knees brushed.
Once we’d finished, we moved to the kitchen. He rinsed dishes and put them away while I wiped down the table, then packaged the containers up and tucked them in the trash. We worked together so seamlessly I would’ve thought we’d done this a hundred times, not just twice.
“We make a good team,” he said, an oddly pleased smile on his face.
“We do,” I said, blushing for no good reason.
Okay, well, maybe the reason was I liked the idea of being on a team with Adam Carter. Maybe I’d dreamed about it a little, even when I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d wondered what it would be like.
“Anything I can help with?” he asked, taking a seat in the chair and notably not next to where my computer rested on the love seat.
“Actually, yes. I’m writing a scene where my hero is checking the heroine for a head injury. Can you walk me through that?” I sat down and slid the keyboard in front of me.
“Want me to show you?” His voice had dropped a touch, seemed quieter, and his blue eyes were darker somehow.
“Sure. Yeah. That’d be great,” I said, attempting to maintain a purely casual tone and not one that said, “You can show me anything you want.”
After asking a few more questions about the scene, we determined I should lay flat on the ground, since the heroine’s neck and spine were also sort of in question. It made no sense that sliding the coffee table out of the way and lying on my fluffy living room carpet should send my heart rate into a tizzy, but it sure did.
Or maybe it wasn’t so much the lying down but the doing it in front of Adam, who was now kneeling next to me and asking me to squeeze two of his fingers to confirm I could use my hands as he checked my pupils and then whispered a little “Perfect” with a wink before he moved on to his next task.
He explained each step. “You’d stabilize the neck, making sure it’s in line with the spine. Obviously stop any bleeding, and remember a head wound is going to bleed like crazy, but that can be the case for superficial injuries.”
Why did this make my stomach tighten and my breath grow light? Probably the way his hands rested at the sides of my head and the way his eyes were running over me, simulating just what he’d do.
“After basic stabilization, then he’ll check pupils, looking for uneven dilation, usually. Then ask questions to get a feel for their coherence—name, what day is it, that kind of thing.” He wrapped up his explanation, all that training and excellence waving right in my face.
And all the while, I just kept thinking about how much I wanted something with him, and how he’d begged me for friendship. I kept feeling this pull between us, this attraction sparking in my chest, and I knew it wasn’t just me. Despite his early protests about what he wanted and his attempts to shove me off on Ethan, he kept coming back.
Maybe he really did only want friendship, but maybe… maybe he needed a little push.
Maybe he needed me to help him see what could be between us.