Chapter 23
Me
Mom has officially left for her trip. Into the wild. Nothing but a backpack.
Gracie
oops, I forgot! saying a prayer now
Olivia
GRACIE? Did you actually enter the chat?! Am I hallucinating this entire thread??
Olivia
Also, Mom will be fine. We chatted last night. She’s excited. It’s an adventure!
Me
I have their itinerary just in case and got her to agree to an AirTag in her backpack.
Olivia
Are you a helicopter daughter??
Gracie
she is a helicopter older sis. She had me forward my calendar and she talked me into AirTags, too.
it has helped me find lost things, tho. The tags have come in clutch.
Me
see? I’m only here to help.
Iwore a golden, strapless maxi dress to my meeting with Adam with my favorite old pair of strappy sandals. The air was so humid I could almost see it in waves across the sky, so I’d given up fixing my hair. I let it hang loose and wavy.
Adam was in his usual button-down and slacks, his back to me when I walked in, as he dug around a file cabinet behind his desk. I tapped the door frame to announce myself. He swung around to me. His eyes skated down me and my dress.
“Hi, there,” he said, the corner of his mouth curving into a grin.
“Good morning.” I had been too anxious for coffee this morning, my hands shaking as I ran through potential conversations with Adam about our feelings and our future. Wavering between chastising myself that, It’s too soon. We were just fighting over the festival, and imagining myself asking him, Maybe you could stay in Sweet River for a while?
“How’s your morning been?” he asked as I sat down across from him.
“It’s been good. I’ve been a little distracted.”
“What’s got you distracted?” He was looking straight at me with that intentional gaze of his. I looked anywhere but at him. My gaze skipped over the things on his desk: the framed photo of him and his brother, books on city planning, and the little vase with fresh daisies.
“Everything,” I said.
“Are you feeling nervous about the festival? It’s almost here and I know it’s different from what you were imagining a few months ago.”
“You know,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I’m not feeling as nervous about the festival as I thought I’d be. I’m actually feeling the least worried I have since my grandmother passed.”
“Maybe it’s nice having a partner again?” Adam asked hopefully.
“Yes, because that partner is…you,” I said, my eyes meeting his.
His jaw dropped a little at my words, at the surprising honesty. He cleared his throat. “Well, Lucy, this is the most fun I’ve ever had at work. Well…at anything…”
“Guys.” Victor stood in the doorway to the office. “The team got the mockups ready for you to review.” He shook a few sheets of paper in his hand.
“Perfect.” Adam waved him in. I sighed. This was a work meeting, after all.
We spent the next few hours working, reviewing, discussing, and trying to ignore the undercurrent of all there was left to say between us.
During our lunch break, Adam ordered us a few subs and we ate them on the bench outside. I soaked in the closeness to him.
“Why are you always drinking these?” I asked him as he sipped on a bottled iced Frappuccino.
“Because I like caffeine,” he said, twisting the cap back on. “And sugar.”
“Coffee and Commas is literally a few blocks from you. Where you could have real coffee.”
“I drink that, too.”
“How much coffee are you consuming a day?” I asked, taking a bite of my sandwich.
“As much as feels right in my heart.” He hugged the bottle of coffee close to his chest.
“Your heart would tell you to stop after one cup, actually, if we’re being scientific.”
“I’m not basing this on science. I am basing this on enjoyment.”
“Let me try this.” I grabbed the bottle from his hand. Adam’s eye tracked my mouth as I put the bottle to it and took a sip. His eyes were still on me as I licked my lips after.
He swallowed. “Research findings, Dr. Rhodes?”
“It’s just as terrible as I remember,” I said, breathless. His gaze only now lifted from my lips and moved to my eyes.
The air was thick with heat, unspoken questions, and want pulsing between us. We both opened our mouths to say something, anything, when my phone began to buzz.
I glanced down, moving to hit ignore, but noted it was Gracie’s name on the screen. I immediately slid it open.
“Gracie,” I said before I even put the phone to my face.
“I’m at the hospital,” she cried. “I can’t get through to Mom and I just…I ruined everything…and…I’m hurt.” She sounded like her six-year-old self again. Like when she fell off her bike and cried as I checked her scrapes and bruises.
Adam’s eyebrows raised in worry next to me. He could probably hear her sobs from over the phone. “Gracie, I’m here,” I said. “Take a breath. Tell me how you’re hurt.”
A few shuddered breaths on her line. A sniffle. “I fell during rehearsal. The doctor said my ankle gave out due to exhaustion. My body…” She crumbled again. “I sprained my ankle and just weeks before…I won’t be able to perform. Now I can’t finish my dance intensive. I can’t…”
“Who’s with you now?”
“I’m alone,” she said, her voice small.
“You’re alone?” I repeated.
Adam stood up right then, mouthing, Let’s go.
Itrailed behind Adam as I continued my call with Gracie, figuring out where she was and calming her down enough so she could find a ride back to her apartment. Gracie and I talked as Adam buckled me into his front seat, closed the passenger car door, and started the engine. He knew my sister went to school in Austin and drove in that direction.
It wasn’t until we hung up from our call that I looked around and realized Adam was coming with me. “Adam,” I said his name in wonder. “What are you doing? What about work? We didn’t even discuss this.”
“Gracie needs you,” Adam said nonchalantly. “You were not in a good headspace to drive and needed to get on the road.”
I was confounded. “But the festival?—”
“I have a phone,” he said.
“But you barely…” Know me, know her. But that didn’t feel true anymore. Adam sometimes felt like he knew me better than anyone else now.
“Go on, call Olivia. Try your mom. Order ahead. I’m driving, so you can do what you need to do,” Adam said firmly.
So, I did. Adam was a steady presence driving us along as I called Olivia to fill her in on everything and sent a message to Mom. I ordered a few items to pick up at the drugstore where Gracie’s pain prescription was being filled.
I also fielded another crying call from Gracie, who was trying to figure out what to do about the rest of her classes and the week ahead. The stress and exhaustion that had led to her physical tumble pushed her to an emotional tumble now. Adam had even quietly listened as I prayed for her over the phone, saying a little “Amen” along with me as I finished the prayer.
After I hung up the last call with Gracie, Adam chuckled.
“What?” I asked curiously.
“Gracie reminds me of you.”
“How?” All he’d heard of her so far was a sobbing meltdown or two.
“She seems to think she has to get everything done at once. She’s injured, right? Yet, she’s not crying from the pain or the fall. She’s crying because of her deadlines.”
“And that’s like me, how?”
“You’re always thinking two or three steps ahead. I feel like you and I can be in the middle of a moment, but you’re already assessing the impact in the future. Like when we first met, you weren’t even sure what I was going to do with the festival yet, but you were already trying to save it from me. You, and Gracie it seems, are always racing ahead by miles.”
“Until we go so fast, we fall and break.”
“Neither of you seem easy to break. You might get a little sprain, but you bounce back.” He peered out the rearview mirror. “Since day one, I’ve been kind of amazed by your strength, actually.”
He turned to me for a moment and I smiled at the compliment.
“It is a little sprain, remember that,” he said, knowing how worried I was for my little sister.
“A little sprain,” I repeated, taking a steadying breath.
“And we’ll be by her side soon.” My heart tripped over the we’ll in his sentence. This summer Adam and I had become a team, a twosome. When we were together like this my shoulders could relax, my breathing was steady, and I felt as strong as he thought I was.
The Walgreens down the street from Gracie’s apartment was our only pit stop. I headed straight to the pharmacy window in the back of the store to pick up her prescription while Adam grabbed a grocery basket and weaved in and out of the aisles. Every few minutes, he’d pop over to me while I waited in the pharmacy line and ask things like, “What’s Gracie’s favorite candy?” and “Does she have any allergies?” At one point, he shouted from an aisle, “Is she good on tissues? You know what? It never hurts to have an extra box.”
I finally got my hands on the prescription and found Adam in the stuffed animal aisle with a teddy bear in his hands. He saw me and held it up with a question in his eyes.
“She’ll love it,” I affirmed. He dropped it into the basket.
“I had a list.” I pulled open my notes app. But, as my eyes scanned the grocery cart, it appeared Adam had grabbed everything on the list already. “Wow, you were efficient.”
He shrugged bashfully. “I wanted to be useful.”
“You’re more than useful. You got me here. You calmed me down.” My voice was strained with emotion. I was finding it harder and harder to hold back. Adam tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I reached up and grabbed his hand, our fingers instinctively intertwining. He found my other hand, too. We didn’t say anything for a moment, facing each other, our hands locked. Early 2000s pop played through the Walgreens speakers.
“I feel like…” Was I about to spill it all in the middle of Walgreens? “I’m finding no matter what it is, I’m happy to have you on my team.”
Adam beamed, whispering, “See? Useful.”
Usefulwas such a small word to communicate how valuable and vital Adam was becoming to me. I bit my lip and shook my head at his comment.
Squeezing his hands I said, “Come on, let’s go check out.” Our hands were still intertwined as we walked to the checkout.